(CNSNews.com) – As the fragile truce in Gaza faltered on Tuesday, the Israeli politician favored to return to the helm as prime minister next month delivered a stark warning likely to give pause to the Obama administration as its new special envoy undertakes his first regional mission.
 
“Sooner or later we’ll need to finish the job in Gaza, and that we will do,” the Jerusalem Post quoted Binyamin Netanyahu as saying at a campaign event ahead of Feb. 10 elections.
 
The Likud Party leader was speaking after a roadside bombing adjacent to the Gaza border earlier in the day killed an Israeli soldier and wounded three others. He urged the outgoing Olmert government to respond “with an iron fist.”
 
Israel did launch a retaliatory military strike inside Gaza, and one Palestinian was reportedly killed. Further strikes early Wednesday targeted weapons-smuggling tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border. No Palestinian group claimed responsibility for the roadside bombing, and a Hamas official blamed “the Zionists” for the escalation.
 
Since a Jan. 18 ceasefire ended a three-week Israeli operation targeting the Islamist terror group, Netanyahu has made it clear that in his view,  putting an end to Hamas’ ongoing control of Gaza is unfinished business. How a Netanyahu government would achieve that goal remains unclear, but another large-scale offensive would hardly simplify the mission of George Mitchell, Washington’s new Mideast envoy.
 
Since Hamas took control of the territory – first winning an election in early 2006 and then mounting a coup against Palestinian Authority (P.A.) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas months later – U.S. policy has been to isolate the group until it met specific criteria, including renunciation of violence and recognition of Israel. That policy was upheld by the so-called Mideast Quartet, comprising the U.S., European Union, Russia and the United Nations.
 
Like its predecessor, the Obama administration says it will not deal with Hamas unless it meets those requirements.
 
“Our policy on Hamas has been very clear in terms of what Hamas needs to do if it’s going to play a … positive role in the region,” State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Tuesday. “Those criteria remain in place and our position toward Hamas remains the same.”
 
Nonetheless, some policy analysts have been pressing Obama to be more flexible regarding Hamas, a theme which former President Carter reiterated this week.
 
“There won’t be peace in the Middle East without Hamas involvement,” said Carter, who met with Mitchell on Sunday.
 
Tuesday’s violence flared on the day Mitchell arrived in the region on what the administration has described as a “listening tour.” He was due to travel from Egypt to Israel on Wednesday.
 
The envoy is also scheduled to visit Ramallah, seat of Abbas’ P.A., as well as Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Wood said there would be no contact with Hamas.
 
Wood said Mitchell would be looking both at the question of stabilizing the Israel-Gaza situation as well as ways to move forward the process leading to a “two-state solution that we all want to see happen.”
 
Not all key players support the idea of an independent Palestinian state neighboring Israel, however.

While Netanyahu himself has not ruled out a Palestinian state, his Likud’s party platform has long rejected the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan river.
 
The Palestinians can run their lives within the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent, sovereign state, the platform declares, adding that Jerusalem will not be divided. The Likud enjoys a small poll lead over Tzipi Livni’s Kadima, the party currently in power.
 
Political parties to the right of the Likud – including some likely partners in a ruling coalition, should Netanyahu form the next government – are also strongly opposed to an independent Palestinian state.
 
‘Natural settlement growth’
 
Another important issue that could cause a rift between a future Netanyahu government and the Obama administration relates to Jewish settlements in the disputed territories.
 
Although the Likud has in recent years edged away from a policy of actively encouraging new settlement development, Netanyahu says he will not stop the “natural growth” of existing communities.
 
Netanyahu told Quartet envoy Tony Blair during a meeting on Sunday that he had no intention of building new settlements, but would “have to meet the needs of natural growth in the population. I will not be able to choke the settlements.”
 
The question of natural settlement growth has long dogged Israeli-U.S. relations.
 
During his last foray into Mideast peacemaking, Mitchell chaired a panel in 2001 investigating the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada the previous year. In its final report, his committee condemned Palestinian terrorism but also recommended that Israel “freeze all settlement activity, including the ‘natural growth’ of existing settlements.” Citing the Mitchell Report, the Bush administration later incorporated that recommendation into the Mideast peace “roadmap.”
 
Critics say Israel uses “natural growth” as a formula to mask settlement expansion.
 
An unapologetic Ariel Sharon provocatively tackled the issue during a 2003 meeting with then Secretary of State Colin Powell, saying it was impossible to freeze a community’s natural growth.
 
“Our finest youth live there. They are already the third generation, contributing to the state and serving in elite army units. They return home and get married, so then they can’t build a house and have children?” Sharon’s office quoted the then prime minister as saying.
 
“What do you want – for a pregnant woman to have an abortion just because she is a settler?”
 
Campaign comment
 
With a return to power for Netanyahu – who was prime minister in 1996-1999 – looking more likely, one Obama remark on the campaign trail could come back to haunt bilateral relations.
 
In a Feb. 2008 speech to Jewish leaders in Cleveland, the then Illinois senator said, “I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re anti-Israel and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel.”
 
The comment prompted Ha’aretz columnist Shmuel Rosner to ponder possible future fallout.
 
“The fact that Obama does not agree with the policies of the Likud Party should not be an astounding surprise,” Rosner wrote at the time. “And of course he is right: Supporting Likud and supporting Israel is not the same thing. However, the fact that Obama mentions a party by name – singling it out as an example – can be seen as more problematic. By doing so, he is basically telling both American and future Israeli voters this: If Israel elects Netanyahu and Americans elect Obama – we might have a problem.”