It is commonplace in analytical literature on Israeli military operations to say that Israel works by two clocks : one showing the time available for achieving the military objective; the other marking the time left before a ceasefire, brought about by international pressure and the humanitarian crisis, sets in.

But there has been a third clock ticking away. It was the first cause analysts cited while Israel’s traditional and automatic critics talk about nothing else: Israel goes to the polls to elect a new Knesset on February 10. And in Israel, while more than 80 per cent people support Operation Cast Lead, they disagree about the details. And everyone disagrees about the Kadima-led government’s motives.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vehemently denied, as did Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defence Minister Ehud Barak, that politics had anything to do with the strikes. All they wanted was the diplomatic ground cleared and Hamas caught by surprise. Government spokespersons say that all considerations factored in the Palestinian side of the equation — significant therein being the expiry of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s term on January 9, which would embolden Hamas. But the denial of the political motive doesn’t convince anybody. Why now is the echoing question.

A look at what Cast Lead is doing to the electoral prospects of the contenders may, or may not, make things clearer. Tzipi Livni had a narrow but significant victory in the Kadima primaries last year, but failed to stitch a government together within the stipulated time, allowing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to continue. October through December, it had seemed that the chance Livni had been given to keep out Binyamin Netanyahu and his centre-right Likud for a while longer had been thrown away. Once the election date had been declared, Kadima stood little chance against Likud. Labour, of course, would be nowhere close to leading a coalition. Before Cast Lead began, some opinion polls showed Kadima and Likud steady at 27 seats in the 120-member Knesset. Centre-left Labour was at 14. Israelis didn’t forget the Kadima-Labour coalition’s mismanagement of the Lebanon war and they had grown increasingly concerned about security vis-à-vis Hamas. It seemed in Kadima’s political interest to pre-empt Likud with another war, and a successful one this time round.

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