"Senior Israeli military and political leaders think that it is not realistic to expect that Operation Pillar of Defense could achieve more than it already has. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, along with the heads of the IDF and the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), believe that the operation has accomplished most of its goals and that it should now be ended before Israel gets entangled in a situation that costs it heavily, both militarily and diplomatically. "
Israel is handing yet another victory to Hamas, and will find that the rockets will continue to pepper Israel. Hamas does not like what Israel has dished out in the last week, but it can more than tolerate it. Hamas knows that Israel has burst its bubble, that once the military is demobilised, it will not be able to simply restart the war.
Israel is a tiny country that can not afford to have a million citizens and a hundred thousand citizen soldiers away form work for extended periods of Hamas' choosing and diplomatically Israel is not able to defend repeated wars with Gaza to the world.
But Hamas knows that the south of Israel can not function if its citizens are to reckon with a daily rocket landing in the area. Hamas just wants the pot simmering away, ruining the quality of life of a large proportion of Israel's citizens for years on end. Hamas thinks strategically, knows that any damage Israel does will be rebuilt by europe, the US and the UN. Hamas by shutting down much of Israel for the last week is indeed the real victor.
Netanyahu along with his mastermind of previous Israeli defeats Barak has shown that he is not up to the job. In the face of world pressure he will not do what in his heart he knows needs to be done. The Hamas vipers nest must be uprooted but will not be done by him.
Simply hitting Hamas firing positions after rockets are fired is close to useless, as the rockets are fired by timer or remote control. Not for nothing has Israel only hit one rocket team this time round as opposed to 22 in Cast Lead. Hamas is emerging from this conflict almost intact, with its morale increased.
In the absence of a real operation to destroy Hams, we must learn the turkish lesson. Turkey has imposed a blockade on Armenia for over 20 years and nothing goes over the border to Armenia. It is time that Israel implemented that. Egypt must now take control and feed Gaza and supply it with its electricity.
If Gazans did not have all their needs met by Israel, then maybe they would have less time and energy to attack it. Without Israel's electricity the Kassam rocket workshops would not function.
It is time to cut the link with Gaza. Of course Israel will be lambasted by the international community, the US and of course Egypt but what other country supplies its enemies who are firing at it with all their needs?
I believe that it might be an idea to stop the blockade however. Israel could go over to a policy of inspecting vessels which enter Gaza. With this in place, there will be no possible arguments that Israel is starving Gaza.
There will of course be no peace, but why should Israel spend so much effort in keeping its enemies living decently whilst they try to destroy Israel.
In conflict Israel needs to follow a policy of reducing Gazan economic infrastructure so as to reduce the capacity to train terrorist engineers, and build weapons.
It is depressing that Netanyahu has shown himself to be unworthy of his heros, of Jabotinsky, of Beigin, of his father, unable to root out Gazan terror.
It has to happen sometime however, before our enemies can unite and spring a surprise attack like Yom Kippur. We can hope that one day a Sharon will arise to replace Israel's politicians and politicised generals. He will almost certainly be a religious jew who understands what the genocidal arabs are all about, and will not shrink from dealing with a populace that rather than look after themselves, try to kill jews on a daily basis.
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