I was quite surprised to find commenters on another blog complaining that the war in Gaza was "ended too soon" and blaming all the wrong people for causing the premature end.
Spare me. It was clear from the beginning that the war in Gaza was just a pre-elections stunt to bolster the deservedly-sagging fortunes of the main ruling parties.
4) ...it is obvious that the current attacks are a pre-election ploy to help Tzippi Livni's image ("she's not just a nice Jewish girl, she can lead Israel in war) and Ehud Barak's ("he can fight and lead, unlike the previous Defense Minister, Amir Peretz").
5) Since PM Olmert, Livni and Barak still can't re-invade Gaza since that would be admitting guilt, they won't unless it is in their short-term political interests or unless they lose control of the situation.
6) Therefore they will stop attacking Gaza the second their short-term political aims have been accomplished; and
7) Therefore the current round of fighting is actually pointless and will change nothing at the cost of lots of bloodshed on both sides.
I hate it when I am right.
Fortunately, the ploy has failed and the way-too-little, way-too-late war has not helped Barak much and may have backfired for Livni.
It was truly a pleasure to watch the same politicians who forced us out of Gaza in the first place explaining that they were retaliating for the resulting missile attacks which they have been studiously ignoring for years.
According to the report, Olmert told US envoy George Mitchell that he and Livni agreed to divide Jerusalem, maintain only settlement blocs in the West Bank and uproot 60,000 Jews from their homes.
The revelations of the concessions less than two weeks before the February 10 election reportedly upset Livni, who told confidants that she believed Olmert, her predecessor as Kadima leader, was purposely harming her.
In a speech to Tel Aviv-Jaffa College students, Livni denied that Olmert was speaking for her when he talked to Mitchell.
"The headline does not represent me or what I am advancing," she said.
"I will only advance an agreement that represents our interests of maintaining a maximum of [West Bank Jewish] residents, keeping places that are important to us especially in Jerusalem, and not allowing the return of a single refugee."
Nice try.
There need be no disagreement between Olmert's statement and Livni's. By being vague she may have just said the same thing, but in a way that will sound better to Israelis:
"I will only advance an agreement that represents our interests of maintaining a maximum of [West Bank Jewish] residents" -- i.e. we will remove some of them. Maybe 60,000?
"keeping places that are important to us" -- i.e. the settlement blocs in the West Bank (only).
"especially in Jerusalem" -- i.e. we will keep important places in Jerusalem, but not all of Jerusalem, which will be therefore divided.
"and not allowing the return of a single refugee" -- Olmert never mentioned the return of refugees. Why did she?
Acceding to Hamas's terms would instantly erase every one of the Gaza operation's putative achievements.
First, on a purely tactical level, it would instantly restore Hamas's fighting ranks to full strength. Nobody knows exactly how many Hamas operatives were killed in Gaza, but even the highest estimates do not exceed several hundred. Hence the mooted prisoner release would completely replace them.
Worse, it would replace them with far more skilled and experienced terrorists. Though the IDF killed a few high-level operatives in Gaza, most of the casualties were rank and file. In contrast, the prisoners Hamas is demanding by name are high-level planners, organizers, bomb-makers and operations experts. Hence in terms of operative capabilities, Hamas would actually emerge stronger than it was before the Gaza operation.
Moreover, statistics compiled by defense agencies indicate that roughly 50 percent of all terrorists released in previous prisoner exchanges resumed terrorist activity. Indeed, freed terrorists have been responsible for hundreds of deaths in recent years. There is no reason to believe the Schalit deal would be any different. Thus this deal would effectively sign death warrants for dozens.
OVER THE long run, however, worst of all is what it would do for Hamas's prestige.
The Gaza operation's impact on Palestinian attitudes toward Hamas remains unclear. Initial reports indicate that while there may have been some disenchantment in Gaza, the organization actually gained support in the West Bank, where its wildly inflated claims of its own heroism and Israel's casualties, reported as fact by Al Jazeera, have apparently been widely believed. But that could change once the truth emerges.
The proposed Schalit deal, in contrast, would give Hamas an undeniably genuine achievement that no other terrorist group has ever come close to matching.
Even the infamous Jibril exchange, one of the most lopsided deals in the country's history, traded 1,150 terrorists for three soldiers, or a ratio of 383:1. The Tannenbaum swap exchanged 435 terrorists for one drug dealer and three dead bodies. The Schalit deal's proposed ratio is over 1,000:1 - almost three times the highest ratio ever previously accepted.
No rational person looking at that figure could fail to conclude that Hamas brought the IDF to its knees. And certainly, no Palestinian will...
A government is responsible for the welfare of the entire country, not that of any specific individual. And no one individual justifies the immense long-term strategic damage we would suffer by acceding to Hamas's demands.
"Before you leave the government or ask to be reelected, stand behind your promises," Aviva said.
"Like most of you, I sent my son to serve his country out of the belief that it in turn would do everything that it could to return him," she said, but that has not happened.
Since tank gunner Gilad, who is now 22, was kidnapped 948 days ago, "there have been two wars, personnel changes in the government and the army, a cease-fire, rockets, Grad missiles, mortar shells and God knows what else," Aviva said. But, "one thing has not changed. My son Gilad is still imprisoned by Hamas."
Since the creation of the state there has been an unwritten covenant between the IDF and the mothers of its soldiers, one that is so strong that it might as well be etched in stone, she said.
"We give you our sons and daughters, and the IDF returns them to us at the end of their service. They are not always healthy, they are not always whole, and sometimes they are not alive, but they always, always, return home," Aviva said.
Many of the older teenagers who were about to be drafted were paying close attention to Gilad's fate and the actions of the government to secure his release, she said...
To Olmert, Barak and Livni, she said, "Do not leave this mission to those who come after you."
Those of us who hope and pray for Schalit's release certainly want to see him home again soon. But not at any price.
On Tuesday morning, an IDF soldier was killed and an officer and two other soldiers were wounded when a roadside bomb planted by Hamas Gaza terrorists along Israel’s border with the Strip at the Kissufim checkpoint detonated under the army vehicle the dead soldier was traveling in.
In September 2005, then-defense minister Shaul Mofaz took a group of military reporters to a hill overlooking the freshly evacuated Gaza Strip and warned that Israel would respond with its full military force to the first Kassam rocket attack following the disengagement.
Instead, however, despite the thousands of rockets fired into the western Negev, Israel's leadership tolerated the attacks, which culminated earlier this month in barrages that reached Beersheba and Ashdod during Operation Cast Lead.
An opposite situation took place in February 2007, following the Second Lebanon War, when an IDF patrol discovered a number of bombs planted along the northern border fence between Israel and Lebanon. The IDF destroyed the bombs, but informed the Lebanese Armed Forces that it planned to send troops over the fence and into territory that was still part of Israel to search for more explosives.
Despite warnings from the LAF, Israel sent forces to the other side of the fence. Clashes ensued and the IDF opened fire, destroying an LAF position - but more importantly, restoring its sovereignty over Israeli land that lies on the other side of the border fence, land that until the war in 2006, Israel had decided not to enter.
These two examples demonstrate the difference a response to an act of aggression can make. In the first case, Israel decided to tolerate the Kassam rocket attacks immediately following the disengagement. In the second case, Israel decided to enforce its sovereignty and today crosses the fence without a problem.
The attack along the Gaza border which killed a Beduin tracker on Tuesday was Israel's first real test since Operation Cast Lead came to an end earlier this month. Following the three-week operation, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi all declared that if attacked, Israel would respond with force.
The days of tolerance, these officials claimed, were over.
The thinking behind these statements was that if Israel were to restrain itself and not respond forcefully to the first Hamas provocation, it would lose the deterrence it tried to restore during Operation Cast Lead.
The attack on Tuesday did not come as a surprise to the IDF, which had anticipated an attack since Israel decided to unilaterally stop Operation Cast Lead. Hamas, the defense establishment assessed, wanted to prove that it was still alive, and there was no better way to do that than to strike at an IDF patrol along the border.
Hamas may also be sending Israel a message that it is willing to halt the rocket attacks but does not accept Israel's condition - stipulated in the talks in Cairo - that it cannot operate along the border. IDF troops along the border, it may also be signaling, are legitimate targets.
The attack also serves another purpose for Hamas, since it tests how serious Israel is about its declarations that the rules of the game have changed. If Israel does not respond strongly, Hamas will likely renew its rocket attacks and again test Israel and its intentions.
Thirty-four parties began that process on Monday night, when broadcasts of political commercials commenced...
If you believe everything on television, Kadima head Tzipi Livni is a military hero, Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu is a prophet, Labor chairman Ehud Barak has never lied and Shas chairman Eli Yishai is the defender of Jerusalem.
Due to decreasing interest in the election commercials, the Knesset decided to shorten the time allotted to them from three weeks to two and the three networks moved them out of prime time. Among the people who actually watched the commercials, chances are that few people changed their minds and few undecided voters learned enough to decide.
But if anyone needed help deciding who not to vote for, the parties provided an important service. Likud and Kadima gave people reasons not to vote for each other, the two religious-Zionist parties added more reasons not to vote Likud, and two parties tried to persuade people not to vote for Israel Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman.
Perhaps there were three? Balad's ad was entirely in Arabic.
The only ads people will remember are ones with gimmicks, like Labor's mechanic saying that Barak can't do his job because he can't lie; Israel Beiteinu's claim that only Lieberman speaks Arabic; and the Likud's with Livni and other top Kadima leaders pretending to be Netanyahu.
But the best gimmicks were in the commercials of the small parties that have never entered the Knesset. The Israelim electoral reform party featured a man waving two pairs of white briefs and saying that voting for one of the current parties is like putting on yesterday's dirty underwear.
The Greens featured two talking cockroaches. The Green Movement had its chairman Michael Melchior hoist a broom. The Power to the Handicapped Party showed a man in a wheelchair trying unsuccessfully to get into an automatic door, while a dog had greater success.
But perhaps the most memorable commercial was that of the Green Leaf Graduates and Holocaust Survivors Party, the strange combination that resulted from the split in Green Leaf and the offer by the Holocaust Survivors Party to let the losers among the smokers run with them.
The two leaders of the party traded places for the commercial. Former Green Leaf head Ohad Shem-Tov didn't look too strange speaking in favor of more benefits for Holocaust survivors, but Holocaust Survivors Party chairman Ya'akov Kfir looked ridiculous pushing for legalized pot.
"For us, the Holocaust survivors, we have a moral obligation get this plant legalized," he said.
Now that's a brand that's really tough to buy.
Personally, it seems that past performance is a much better indicator of future behavior than pre-election political commercials. Less entertaining though.
Ya'alon, who is eighth on Likud's Knesset list, opened the first session of the three-day Jerusalem Conference with a Zionist speech of the old-fashioned, hard-hitting kind, that outlined a new strategy for Israel: no more retreats.
“We suffer from inertia in our way of thought,” Ya'alon said. “We pretend that there is a Palestinian entity which has recognized Israel. But from the dawn of Zionism there has not been an Arab movement that was willing to recognize Israel as the sovereign state of the Jewish nation. Mahmoud Abbas said it well before Annapolis: "Why should Judaism, this religion, have a state?" But we didn't want to listen. We blur this in the political and public debate.”
Ya'alon pointed to a disconnection from reality in Israel's strategic thinking. “We pretend that the problem began in the Six Day War,” he told a packed hall at Jerusalem's Regency Hotel. “But did the Arabs recognize us before the Six Day War? We wanted peace in exchange for territories, but we received terror for territories. And when we exited Gaza unilaterally, we received rockets for territory... After the Disengagement we went to Annapolis anyways. We didn't change the concept. Isn't this confusion?”
'Let's try something else'
The former Chief of Staff pooh-poohed the claim that the retreats were forced upon Israel by United States: “The United States did not pressure Israel to go to Oslo, or to carry out the Disengagement, or to do what it did last year with the Syrian President. There is a blurring here also. I think that after September 2000 we should have stopped and said – 'we've tried two states for two peoples, let's try something else.'”
“We pretend that the conflict is the Middle East is a territorial one but it is a clash of civilizations,” Ya'alon said. “We retreat from Lebanon and we think that this will cancel the Hizbullah's reason for existing but the exact opposite happens.”
Confusing the Arabs
Ya'alon outlined his prescription for the next government's policy: “We must stop talking about territories for peace, about the division of Jerusalem, and let the Arabs in Judea and Samaria have autonomy. Just by talking about retreats we give jihadist Islam a boost.”
“Some of our politicians have a hidden agenda of a binational state,” he accused. “This confuses the Arabs. When Israeli politicians turn into our enemies' advisors and we remain silent we confuse them,” he said, in an apparent reference to Ra'am-Ta'al's Ahmed Tibi, who was Yasser Arafat's advisor before running for Knesset.
He also took jabs at statements made by outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, without mentioning their names: “We need leadership that doesn't say 'we are tired of fighting wars.' The nation is not tired and the army is not tired. If the leadership is tired it should be changed. As for another statement, that the state of Israel is finished if we do not return to the 1967 borders: time works in favor of whoever makes good use of it,” Ya'alon stated.
The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen...
The development came as Republican legislators criticized the plan to close the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp in the absence of any measures for dealing with current detainees.
Almost half the camp’s remaining detainees are Yemenis, and efforts to repatriate them depend in part on the creation of a Yemeni rehabilitation program — partly financed by the United States — similar to the Saudi one. Saudi Arabia has claimed that no graduate of its program has returned to terrorism...
A Saudi security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Mr. Shihri had disappeared from his home in Saudi Arabia last year after finishing the rehabilitation program.
A Yemeni journalist who interviewed Al Qaeda’s leaders in Yemen last year, Abdulela Shaya, confirmed Thursday that the deputy leader was indeed Mr. Shihri, the former Guantánamo detainee. Mr. Shaya, in a phone interview, said Mr. Shihri had described to him his journey from Cuba to Yemen and supplied his Guantánamo detention number, 372. That is the correct number, Pentagon documents show...
The documents state that Mr. Shihri met with a group of "extremists" in Iran and helped them get into Afghanistan. They also say he was accused of trying to arrange the assassination of a writer, in accordance with a fatwa, or religious order, issued by an extremist cleric.
Now get this:
However, under a heading describing reasons for Mr. Shihri’s possible release from Guantánamo, the documents say he claimed that he traveled to Iran "to purchase carpets for his store" in Saudi Arabia. They also say that he denied knowledge of any terrorists or terrorist activities, and that he "related that if released, he would like to return to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, wherein he would reunite with his family."
"The detainee stated he would attempt to work at his family's furniture store if it is still in business," the documents say.
With Knesset elections set for 2 1/2 weeks from now, police have detained the daughter of Israel Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman and six other associates. Is this due to the normal investigation timeline or was it politically motivated?
Related questions: This investigation has dragged on since the State Comptroller's report in 1999 -- almost 10 years. Why? Why have other alleged violations from the same report long since been forgotten?
The investigation against Liberman is almost always dormant, but as it is never closed it can always be, and periodically is, used as a lever against him. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the whole process is indeed politically motivated.
Judge for yourself based on this report from Ynet, who are no friends of Lieberman:
The police's National Fraud Investigations Unit on Sunday morning detained for questioning seven people associated with Yisrael Beiteinu Chairman Avigdor Lieberman, including his daughter and a lawyer.
The seven were detained two and a half weeks before the Knesset elections, as part of an investigation launched against Lieberman on suspicion of taking a bribe, fraud and money laundering. Their homes were searched.
Recent public opinion polls have shown that Lieberman's party is expected to grow stronger in the February 10 elections.
Lieberman's daughter, Michal, was questioned by the National Fraud Investigations Unit in January 2008, several days after her father resigned from the Olmert government.
A state comptroller's report from 1999 pointed to alleged violations of the election campaign law by the Yisrael Beiteinu party. A police investigation was launched into the matter in February 2001, and Lieberman was among the people questioned.
In May 2005, the police turned the case over to the State Prosecutor's Office for a review and decision. Following the receipt of additional material from investigations abroad, the attorney general instructed the police to reopen the case. The investigation was resumed in April 2006.
In April 2007, Lieberman was questioned under advisement at the National Fraud Investigations Unit's offices on suspicion of receiving illegal funds from business tycoon Martin Schlaf...
During the first coalition negotiations between Kadima and Yisrael Beiteinu following the 2006 election, Lieberman asked for the Internal Security portfolio, but Attorney General Menachem Mazuz ruled that he could not be in charge of the police as long as the criminal investigation against him is still going on.
In the meantime, Israel National News reports that Lieberman's Israel Beiteinu party is tied with Labor, according to the latest polls, for the 3rd largest party in the next Knesset.
This blog has often commented in posts such as these [1, 2] throughout Israel's Operation Cast Lead about the continuing flow of arms into Gaza, arms smuggling and Egyptian myths regarding its "best efforts."
Overall, where do you consider that Israel succeeded, and where did it fail, in Operation Cast Lead?
The most important success is that the operation will produce quiet for a long time in the South.
Israel's deterrence has been reasserted.
Hamas has suffered a blow to its legitimacy in Gaza. Outside help is required to provide economic assistance to the people there. Hamas has had to make commitments to Egypt, and any breach of those commitments will bring it trouble with Egypt and with others.
The IDF was successful, the public has been reassured, the home front functioned well.
What about the issue of arms smuggling into Gaza?
That's much more more problematic.
To be polite, the Egyptians are telling us stories and we are deluding ourselves.
Egypt was not effective in the past. It doesn't care about weapons in Gaza.
The smuggling tunnel apparatus also features drugs and televisions and mobile phones, and keeps whole tribes in business. So either Egypt has to truly confront this whole industry or pay off the smugglers. And I'm not sure it's going to do that.
As for the dramatic signing of an agreement between Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and the previous secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, intended to stop the smuggling, well, without being rude, it's not serious and it's not significant.
The United States has had a profound interest in stopping arms smuggling between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and from Iran to Iraq. But it hasn't been able to. So preventing a flow of weapons from, say, Somalia to Sudan to Egypt and then to Gaza? No, it's not going to happen.
The only truly effective way to prevent the smuggling would be for the Egyptians to build a buffer zone five kilometers from the border, fence it off, and control the only road through the sand. But they won't do that.
Despite Israel's destruction of 300 weapons-smuggling tunnels, including tunnels along the Philadelphi Corridor, The Jerusalem Post's Brenda Gazzar reports that Gaza smuggling tunnels are once again operating. This is not surprising, as the tunnels were attacked from the air. Surely many tunnels were not targetted, were missed in the attacks, or were not destroyed beyond repair:
As security envoy Amos Gilad prepared to meet Thursday with Egyptian officials to discuss a long-term truce with Hamas, fighting arms smuggling, and lifting the blockade on the Strip, goods were being smuggled into Gaza from Sinai on Wednesday.
Four days after Operation Cast Lead ended, AP Television News footage showed Palestinian smugglers filling a fuel truck with gas that had come through a tunnel from Egypt.
The footage also showed workers clearing blocked tunnels, and bulldozers carrying out other repairs.
One of the stated goals of the IDF offensive was to stop the smuggling through the hundreds of tunnels under the border.
The report goes on to say:
Officials told The Jerusalem Post that the new mechanism Israel had set up with the Egyptians consisted of three layers.
The first layer focuses on intelligence cooperation regarding arms shipments en-route to Sinai to be smuggled into Gaza...
The second layer of the mechanism deals with the Egyptian side of the Philadelphi Corridor, under which Hamas digs its smuggling tunnels. Egypt currently has 750 border policemen deployed along the border and has asked that Israel waive the limits in the peace treaty and allow Egypt to increase that number to around 2,000. The Defense Ministry has rejected the request, and defense officials said Wednesday that Egypt's problem was not a lack of policemen.
Instead, Israel and Egypt are discussing the deployment of new tunnel-detection technology along the border...
The third layer involves working inside Sinai and creating obstacles at the entrance to Egyptian Rafah to stop the weapons and explosives from ever reaching the border. One of Israel's recommendations has been to set up checkpoints along the roads leading to Rafah and to inspect vehicles entering the town...
The official said Egypt was open to examining any proposal, but as President Hosni Mubarak affirmed in a speech on Saturday, Egypt would not accept the deployment of any foreign troops or observers on its sovereign territory.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Wednesday that his country would not allow foreign naval forces to operate in its waters to prevent weapons smuggling.
He spoke to reporters as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni headed to Brussels, where Israeli officials said she hoped to clinch a deal committing the EU to contribute forces, ships and technology to stop arms smuggling to Hamas.
On Saturday, Aboul Gheit dismissed a US-Israeli agreement aimed at curbing weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip and said his country would not be bound by it.
It makes no sense to rely on the Egyptians to stop smuggling into Gaza when they have been turning a blind eye to that smuggling for years. Similarly, the international community failed to stop smuggling into Gaza when it was monitoring the border with Egypt. The UN "soldiers" in Lebanon have also done nothing to stop Hezbollah from rearming.
The bottom line is that history shows clearly that Israel can depend on no other country, or group of countries, for her national security but must rely solely on her own military for her security.
As Israel continued withdrawing her ground forces from inside Gaza, Hamas continued mortar attacks on southern Israel.
IDF troops were targeted in central Gaza on Tuesday and returned fire. This attack occurred about the same time that terrorists fired at a patrol along the Gaza security fence, south of Kissufim. The IAF later struck at missile launchers. Despite the cease-fire, at least 12 mortar shells struck the south through Tuesday evening.
Soldiers deployed along the border in order to provide a quick response should the need arise.
Violence marred the cease-fire in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday as Hamas gunmen fired mortar shells into Israel and opened fire on IDF troops who remained inside the Palestinian territory.
In the afternoon, IAF aircraft bombed a mortar launcher in the Gaza Strip that had been used hours earlier to fire some eight mortar shells into the Negev. It was the first air strike against Gaza since Israel unilaterally implemented a cease-fire there on Sunday.
Earlier in the day, Gaza gunmen fired at IDF patrols in two separate incidents that marked the first violations of the cease-fire Hamas accepted on Sunday after the IDF began withdrawing its forces from Gaza.
No one was wounded and no damage was reported in either of the two incidents, which took place near the Kissufim border crossing in central Gaza, and in southern Gaza. IDF troops returned fire following one of the attacks.
Defense officials further accused Hamas of stealing some of the humanitarian supplies that had been transferred into the Gaza Strip.
The officials said the Hamas leadership had issued orders already on Monday to attack IDF troops who remained in the Gaza Strip.
According to the officials, Hamas likely chose to fire mortars and not rockets, since it predicted that Israel would have a harsher response to a rocket attack on a town or city. They would not say whether Israel was planning a response in addition to the air strike against the launcher.
"We will not tolerate attacks and will not be restrained like we used to be," explained one official.
We will be closely watching events to ascertain the tolerance level of the current Israeli government for rocket and mortar bombardments post-Operation Cast Lead, and whether they will revert to hitting empty fields in response.
Israel National News' Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu provides this analysis of how the IDF out-foxed Hamas:
Use of aerial and naval attacks and moving foot soldiers into Gaza off main roads and on a moonless night were factors that helped keep IDF casualties to near zero in Operation Cast Lead against terrorists on Gaza. Robots also may have been used to foil Hamas and allied gunmen.
The campaign began three weeks ago Saturday night, on the eve of the new moon of the Hebrew month of Tevet. The nighttime march, without any light from the moon, lessened the chances that Hamas could use its anti-tank missiles against combat units, as Hezbollah succeeded in doing in the Second Lebanon War in 2006.
However, the use of aerial and naval forces was Israel's main advantage. They attacked most of the terrorist targets and provided cover for ground forces, who lost five comrades to enemy fire, while five others died from friendly fire.
Army commanders, learning from the mistakes in the war against Hizbullah, avoided sending foot soldiers into heavily populated areas, despite media reports to the contrary.
One of the best tactics of the IDF was not to issue too many reports to the media on tactical maneuvers, a senior reserve officer, with long and personal experience in commando operations, told Israel National News.
"Reports of heavy fighting in heavily populated areas were mainly the fruit of media imagination," he said. "One of the reasons that there were few casualties was the tactic of keeping the ground soldier from penetrating deep into Gaza. The media reports were exaggerated."
The IDF also may have used robots to foil Hamas and allied terrorists, according to Reuters, which reported that Arabs found a mannequin dressed in IDF clothing and rigged with wires. An IDF commando unit officer told the news agency that the object may have been a robot used to fool Hamas fighters into opening fire, allowing the IDF to identify and hit them.
Still, the article makes clear that ground troops didn't penetrate far into Gaza. This kept IDF casualties low, but also means that Hamas was never seriously challenged militarily. Air strikes are useful, but ground troups are needed to actually win a war.
Unfortunately, it is natural to suspect the real reason for keeping troops out of the heart of Gaza, where they were needed to take Hamas out and destroy their weapons, was to protect the Gazans from too much loss, not the IDF.
Israel clearly won the latest round with Hamas, but could have gone deeper into Gaza and done greater damage to the organization, according to military analysts in the US media on a visit to the region this week.
"I think you achieved what one Israeli general called 'changing the reality' in which Hamas operates, but I think you were too restrained and could have gone deeper into Gaza," Lt.-Gen. Thomas McInerney, a 35-year veteran of the US Air Force and a Fox News military analyst, told The Jerusalem Post Monday after touring the Gaza periphery and receiving briefings from Israeli officials as part of a trip of military analysts organized by the New York-based Project Interchange affiliated with the American Jewish Committee.
The Gaza fighting is seen in the US as a healthy demonstration of Israel's capabilities, according to Lt.-Col. Rick Francona, a former US Air Force intelligence officer in several theaters and military analyst for NBC News.
Unlike in the wake of the 2006 Second Lebanon War, "the conversation in the US revolves around Israeli decision making - what's the end game? Are they going to remove Hamas? It doesn't question Israel's capabilities. You've won the battle," Francona said.
Both analysts said Israel seemed ready to face down Hamas in a long-term fight.
The ceasefire is "just the end of this round, and that seems to be Israeli policy right now. The best Israel can go for is to manage the conflict until Hamas can be made to go away," said Francona.
"The Israeli public's support for this war mutes global opinion," noted McInerney. "When a nation is united in its right to defend itself, it makes it more difficult for Europeans, the Left or the Arab media to counter that."
Even so, said McInerney, "Your leadership is too sensitive about world opinion. I know why Israel didn't [drive deeper into Gaza] - you have an election coming up and a new [US] president taking office, but you need to gain the freedom of operation in Gaza that you have in the West Bank."
Commenting on the unilateral ceasefire announced by the Israeli cabinet on Saturday, he suggested "Israel did not want to destroy Hamas. I believe you should have."
An interview with the citizen-soldier that killed the terrorist in the Merkaz HaRav attack last year, who also served in Gaza during the Operation Cast Lead:
