Living in Spain, I am very far away from this. However I am sure all around the world are perplexed by the apparent lack of action and inability to safeguard the town of Sderot. It must be very difficult indeed for these residents under constant threat. I think the best option is to take back Gaza, but be prepared to lose some men, that is the price for giving it away - closer launching pads! Good article - I agree with it.

but in reality it won't work: 1) Apply economic pressure? And have a continuous stream of stories about "immenient humanitarian diasasters". And the UN and EU will DEMAND to "ease" it and there will be lots of talk about "collective punishment". Remember next year is an election year for the US. 2) Similarly, taking over the Philidelphia route means essentially expelling the EU. 3) Increase the military operations and sooner or later you'll kill someone you don't want to. There is an "outcry" and Israel is trashed and forced to halt operations. How many times can you watch the same film and still be surprised at the end. How many times can you stomach Miri Eisen pathetic apolgising for "civilian" casualties. I would love to think that we had strong leaders. A strong leader would be able to say, you know what we tried pulling out in Lebanon and Gaza and it didn't work and so we are going to have to go back. See how popular Nasrallah and Hamas are when Israel is back in Gaza and the security strip after "incidents" they create. But that means facing off the international community and we are so in hock to the US I really don't think we can do that.

That's the sad truth of the matter. The longer we delay elections, the worse our situation will become. It should be obvious by now that Olmert & his cronies will not leave on their own. The only way we will have elections is for the coalition partners to withdraw. This they are unwilling to do - they are as afraid of the political consequences as Kadima. Sadly, most Israelis are apathetic - we are as paralysed as our gov't. I fear that only some catastrophic event will wake people up to the very real dangers that face us.

blame olmert fud.

the people have had a year to get rid of Olmert and not done so. At this point, they are responsible. Israel is democratic enough for the people to get their way if they really mean what they say in the polls.

I agree with you in that point. As Ahmedinajad said:" Israel is in the way to be whiped out" You are blaming him for his comments that are coming true day after say. Your aramy can not protect itself, so how will it protect you.

I've been using 'Olmerd' ('Merd' is French is 'sh-t.')

It's great except for their stand that we should leave parts of Judea and Samaria and establish a temporary border! Just google Tafnit. Open the Hebrew web site and click on other languages. There you'll see where to click for their agenda.

dayan, Barak and other silly guys do not have a plan. They just react to Abbas. If abbas would say tomorrow that he loved Dayan, the Tafnit will give him Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. You can't trust this left-wingers because they care only about money, like Olmert-Livni.

Yes, there is no leadership and Olmert is a dismal failure. There is no other country in the world that would tolerate his failures, even without the war, and the allegations being made against him. The problem here in Israel is that "We the people" are just to apathetic to do anything out it and his colleagues are too busy saving their own skins to kick him out! Reserve General Dayan is right. The only way out of the Sderot situation is a military one and not a half hearted "limited" foray at that. The Gaza Regime will have to be ruthlessly crushed and the casualty rate, terrorist, civilian and Israeli soldiers, will be very high. The Bush Administration, which is basically the only sort of ally that we have, is far too busy appeasing the Arab Oils Kings and Princes to give us the necessary UN support. Other so called "friendly countries", like the UK and France, will probably, at best, abstain or even vote against Israel in a UN Security Council Resolution condemning this kind of action. We could even run the risk that International Sanctions will be placed on Israel. Another major factor is what will happen on the West Bank or so-called Fatahstan? Will Mahmoud Abbas' merry men stand by while the IDF kick the hell out of their "enemies" in Gaza? I have my doubts and it would be interesting to have Uzi Dayans comments on that scenario. The fact is that no matter who is in power, Kadima, Likud or Labor, the only "acceptable" way is to force the people of Gaza to stop the rockets and to kick the butts of their leadership. The way to do this is simple. Turn of the power, then turn off the water and when all else fails, enforce a total blockade on that misbegotten territory. They will soon find out that Muslim Fundamentalist Ideology will not fill the bellies of the hungry. No doubt Israel will face tremendous condemnation from the EU and every Human Rights group on this planet as well as our own B'tzelem and MK Zhava Galon from Meretz but it would probably be over quite quickly and would be a lot better than losing the lives of possibly hundreds of our soldiers, the pride and joy of our country and the future of our nation.

You say that Bush is too busy with this and that, but how, pray tell, can anyone help a country that, from the looks of it, can't or won't even try to help itself? I'm only speaking as a citizen, but it is mind-boggling and incomprehensible that a sovereign country with a standing and damn' good military holds still for rockets from some two-bit bunch of marauders that, with a little effort, could be wiped out in a couple of days. This peanut gallery would go berserk with applause, if you did exactly that. Heck, it might make Abbas apply for conversion to Judaism. On the other hand, how often are we being told, already, to keep our noses out of other people's business and to pound sand? I don't know to what extent that works in Israel, but over here, anybody with a computer has access to their reps in Washington, and those reps listen to their constituents, because, as the last elections showed, they're the ones who re-elect them or throw them out. Now, you let those constituents read their on-line news and hear over and over that we should butt out, and they will let their reps know to vote "butt-out." As for "making nice" with the Saudis, well, and using an extreme example, if you depended on Hamas for your oil or whatever, wouldn't it be in the best national interest of Israel to make as nice as possible with them, even it it were to make you gag? As much as we may love our allies, to us, the people of this country, the US has to come first; just as Israel has to come first for Israelis. To expect anything else would be foolish. But who the hell gives a flying flip what the EU, the UN or the rest of them, the US included, spout? If they don't like the way you're doing it, maybe they'll do it for you. They'd give away all of the country, but that's another subject. Just a little personal comment: When I saw the pictures with another Ynet article of your soldiers with tears running down their faces, it not only filled me with an unspeakable sadness, but with a boundless rage at a system that would do that to its own. I may not understand the situation, but no who, what, why, where or when can justify that in my head.

As you saw, when we were attacked we hit hard and what did we get from the Bush Administration - restraint and a cease fire that has not resulted in disarming Hezbollah! May or your country man still accuse us of war crimes. Yep, maybe we are too sensitive to the UK and the EU but ever heard of sanctions and what they could do to our economy? Regarding the military might well let me point out that the USA doesn't exactly seem to be winning the war in Iraq! You intentions are good but clean up your own house before cleaning mine. They both need a lot of cleaning!

To occupy the philadelphi road is totally stupid. Nobody will allow Israel to watch the border between Egypt and Gaza. The same in Judea and Samaria. If Israel will destroy Jewish communities there, nobody will allow Israel to keep the IDF there. Nobody. Never. This is the trick of the left. The ONLY solution is to liberate Gaza and send Sudanese, Muslem brotherhood, al-Quada, etc bach to Egypt and close the border with Egypt (after the liberation of Gaza). Everything else is a joke.

As to your observation on Iraq, there's an opinion piece wrt our seemingly washing our hands of Israel and of a few other "allies." Add to that little blips about some talking going on between us and somebody from Iran, although not in Iran, their really jumping up and down a bit more than usual, and then add 2+2. It may look like 7 on the surface, but sooner or later, it'll come out to be 4. Sometimes, it may simply take a couple of additions and subtractions to get to the right answer. I just think, if Israel pulled something similar to 67 or 73, you'd get more kudos than sanctions, as long and loudly as the latter may get kicked around by all the alphabet soups in the world. Let's face it, there's no international law that expects a sovereign country to hold still for missiles. But there could be a time frame of one sort or the other of which not much is known at this point. As for who does or doesn't need cleaning up to one degree or the other, the only people who don't need any of that are in cemeteries. Also, the opinions over here that Israel committed or commits war crimes is not nearly as surprising as some of the sources of those opinions. Aside from some of it being outright feed-back from one or two organizations in Israel and with a few exceptions, they're not necessarily the wild-eyed Christians. They wouldn't give up the Old Testament for nothing, they don't know enough about Zionism or Judaism one way or the other, and if you handed most of them a map with the WB and the Gaza Strip outlined in red, they couldn't find either. They might find Jerusalem and even that's a big might. Sorry to downtalk my fellow countrymen, but it's close on the map business. I do have a little problem with your statement as regards Lebanon 2. If you blame the US for forcing restraint on you - and I'm sure that, for heaven only knows what reason, we did - then why turn around and issue one report after the other about what all was wrong with chains of command, faulty or no equipment, etc. etc, and go so far as to change and/r retire key people "in broad daylight" so to speak? That let people off the hook over here, who should have been left to hang there. I'm, geopolitically speaking, no mental giant, but I can think fairly straight and the way I see it, some things, all democratic ideals notwithstanding, should be handled and corrected "in private," behind closed doors, internally, call it what you will. Or as they say, don't wash your dirty laundry in public. ( I don't have a clue who "they' are; only that there are a lot of them.) All of this is, of course, only my opinion "from over here," and since I don't have a vote over there, I'll accept the fact that it doesn't count.

Uzi, you are exactly correct and everyone agrees with you. Telling us what to do doesn't help. OLMERT cannot make such decisons as he is paralysed by fear from childhood. Go to his office and convince him to step down. He will sign a deal that willcost Israeli blood. Israelis died in lebanon needlessly because of this imbecile. Convince Barak to dissolve the gov't to gert rid of him.

works better then anything else.