well done. yes they are bad, but so are we in a different way. and delusional to boot.

YOU LEFT WING LIBERALS DONT APPRECIATE ANYTHING UNTIL ITS GONE TRY WRITING LIKE THIS IN AS AN ARAB OCCUPYING ISRAEL IN ISRAELI LAND THAT IS OCCUPIED BY THE OCCUPIERS CALLED ARABS UNDER THE NAME OF LABELS SUCH AS HAMAS OR PALISTINIANS. YOU WOULD BE BEHEADED AND HUNG TO DRAIN YOUR BLOOD. I hope that was clear enough for those minds that are occupied with the occupiers called arabs and not with the LAND AND PEOPLES CALLED TORAH AND ISRAEL GIVEN AND BLESSED BY G'D, IF ISRAEL DOES WHAT G'D WANTS NOT WHAT YOUR EGOTISICAL MINDS THINK IS RIGHT WHICH IS INFRINGING ON **OTHERS RIGHTS IN ISRAEL. THANKS YOU DACON9 jewswithviews@gmail.com

we stayed at home with your F16 ..you went to shelter .with our toys (as Abbas call them ) we are more stubbern and more than ever attached to this land .. 1/3 of you have dual citizenship and leaving soon . it is pathetic how you think . your scholars say no later than 2017 ..ours were close ..2027 ..will witness a mass israeli exodus from Palestine .

this so-called analysis of the idf performance is underrated at best.... just like your mom told-- if you don't have anything nice ti say... shut up!

What a cynical article by michael. IDF did land a severe blow and showed some skill in asymmetric warfare. Barak did okay here. However, his heart is not in defense anymore, he is extremely reluctant and shows no flair in it. Perhaps he has done too much warfare, but even in 1999, he did not respond to suicide bombers. So he should be replaced by yaalon. For michael, he and haaretz writers can move to gaza and empathize with the lying backstabbers that live there.

Totally self-obsessed, the piece completely fails to acknowledge that Palestinians have choices, too, and that applause for Hamas, other than in Iran, Syria, Qatar and their UN satellite is notable by its absence.

A very common strategy in these articles is to give convincing arguments but not offer any ideas for alternatives. Good try with the Haganah examples, do yo really think the situations are similar? "the devil can cite scripture for his purpose"

about deterrence: he says that Israel never had deterrence. That's completely wrong. The fact that today wars on Israel are waged by terror is the best proof that deterrence has refrained Arab countries to wage wars against Israel, wars that they cannot win. The last war was in 1973! Terror is used instead. In 2002 Sharon crushed terror in the West Bank and restored deterrence there. Now it was the Gaza turn. Deterrence is such that Hamas will refrain sending rockets into Israel. IDF won with brio this campaign and "stamped" deterrence into the mind of Hamas leaders. Well done!

Saying they're not deterred is silly. How many rockets were fired from the West Bank today? It's obvious that the Pals on the WB are deterred from attacking Israel, even if Israel has been "pulverizing the Pals for dozens of years." This is not an analysis. This is just a repeating of previously held opinions with no facts.

We sure pay a heavy price for democracy if B. Michel? can write such an utter rubbish, in an israeli site,thank you for helping out the enemy??! B???

Let us see in the coming elections how many jewish israelis will be convinced by your liberal exhortations. I'm not sure if I got it straight. Do you live in Israel or in Norway? Do you always have mercy for the overwhelmingly evil side?

Or when muslims will start to eat pork. Whatever is sooner.

The author is a known leftist figure that is driving "soft power" like Obama in US. Obviously the author omitted lessons from WWII where death and destruction did "educate" Japan, Germany and Italy. This time as in many conflicts before, "hard power" did work . I suppose the Left needs to know that in order to change peoples views radically they need to be shown that they LOST the war and that old "ways" are futile. I believe the Israeli left is slowly getting IT, the US left is in process of learning it the hard way. Let's wait a few months and see...

Wrong...see germans and japanese...they are now the biggest pacifist in the word.

B. Michael is a great general. I am sure a ninny like him never participated in more than a wrestling match with his kids. But he has a giant chutzpa to write about subjects he understands nothing about. Being a moralist against IDF troops and the people of Sderot, Ashdod, Ashkelon etc is a sick phenomenon that he should better share with his psychiatrist.

Hamas killers were not just hiding among civilians they were firing rockets and shooting from residential buildings. B. Michaels starts out with an agenda to make Israel look bad, regardless of the facts. The truth is that Israel was more careful to protect Gazans from harm than Hamas was. Tell it like it is!

He proves he is intelligent because he arguments his case with apparent logic. He is stupid because real life is having to choose not between something good and something bad but between 2 bad things choosing the lesser evil, and this Israel did, and did it the most humane way possible. To defend its citizens, choosing to save soldiers life, not at the point of carpet bombing gaza and causing 300 thousand deaths as could have been easily done, but not trying to save , say 300 of those 1300 dead by condemning , say 150 young israeli soldiers to die. Gaza public chose democratically their terrorist government, and as a result the MORAL thing is that the dead should be on the THEIR side. You dont have to have more than 2 neurons to understand that. Michael is lacking 2 neurons.

why are idiots allowed to write articles ?

my, my, we have found another one: a desillusioned kid with a pen bashing everything israeli. don't they ever get enough...

YOU WROTE ......"Ywe are more stubbern and more than ever attached to this land .. 1/3 of you have dual citizenship and leaving soon . it is pathetic how you think ...." AND HOW DO YOU THINK WITH YOUR DUAL CITIZENSHIP TOMORROW GROWING TO JORDANIAN...????? ...: SMILE...YOU WON..AND D'NT CHANGE YOUR DREAM TEAM.

More than a patriot or an humanist. IF JAPAN AND GERMANY CHANGED AFTER WW2...... WY NOT FOR ....the terrorists...and Islamofacistes THE RESURRECTION OF ISRAEL ON HIS SOIL IS THE GREATEST VICTORY IN HISTORY....AGAINST THE WORSE DEVILS EVER SENT ON EARTH.

Who is B. Michael? His rant about the blood-thirsty IDF makes me believe he is either a Hamas operative or self-hating Jew. Yes, B. Michael, there is us and them. And if them were to behave like human beings, they would also be treated as such. My allegiance is to us not them, and although I don't wish to have any innocent injured or killed, I want us to be safe more than allow them to harm us.

You know else we learned from this War Michael? We learned how morality inept you are. Your article says it all. It completely neglects the brutality and vile acts committed by Hamas. You legitimize there action by comparing them to Begin. You did not mention the suffering of our citizens only our inability to distinguish between terrorist and civilian when they are operating from the same home and wearing the same cloths. Yes we learned a lot, we learned that if given a chance we can defeat our enemies. If the liberals will just step aside and let us finish what we started, we can win. Have some pride in our solders. They deserve it!

I Looked for something that related to facts about the war and found none. Nothing about the years that led up to the war,nothing about the behavior of Hamas during the war,nothing about Hamas setting up traps to kill the soldiers.etc.What I found were biased dogma laden irrational conclusions that at best pass as sophisms.Its a tragedy that such near delusional claptrap can be offered up at a time like this when the enemies of Israel are out to kill it.How anyone can be so blind to reality is beyond me.He must be a"humanist" in the clothes of a socialist communist.They are highly skilled in the arts of distortion and perversion of the truth.

This article is garbage. How can an israeli newspaper be publishing this crap. Michael you ought to be ashamed, go enjoy your freedom of the press and speech in gaza they would love you in those slums