When it comes to military matters especialy these days is not famous for its great defeats over its enemies its famed for its starting projects and then not following them through to their conclusion taking a potential victory into a humiliatiing loss. We are the laughing stock of the region today not the power that our enemies all once respected & feared. Bush was intentionly trying to delay a UN ceasefire resolution to allow Olmert to finish the job but instead we got 1701. Gaza was going so well from the start and the IDF were well on their way to achieving a major victory thhat woud have smashed Hamas as a fighting force in Gaza & possibly got Gilad Shalit back. Then Livni & Barak get election fever wanting to restart their campaigns & Olnert folds under international preasure orders a unilateral ceasefire. No conditions they will all be negotiated later but we will end the fighting anyway because we want to initate the peace. Hamas continue to fire rockets and we continue tit for tat they fire a rocket at a building in Israel we drop a bomb on a building in Gaza. Hamas won cast lead without a doubt. The IDF did their job just fine but then the politicians turned that victory into a humiliating defeat and everything that was achieved was undone by Olmert, the PM wannabe Livni and the man who is now mistakeny seen as a great DM Barak. Soilders died in Gaza, the operation cost hundreds of millions if not over a billion dollar, property destroyed iin Israel & Gaza. Thousands of homeless in Gaza and it was all for nothing at all because as usual we started and didn't finish. If Israel was a major business and the entire current Knesset were executives they would all be fired. We would also be bankrupt for all the money wasted in projects started but never finished. Its not only time for a new political system but get rid of every current MK, get a profesional to look at the books and manage money responsiby and if we want to have a strategic edge & be feared by the enemies then we need to let the military run wars to their conclusion not end it when the PM thinks we should.

You bleaters amaze me. Hamas has made it quite clear that they will not negotiate with Israel,will not recognize them,and vows to destroy them. And you want a political solution? Maybe force is not the answer,but dialogue is not working either. So that leaves extreme force.

the last un estimates are that fewer than 250 civilians were killed in gaza. so why do you stop at only "500 children"? wouldn't 5,000 sound even more dramatic? the truth is that over 700 arab terorists were killed, even though they used women and children as human shields. and in spite of every justification, the idf DID NOT indiscriminately bomb gaza. so stop mouthing hamas propaganda, and making a fool of yourself.

the last israeli withdrew from gaza over 3 years ago. if hamas had simply done NOTHING, there would be peace and prosperity for the "poor palestinians". if they had not attacked and destroyed the greenhouses, there would be work there and vegetables to export. if they had not attacked the border crossings, there would be the free flow of people and goods through israel and egypt. if they had not fired 10,000 qassams at israeli civilians, there would not have been a war and casualties. but perhaps then hamas wouldn't be in charge, either... so perhaps the only way to achieve peace for gaza is to get rid ot the cause of all this suffering: hamas! but that wouldn't have gotten them $900 million in aid, which will be put to good use - to fund bigger and better rockets with which to attack israeli civilians. and so the "cycle of violence" continues, funded by the eu and america.

and you never will!