What the author has NOT stated is that the whole war scenario would be rewritten IF the mission were VICTORY and NOT just containment. EVERY war tragically has its casualties, but the human price will be MUCH higher if they are allowed to rebuild without any stop. The weaponry will become so lethal that the kassams will look like toy rockets if the IDF does not retake control over the Philadelpia Route. Further, it is untrue that rockets were fired in the same amount as they are now. They were not! It is also not a question of controlling 2 million plus Arabs. It is a question of asserting military supremacy over a terorrist hotbed. IF not the IDF, then whom??

If Israel reoccupies Gaza, it will eliminate amajor division among the palestinians. This actually will help them (cutting down Hamas) but, Israel will be blamed for all the casualties. Also the IDF will have casualties. Let the Fatah do their own dirty work or their Arab allies. Hamas is terrible for the Palestinians. Why should Israel save them ?

Unfortunately, as we grow older, we come to see war as a reasonable excercise. Unfortunately, wars are fought on the backs of the young. Wars are wrong. There is no justice during nor after a war. But neither is there justice in firing off indicriminate rockets on civilized innocent people. I like to study military events. As I see it, something will have to be done with Gaza. It truely is a thorn. Israel can win it now, but it will be a bloody affair. It will have to be done in the near future, or the window will pass. Wisely and dreadfully efficiently. Gazans will have to become Israeli citizens, or failing that a complete take over of Gaza's system. For example, the education that the children in Gaza now, will have to be radically uprooted. They do not know what democracy is, nor will they ever have the freedom to find it under the system they live under now. Terrorists thrive in the situation now in Gaza. Philistines they are, and perhaps that won't ever change. It will take a generation of changes, maybe more. The detractors of Israel won't change their minds, never fear. But there could be peace in our time and well into the future. Or let it continue to rain Qassams.

Because retaking Gaza would be a tremendously positive step toward accomplishing the road map. It would then be handled to Abbas on a silver plate. Of course, the next step would be the creation of a contiguous palestinian state at the expense of Israel's contiguity. Bush calls for contiguous Palestinian state to be established within the year http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/019515.php DO WE REALLY HAVE TO OBBEY ?

We need to retake Gaza and do a house by house search collecting all weapons and cashes weapons and Qassams! If they resist and fire at the IDF we should blow up the house or building they are attacking us from with a tank! And continue till they are disarmed or all dead! NO END TILL THEY ALL YELL, UNCLE!!!

Once your out its harder to get back in .. today Hamas run Gaza, they have been arming themselves because they got the oportunity to do it because we left Gaza origiinaly. Today retaking it would be very bloody on both sides so taking the whole strip would be a poiintless effort because even once its taken it needs to be controled and with a powerfull Hamas that in itself would be a nightmare. Firsts the Philiidelphi Route must be taken from Egypt its obvious Egypt either doesnt want to or doesnt have the ability to stop the smuggling so Israel must control all the borders make Gaza into a gheto where there is no in or our without Israels say so. Then if there is a rocket attack then cut off the electtiricty for 1 day so if they fire 3 rockets then the power goes out for 3 days. We have got to stop making empty threats its been months since Barak threatened to cut the power and a full ceacation of fuel supplies eccept for hospitals. The lights havnt gone out for even 1 minute and there were limited gas supplies but now thats gone back up so even thats not being used as a weapon anymore. Once Israel controls the borders and the infastructure then it can control Gaza provided when retaliation threats to things like rocket attacks is more than talk or else the terrorists just laugh in your face because they know you dont mean a word of it. Do this and have one small scale millitary operation to clean up and Israel can control Gaza without the need for keeping a single soilder in the place after a single in and out millitary operation.

What a question...G"d forbid! 1. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam; M·PORCIVS·M·F·CATO but not by sending 'our best sons' to certain death! 2. plz no more socalled 'disproportionate response'. Let there be rocket for rocket, gral for gral, bomb for bomb. Give THEM 'red alert' and 'Black September' for a while!

Why is it that are only choice is occupy, withdraw, and repeat? International laws of war (and I don't mean the B.S. they cooked up in geneva, but the rules EVERYONE used for three thousand years before WWI) give us another option. Conquer, annex, expel, end of story. It's generally a very harsh and costly course of action, and was rarely used in ancient warfare. In fact the only cases it was used are ones like the Judean enemy splintered into fanatical paramilitary groups that did not wear uniforms or obey other laws of war, and whose hatred prevented any negotiation. Sound like anyone we know?

Is it possible to occupy just the 'part' from which the rockets are fired and bull dozing it down in punishment and making it a no go area?

Si vis pacem para bellum. And give all them militant thugs and murderers 'paradise now'! Yalla bye.

The article was good. The conclusion was not supported by the facts. First, no nation can allow its citizens to be bombarded by rockets and still call itself a nation. Second, there is no real peace process. There is a process that is actually a show that is choreographed by the US that is attempting to diviert attention from the real mess in the middle east---Iraq and Al-Qadia. The US is also attempting to appease the Arabs of OPEC.