Yehuda Lev sees it correctly , but forgets that the people here voted for weakminded people , who are tyred of winning and prefer to bow down to their idols of the western so-called culture. Wit a media in the hands of these same idolworshippers and a small wealthy group off secualr princes who hold all the power , since the the start of this atheist based state. As long as Israelis are more interested in dumm reality T.V. shows and so on ,we will be at the mercy of people who are not familiar with mercy nor justice, only with money and power.

When did we EVER press our advantage since the establishment of the state? I think never. We just don't know how to win - and I say that all the time. It's just so evident you would think it would be a sort of common knowledge & we wouldn't do it again. But, we do it over & over it seems. I wasn't for totally eliminating Hamas & regime change - that would have been a stupid move. But, we certainly didn't hurt them enough. Even when we win, we somehow figure out how to ruin it & this Gaza Op was certainly no exception.

Think about it. Bush did not care about the health and welfare of his country. Bush cared about suppressing individual liberties in the US, a senseless war and occupation of Iraq to hand it from Saddam over to the Shiites (is the Iraqi government now an ally of Israel?) and furthering his religious agenda. The civilian infrastructure: roads, bridges, electrical power generation and transmission, were simply let go. The Saudi embassy in Washington got Secret Service protection.
Now. Do you think anyone in Kadima today, including Sharon, really cares? They are after personal power, a medeaval fiefdom. That's all. 'Cast Lead' may have been all about Bibi's gains in the polls.

THIS ARTICLE SHOULD BE DROPPED OVER OLMERT LIVNI BARAK PERES AND THE REST OF THE CREW HOMES WHERE THEY LIVE BY A THOUSAND LEAFLETS THEN OVER THE KNESSET, and the citizens, Then over the UN I ONLY WISH IT WAS WRITTEN BEFORE THE WAR AS IT IS NOT AFTER THIS RECENT FACT, THIS ARTCLE IS AN ACCOUNTING OF FACTUAL HISTORY WHICH ISRAELI PEOPLE AND LEADERS HAVE NOT A CLUE and should be taught in school, every school yeshivot and secular THE ARABS ALREADY KNOW THIS, SO LEAVE THE ARABS OUT OF THIS. THANKS DACON9 jewswithviews@gmail.com

IDF did great, no more was needed. As usual, the arabs were crushed, and then they shouted victory. But Israel prevails, yet again.

You can relax .The opportunity was not there and it will never be there .Israel will dissappear before Hamas.

Outstanding article The least we can do now is bringing war crimes charges and charges against humanity against Hamas who are the duly elected govt of Gaza. Sue by class action the NGO's who imply that our soldiers are war criminals. We must go and stay on the offensive. This is the new field of operation and we must win there

i totally agree with Yehuda Levy, finally an article written with good , solid common sense. No goal is achieved if from the outset you 1) haven't clearly defined your goal and if 2)you are not unwaveringely determined to reach that goal. Otherwise what's the point? To go in and out and out and in again? One doesnt have to be a Einstein to figure this out but maybe a Freud to wonder what this political hesitation is about is surely necessary.... Shalom & Lechaim to all Israel

This analysis is precisely on point. Without a definitive war goal, that of achieving victory, it is impossible to secure our national interest. EACH & EVERY time the IDF is close to victory our deluded, appeasement oriented leaders stop short. IF I were a cynic I would be forced to conclude that the political leadership have NO interest in squashing our enemies. For if they did so, then who would they hand over our heartland to? Anyone?

I'm pretty left wing - what the Americans call a tree-hugger. Always ready to "try again". Yet I am frustrated with Israel's lack of resolve in dealing with Hamas. We have overwhelming firepower, and superior traininng and expertise. What we lack is the iron-fisted determnination to see the job through to the end - the total and complete military defeat of Hamas - by that I mean the capture or killing of sufficient numbers of Hamas to cause them to be dilodged from power. Did Europe and the US waiver in the carpet bombing of Germany? Did they open food lines for a few hours a day to feed the "good Germans". Did the US stop with its nuclear attack on Hiroshema? Have we forgotten that Nagasaki was necessary to cause the surrender and humiliation of Japan? And let's not fool ourselves - it is the complete and total defeat and humiliation of Hamas that is necessary. What we physically bombed can be rebuilt. Much more difficult is the rebuilding of reputation. We must destroy Hamas's reputation (and with it damage Iran's credibility in the region), so that the Palastinian people will turn to more moderate leaders with whom a political union and peace can be achieved. So what we have now is the same political condemnation from the hypocrital world that we'd have had had we gone all the way in doing whatever was necessary to destroy Hamas. But instead we have that condemnation plus a strengthened Hamas. Difficult objectives are never achieved easily. Israel must unsheath its iron fist and crush these terrorists once and for all. Oh, and as a side note: which brilliant politician decided to allow the "humanaterian" aid into Gaza without tying it to the release of Shalit, or to some other concrete action by Hamas? For a smart nation, we seem to be coming up short very often..

Then, as usual, you are blind.

Also to be a dagger at throat of others

when Lieberman becomes Israel´s PM.

Let be ABSOLUTELY clear. We lost Gaza war. May be a little no War/no Peace for about 1-2 months. Then Egypt will send more grads to Gaza, paid by Saudi money.

Who wants Hamas out of power. Having a splintered enemy is much better than a unified one. Imagine if the P.A. was in charge of Gaza too. The pressure for Israel to give up land would be enormous. Better to have these factions at odds with each other. It saves Israel from suicidal land give backs.

Remember Moshe Dayan? The one-eyed fool panicked in 1967 and literally handed over the keys to the Temple Mount,for which Jews prayed and begged for two thousand years,to our mortal enemies..the Moslems.Winning has become a dirty word in Israel.The only victory Olmert,Livni,Barak,Netanyahu are even remotely interested in is their own personal political victory.The rest of the country can fend for itself as far as they are concerned.Why else did they not respond for 8 years to rockets from Gaza but only just before the elections?

Yehuda Halevy mentions three times that Israel failed to turn military success into total victory. In 1990 under Shamir and Ahrens, Israel shattered the "resistance" of the First Intifada. The PLO and Arafat were meaningless for the first time since 1964. Israel could have determined its own safe borders and imposed unarmed autonomy on the local Arabs, bringing peace. Instead, Israel imported Arafat together with 100000 armed soldiers. Arafat immediately started educating the Arab children to unconditionally accept the PLO charter call for the destruction of Israel.

The best I have read so far. Opportunity to deal decisive blow to Hamas missed because of lack of political will We must set our house in order and rediscover our self belief and identity as the only Jewish state on this planet. But most of all, when we must go to war, we need to execute it with clear goals and relentless finality. Our government must understand that military power is nothing without the power that lies in the will of good leadership and a nation united in purpose. YES YOUR IDENTITY IS THE PEOPLE OF GOD, THAT IS TO DO THE WILL OF GOD. ISRAEL WAS COMANDED 3500 YEARS AGO TO EXTERMINATE THE FILISTIINES BUT DID NOT. YOU ARE STILL FIGHTING YOUR DISSOBEDIENSE REPENTENSE IS NEEDED. Orao.

there were 10,000 new born in Gaza during the 22 days, so the balance is 8,700.

Crushing and destroying the Iranian puppet, Hamas, would not only have gotten rid of Hamas, it would have set back Iran from obtaining new puppets. It's not long til Israeli elections. I wish you better letters this time.

died from natural causes. How many die per week in Gaza from natural causes and were they counted among the war dead by Hamas?

It's not about the elections as it is for the society's determination and need. Less than 150 dead in 2006 caused an upset in the country, and could barely be accepted. The people in Israel were left with a war they felt they lost (which is not true at all, but more on that later), a need to reestablish the military power that was believed to be lost, and also the attacks coming from Gaza for the past years. One has to fight to make the others believe he did not get any weaker, and 67' shows that best. The people feel they Need to show it, but can not bare the dead. And 8 years of rockets? Well, except for the last year when it reached Ashkelon, can you really say that somebody in the north/middle of the country cared? Blaming the ones in charge is the easiest, but they only represent the society's condition. Why do you think Liberman and the right wing get so much power these days? Hezbollah had lied to itself since 2006 and made themselves believe they won, despite the horrible condition them and Lebanon was left in. Iran, Syria and of course Hamas finally believed them too, and the worse is that Israel started to believe them as well, which made for a need among the people to show their military superiority. More than that, the timing was very very thin. The Operation started during Christmas, for obvious reasons, and therefore could be kept so strong for the first week, but that also made it the first thing every strong government in the world was dealing with when they came back. Also the elections in the U.S. made it quite fragile, because starting the relationship with such a balanced person as Obama with a war won't do good in the long run. Overall I think Israel did very good. Now the only thing left is to make notes and prepare for the next war, on the media battlefield. Thank you very much for the read.

so you are saying the birth rate is 170,000 Gazans a year? or a fertility rate of over 10%?

if i hade a wounded person and a woman in labour i will opened the emergency room to wounded if need blood i will give it before . women deliver by nature and i think israil is in a moment of .... not delivery . help the wounded

The Israeli settlers who are on the West Bank now should be allowed to remain there, as that is their Jewish and Israeli homeland. They should never be deprived of this homeland and I support Netanyahu and I believe that Netanyahu will stand by God's will and let the Jewish people keep their Homeland on the West Bank. We have already seen the tragedies and death that have occurred as a result of giving up Gaza. To give up the West Bank is to relive Gaza and continuing war. We must follow God's will as Israel is the last and only sacred place for Jews. Tzipi Livni has vowed to give our land away on the West Bank and to create a Palestinian state of hatred and ill will against Jews. With Livni we will only strengthen the Palestinians who, like history has shown, will come to destroy Israel. Israel is such a small country and Palestinians have such a high birthrate that, to quote Bob Simon of 60 Minutes on 1/25/09, "they will be the majority of the population in Israel within 10 years." It is sacrilegious to give away the West Bank or any other land. The destruction of Israel will begin if Tip Living becomes Prime Minister. In the holiest of mosques, before Allah and God, Palestinians pray "Death to Israel". It is important to elect Netanyahu so that the Palestinians' prayers do not occur.

Once again...Opinion polls take time. Analyzing those polls and calibrating their implications take time. Prognosticating the influence and effects that these attitudes will have on Election Day takes time. The sitting senior ministers who aspire to lead our country in the post - February 2009 election era would not want to defend our people, nation and land without first knowing whether the action/reaction will be popular. They, B&L, do not want to forfeit the great surge in popularity that they recently earned. So, my friends, my fellow readers, Zahal action will not be “precipitous.” The decision will be judiciously deliberated and politically calculated. With a fortnight until elections, the incumbent triumvirate must be careful, very careful. Madison Avenue might make the next strategic judgement for us. Heaven help us, please!