No more virgins for Hamas fans Aaaaaaah.

WRONG IF THE IFD FOUGHT SYRIAS STANDING ARMY IT WPOLD HAVE BEEN OVER IN 3 DAYS WITH TOTAL ISRAELI CONTROL OF SYRIAN AIRSPACE AND THOUSANDS OF SYRIAN ARMY PRISIONERS .THE IDF WENT SLOW IN GAZA {HIGH POPULATION AREA} YOU HAVE ZERO MILITARY BACKGROUND

Exactly right! The brave Israeli soldiers fight to protect their mothers and daughters. While at the same time, the Muslim whiners hide behind their mothers and daughters. They are not even close to being equal.

Well Eran, at 70 I know all about still wetting the bed because of childhood trauma. Trauma incurred by my parents sheltering Jewish people in Holland during WW 2. Trauma when Nazis on Razzia searched for Jews and Mom tried to hide her fear from me, her 5 year old. Trauma when war planes dropped bombs and crashed close by, etc. etc. So let me tell you and all my conflict-injured Israeli friends something. Rejection of all non-friends (Palestinians for you?) only propegates self-destroying bitterness like many people in Nazi occupied Holland nurtured their anti-German bitterness until their death. There is nothing strange about that attitude. It has been said of Queen Wilhelmina that she never returned to one of her royal residences after Germans had used it for lodging. I fully 100 % understand those feelings Mr. Eran, but I thank my psychiatrist to face much of that and help me gain a new life. He helped to break down the psychological inprisonment that I fear is your and your nation's greatest enemy. Trust me Mr. Eran and all my Jewish friends, there is life outside of Zionism, and it is a good life. Our greatest enemy is most often the one within.

Inspite of my Palestinian background I do agree with most of this article. However what is not articulated that Gaza being so small and in the backyard of Israel cannot be independent. The peace efforts from now on should not be wasted on creating an independent Gaza but some form of controlled self rule. It is not ethical to kill so many innocent people every few years to show IDF cababilities.

Israel has no choice but to fire at terrorists firing from civilian areas but Arabs make sure their casualties wind up on Western and Muslim TV to provoke the hysterical response against Israel. So, Israel has to give a lot of thought to the information war as they do to the physical war. The bottom line is,however, Israel has first to protect itself and not wait through 8 years of missiles.

New rules of play Strategic importance of Gaza operation much greater than we assume Isaac Ben-Israel The only one who learned somthing from this operation is the Hamas, to your disadvantage. That will show itself the next round. JESAJA HAPTER 11 VERS 14 - =BUT THEY SHALL FLY UPON THE SHOULDERS OF THE FILISTINES TOWARD THE WEST=. That is to put ones rule upon them. YOU ARE NOT THERE YET. Orao.

Read Yair Lapid's recent column on this website "I am a Zionist" to understand how wrong you are about identity crisis.

I can seen that George has never fought in a war. The USA was had all the sophisticated weapons when they were in Vietnam as did the French before them. The US lost 55,000 men despite bombing the VC via B-52 carpet bombing, F-4 Fantom , Sky Hawk and Wort Hog tactical support. The US also had atleast one carrier fleet off the coast of Vietnam. The US soldier was much better equiped than the VC. The US still lost as did the French before them. Now that you have been that you have been educated about military matters, you must disabuse yourself from the delusion that Hamas tells the truth and your contempt for their military ability. Remember Hamas has stated that they won latest Gaza battle!

Moshe, I would not have to respond. There would be no rocket fire. I would long ago have accepted the Saudi peace proposal. There would be no settlers in the West Bank or East Jerusalem. I would have handed the Golan Heights back to Syria and the Shabaa farms back to Lebanon. I would allow full right of return for Palestinians. If the Arabs outnumbered the Jews I would contract my borders to a smaller area to keep a Jewish majority. I WOULD NEVER USE A GUN TO SOLVE ANYTHING. I would announce friendly intentions to all the nations around me and prove it by trying to help them as much as possible.

Check out my response to #17. I think that when the European Jews came to Palestine in 1948 with their guns blazing (see, for example, Ilan Pappe's work), they lost what made them a special people, and their ensuing actions have served to make them stray further and further from the principles of Judaism.

George, you are missing the point -- Israel is much safer than it was before the war. Everything that you say, be it true or false, is irrelevant!

You can see what happened to the "special [eople" from Europe (6 million slaughtered like sheep). Can you blame them for their "guns blazing"?

You say :” During 6 months of the truce period when Hamas did not fire any rocket.“ George, your above statement is plainly WRONG. DURING the 6 months (July 18th 2008 till December 18th 2008) of the truce Hamas et al fired an average of 20 Kassam rockets and mortars a WEEK from the Gaza Strip onto UNARMED civilians of Sderot, other places in Israel. BTW in the first week after the truce, Hamas et al fired between 50 and 90 Kassam rockets and mortars a DAY from Gaza Strip into Israel. Resulting in the reaction of Israel which started on December 27th 2008 and ending on January 17th 2009.

> A professional Israeli army > equipped wit the latest > technological weapon fighted "fighted" ??? Parlez vous anglais ? > proclaiming heroism and > victory leaving 1200 civilians > dead You forgot to mention "restraint". In WW2, with the technology of 65 years ago, a single night of bombing left tens of thousands of dead. Israelis must have shown lots of care and restraint to cause so few fatalities over more than three weeks of fighting.

nice article, but from a distance, it looks to me that the new game is more in the internal situation in Israel. With Hizballah in the north and Hamas in the south, israelis have come to realise that survival is more important than peacetime morality.. A few lilly-livered Jews from diaspora still don't get it, but they do not matter. It was an impressive show of unity in Israel, and the "international community" took notice. Well done.

However Netherlands holds the worst record, with Poland, of Holocaust survivors: sorry, but you have no right to deny us the right of self defence in our state, particularly in a period where we are facing vocal threats of extermination in Durban from dark or pale faced fascists. Sorry, we experienced the protection of Europe angainst Nazis, we do not trust Eurabia any more against their muslim heirs.

I wish I could agree that Israel won this war, but all her achievements in it depend on Israel's having won a decisive military victory & this didn't happen. So the casualty count was 100:1. Even so, most of the terrorists "melted away" into the bunkers. This is just what happened with the US in both Iraq & Afghanistan. In this case Israel didn't go after them. The terrorists are back to fight again just as they have been in those 2 countries. Israel left Gaza without taking the Philadelphi corridor, so the terrorists are back to rebuild the tunnels and rearm through them. No international arrangement at the border there has ever been a substitute for Israel's ensuring its own security. Israel could have achieved a decisive victory on Jan. 20 when the world was watching Obama's anointment, but it let the terrorists get away. Without the complete military success, Hamas emerges more/less intact and in control of Gaza, and the West has no reason to stop smuggling against a country that squandered the chance to stop it herself. Israel's citizens will pay dearly for Olmert's and Barak's failure to prosecute the war to its conclusion.