Versus 1 Israeli officer, I would not call it lost deterrence. An all out war will rid of hamas but then you'll have to feed 2 million wards of the state.

KILL ALL THE IRANIAN LEADERS IN THERE BEDS, AND BOMB THE ATOMIC UNDERGROUND FACILITIES AND BOMB ALL THE OIL REFINERY,S. TO START WITH.

LONG LIVE ISRAEL AMEN AMEN.

For once - agree with you, ben-Yishai !
The Jewish state has Lost its deterrence - big time:
due to the indecisiveness (Cowardice ?!) of Lieberman and co.

Israel is always pulling back giving Hamas relief. Hamas should be clobbered. Then it will take Israel seriously which it is not doing now. The North has to be monitored but it's not at war now.

You have to target the goons. The people directing the campaign to wage continuous war against Israel need to be targeted.

After they respond, it will be time to target the mosques, hospitals, schools, and UN facilities with airstrikes. These facilities will all miraculously demonstrate secondary explosions. These are the real targets.

in Israel doesn't create deterrence.
Stop tipoing aimlessly lest Euros point finger,,kill the killers

The voters evidently don't care, as they worship the Appeaser-in-Chief, who removes metal detectors at the first hint of Arab disapproval, a public relations artist who claims Israel won't accept a drizzle of rockets here and there, but then does exactly that, with the blessings of his inept defense minister and super-moral chief of staff, who refuses to shoot at balloon launchers because he considers them children.

Lets be honest.Israel has turned into a sad joke.How Bibi is still running this country is just sad.I do not feel sorry for them one bit.They deserve everything they get.They refuse to defeat the terrorist.Good luck in your shelters!

The current situation could have been predicted since 2012.
So this story about bibi and idf being at a loss, is rubbish.
What is true though ,is that Israel is slowly being moved into a very bad geopolitical position.
If israel can't identify the ones creating this situation,things look very dark.
Not understanding how it came to this ,is worse than not finding a solution.
It will only get worse.
israel was created as a suicide bomb,and the countdown has started in earnest.

the gazans have fun by playing with fire , and using fire bombs against the the jewish state.

Israel has to respond with deterrence and NAPALM gaza to the END.

THEN,NUKE IRAN WITHOUT ANY RESTRAINT, THE SAME WAY AS DID THE AMERICANS WITH JAPAN.

THE THEY WILL RESPECT AND FEAR , ONLY THEN ,,!

Six of the seven comments below recommend various levels of violence against Hamas to end this never ending conflict. This is never going to work.

About 40 years ago we were in a similar situation in Gaza, but then our enemy was Fatah [PLO]. At that time they too were not prepared to recognize Israel. No matter how many we killed and captured, acts[ of terror continued. [PLO has since recognized Israel's right to exist]


Then a new organization became active in Gaza, a religious organization whose whole purpose was to aid those who needed help, financial or other. There were those in the Shin Bet who saw this as an opportunity to begin a dialogue with Palestinians who did not favor violence and the leader of this organization was taken to meet an Israeli government minister in his office.
It soon became clear that the Shin Bet was wrong. The leader was Sheikh Yassin of Hamas.
We eventually killed him and the military leader of Hamas and the one after him. We also killed the leader of Hesbullah and in his place we got Nasrallah. We killed dozens of top terrorists from various Palestinian organizations as well as thousands of others. [Lieberman promised that if he became Minister of Defence, Hanieh would be eliminated within 48 hours].
To sum up, when people are struggling for independence from an occupier, new leaders will always arise to replace those who have been killed.

The only way to end the continual violence in our area is to find a political solution. The fact that there are numerous Palestinian factions, is a problem. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela was the recognised leader of the ANC. Here Abu Mazen's authority is not accepted by all. I suggest that Israel begin talking to Marwan Barguti. He should be the one who will lead the the Palestinians in peace talks with Israel. If Hamas refuses to accept his leadership, then Israel should proceed to negotiate separate agreements with the PLO in Judaea and Samaria and with Hamas in Gaza the understanding being that these will be two separate states. If at sometime in the future they would want to unite, it would require Israel's agreement.

If Israel were to kill off the kite flyers and take retribution from the air Hamas will have failed to entice Israel into a ground operation. Hamas takes the casualties, the capital property damage and the misery for its citizens. At some point Hamas will have to explain this 4 military calamity and loss. If Israel continues to allow Israel to burn then it will be the Israeli leadership that will have to do the explaining, which is where we are now.

Has Israel lost its deterrence or have they never really used their deterrents. I think the latter :(

Change the regime - they are more receptive than ever now- and start the “bar zomer” diplomacy by sending “suitable “diplomats to issue a message of bond and cooperation. Without kidding there is a historic window of opportunity in iran where the ailing supreme leaders lifetime is counted down. The rivals are jockeying the people look for efficiency and voice their opinions. This is a different iran from the Tehran of my childhood. These days meydane vanak, Jordan and Tajrich look so different and there are such surrealistic contrasts. In busses or in the street even in front of the pastor people taunt the mullahs and the way they bankrupted the country with their wars and mismanagement. I will always remember that the hospital that my grand mother owned got lead at the revolution by the gardener who discovered the Gabriel angel and Islam probably in his attic...

and Israel's enemies can't be deterred, they can be destroyed. That will work.

Bibi has been talking, and talking and taking. It's time for him to take action and sort out the Gaza issue or pack and go home. If Bibi doesn't sort the issues in Gaza and the North, the next election will be the election of the "Generals". Neither Bibi nor Lieberman will be in the list of candidates. People in the South and the North are feed up with the situation the lack of leadership and the lack of action and Bibi will pay the price!

It all rests on the shoulders of Bibi. Form a new government that cares about Israel first, or are there no leaders that believe in Israel first?

is coming to fruition slowly but surely. Bibi has become the Procurement Clerk for Hamas supplying them with all their needs while watching the country burn. He has successfully paved the way for Iran and Hezbullah to overtake Syria and sit on our northern borders and Jordan is waving in the wind. Trump moved the Americans out of Syria to make sure the Kurds and opposition groups wouldn't prevent an Iranian take-over and Bibi praised his every move. Brilliant strategy.......

Throughout human history, permanent peace has been the result of resounding victory, followed by the victor imposing their will on their defeated foes. WW II is a class example. The permanent peace which prevails in most of Europe and Asia today is ENTIRELY the product of the Allies resoundingly defeating Germany and Japan, and imposing their will on them. As the great General George Patton put it, "There is no substitute for victory".

The ONLY reason Israel suffers endless wars, terror and rockets from Gaza is because of our lunatic retreat from Gaza. The answer couldn't be simpler. Israel needs to reverse all our idiotic retreats and concessions to "Palestinians" and retake Gaza and all our abandoned lands forever. Israel must ACT like the victors we are!

Israel lost its deterrence 45 years ago ( 1973 ) when both Egypt and Syria attacked Israel, but go blame that on Netanyahu !!

Israel has not enjoyed deterrence sine 1967 ,has Ron Ben-Yishai only just noticed this ?

If Israel managed to talk to Iran, Qatar, Turkey, and KSA (i.e. the main sponsors of chiite and sunni islamism that is causing so much misery), it would be much more effective than wasting time and energy endlessly fighting their proxies. Even President Trump offered a few hours ago to talk without preconditions to Iran, a smart move IMHO. Why not Israel? Stop fighting the puppets, fight the puppeteers... and if you can't beat them, joln them.

Time for some serious behind the scenes diplomacy. E.g., how about cooperating in the natural gas business that all of them have, including Israel? Or drinkable water infrastructures? A big common profitable project would get all of them to cut their puppets' strings and to concentrate on real important business.

decisions by the PM are made through his election pollsters