The argument is heard that Israel can only lose the current war against Hamas in Gaza, even if Israel wins militarily. Israel cannot uproot the Hamas ideology, no matter how severe a battering Israel inflicts on Hamas operatives. Israel has no exit strategy. Israel can, at best, inflict a temporary, if terrible, defeat on Hamas. So runs the argument.
To cinch it, the cautionary tale of Israels war in Lebanon, in 2006, is trotted out. Acting as it is in Gaza in 2008-2009, Israel demonstrates that it has not learned the lessons of 2006. There, Israel inflicted heavy military punishment on Hezbollah, but, ultimately, Hezbollah came back, more prestigious and more heavily armed than before. Ergo, Israel is making the same mistake in Gaza. So runs the argument.
The argument is flawed because it ignores several differences between 2006 and now:
First, Lebanon is not Gaza. In Lebanon, Hezbollah built up its power over two decades; in Gaza, Hamas built up its power over two years, and is much weaker than Hezbollah.
Second, Israel ignored Hezbollah when she was occupied by the second intifada, 2000-2005; Israel has not ignored Hamas since it came to power in 2006.
Third, Israels war in Lebanon was on the fly; Israels war against Hamas has been well thought out. Fourth, Israels armed forces had been allowed to deteriorate by 2006; since then, Israel has repaired them. It is a far better fighting force.
More significant differences are these:
First, Israel has learned to brush aside the hypocritical hue and cry over civilian casualties, knowing that Hamas deliberately places its military operations amidst civilians, and is responsible for the civilian damage that Hamas cancellation of the ceasefire has brought. With moral clarity, Israel fights harder, more consistently and confidently in Gaza than she did in Lebanon.
Second, Israel launched a ground invasion in Lebanon in an unplanned and hesitant way, taking the step only after it became clear that an air attack alone would not defeat Hezbollah. In Gaza, Israel planned the ground invasion in advance, knowing it to be inevitable, thus yielding a far more effective operation.
Third, in Lebanon, Hezbollah surprised Israel with its missile power; in Gaza, Israeli intelligence has tracked Hamas missile sites for two years now.
The most important difference is that Israel understands that the war in Gaza cannot end the way it did in Lebanon. It ended there with the positioning of UN troops, which were supposed to keep Hezbollah from rearming. Israel unwisely extremely unwisely entrusted the security of her northern border to the UN. We hope and pray that Israel learned this most critical lesson of all, and will not entrust a defeated Gaza to the UN or to any other international troops. They will only facilitate the rebirth and the rearming, once again, of Hamas. Israel will need to reoccupy Gaza for a while until the Palestinians see that their only way out from under the Israeli thumb is to nominate a moderate Palestinian government.
An Israeli reoccupation is not a happy scenario but it is infinitely happier than the Hamas, rocket-engineered disruption of the lives of 1,000,000 Israelis in all of southern Israel.
Note to the European and American promoters of a ceasefire: The goal of Israel in Gaza is not to halt the rocket fire by Hamas into Israel. The goal is to destroy all of Hamas missiles, missile launchers and arms supply lines. A mere halt to rocket fire will guarantee another replay of this war, as Hamas will launch the rockets it possesses, sooner or later. A destruction of all these rockets will guarantee no replay of this war. A premature and incomplete ceasefire will lead to a dead end in Gaza. No ceasefire before Hamas is utterly defeated.
