As Time Passes, Israelis Begin to Understand the Offensive on Gaza Was a Failure
Written by Sergio Yahni, The Alternative Information Center (AIC) Wednesday, 04 March 2009
During and after Operation Cast Lead, senior Israeli spokespersons highlighted its most apparent achievement: restoring Israel's power of deterrence. In addition, many of those spokespersons linked between asserting Israel's power of deterrence and advancing the peace process.
According to Israeli senior officials “Hamas does not represent any kind of legitimate right or aspiration of the Palestinian people,” as stated by the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tzipi Livni, in a press conference in Sderot on 31 December 2008. Therefore, the peace process will advance if and only if radical Palestinians are disheartened.
At the same press conference, Livni stated that aim of Operation Cast Lead was to change the equation with Hamas.
“We are not prepared to live any longer in a region and in a situation in which they believe that they can do whatever they like—hoping that Israel shows restraint because we are more responsible. We showed that this equation has changed.” she said.
However, Stuart A. Cohen, a military analyst with the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, a research center at Bar Ilan University, claims in a paper published by the center in February 2009, that that Israel's primary objective at Operation Cast Lead failed.
The realities on Israel's southern border proved Israel's expectations wrong, as stated by an editorial published in the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz on 3 March. The newspaper claims that “Hamas proved to
The continuous shelling from Gaza since Israel unilaterally declared a cessation of its military campaign make it obvious that its military was incapable of “changing the equation” despite its capacity to reduce the Gaza Strip to rubble. According to Haaretz “the Qassams and the Grad missiles that continue to fall and to sow fear prove that no deterrence was achieved in this useless war.”
Moreover, Israeli analysts believe that the government’s objective of preventing Hamas from becoming a legitimate political force was missed: “The major damage Cast Lead did was in legitimizing Hamas as the ruler of the Gaza Strip, with increasing calls for ‘reconciliation talks’ that will return the organization to the Palestinian leadership” (Aluf Benn, Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz February 27, 2009).
The public evaluation of the outcome of Operation Cast Lead in
According to the survey, the disappointed believe
This belief is shared also by many of the reserve soldiers who took part in the operation.
"It's as if we did nothing," says G., an officer in the special forces, to Yael Levy from Ynet. The troops under his command operated in the northern
"We should have gone in deeper, into southern
The
Many analysts believe that in the long run,
For
ISRAELI SOLDIERS: WE KILLED FOR NOTHING!
Israeli troops say Tel Aviv has achieved nothing through its three-week offensive against the Gaza Strip.
Israeli troops say they are disappointed that the recent three-week war in the Gaza Strip brought about no achievements for Tel Aviv.
‘It’s as if we did nothing,’ an Israeli soldier who participated in Operation Cast Lead told the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot on Monday.
“We set out to protect southern communities but the fire continues,” another soldier said in reference to rocket-firings from the Gaza Strip.
Israel launched the massive offensive in the coastal enclave last December and continued the onslaught into January in a bid to halt to rocket attacks. Palestinian factions, however, have continued their rocket attacks into Israel.
According to the daily, the result of the war has led the Israeli military personnel to believe that the regime’s policy-makers are incompetence.
“There is a great deal of disappointment. Knowing the enemy, we’ll be going back in soon. The military’s actions were well executed but the problem was the political echelon,” another reservist was quoted by the daily as saying.
“It is very disappointing to see what’s going on now,” said a soldier who took part in the military offensive. “Renewed fighting seems inevitable.”
During the three-week-long military campaign, Israeli soldiers killed more than 1,300 Palestinians including women and children and left thousands of others wounded and displaced.
Abu Obeida: War on Gaza proved Israeli vulnerability to defeat
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