Elite opinion believes Israel will lose “long-term” whatever happens in the next weeks. Not necessarily.

By Victor Davis Hanson, NRO

In postmodern wars, we are told, there is no victory, no defeat, no aggressors, no defenders, just a tragedy of conflicting agendas. But in such a mindless and amoral landscape, Israel in fact is on its way to emerging in a far better position after the Gaza war than before.

Analysts of the current fighting in Gaza have assured us that even if Israel weakens Hamas, such a short-term victory will hardly lead to long-term strategic success – but they don’t define “long-term.” In this line of thinking, supposedly in a few weeks Israel will only find itself more isolated than ever. It will grow even more unpopular in Europe and will perhaps, for the first time, lose its patron, America – while gaining an enraged host of Arab and Islamic enemies. Meanwhile, Hamas will gain stature, rebuild, and slowly wear Israel down. Read more…

Op-Ed: To My Soldiers and the Jewish People: We Have Won!

Words written as the fighting ceases. Officer Shechter adds: “Hope you will all have the patience to read to the end. Send this to everyone and tell all the Jewish People that we must realize that we have won!”

Lt. Col. (Res.) Uri Shechter, INN
The writer is Dep. Commander (Res.) of the IDF Nachal Brigade.

These words are dedicated to the wonderful officers and soldiers of the Nachal Brigade, to the bereaved families, wounded soldiers and their families, to all the IDF soldiers and to our wonderful Jewish People.

As we end a month’s battle in Gaza, and I hear questioning noises about its outcome, it is important to me to tell all of the Jewish People that we have won. Victory is ours from both a military and a civilian point of view.

As far as the military results are concerned, we can be holding victory celebrations. Hamas is on the rocks, at best he can stick his head out of his hiding places for a second and signal a “V” with his hands – until he gets a welll-aimed rocket, that is.
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I am told that Netanyahu has two redlines. 1) don’t allow the peace process to be linked to the ceasefire negotiations. 2) don’t allow any rebuilding until demilitarization is agreed to. Let’s see if they step over them. I don’t understnd why Israel is cooperating with Egypt to install the PA at the border. What’s all that about? Ted Belman

Shlomo Cesana, Daniel Siryoti, Yoni Hirsch, Lilach Shoval and Israel Hayom Staff

According to Egyptian reports, the cease-fire negotiations now taking place in Cairo will see Hamas give in to Egyptian demands.

“Hamas suffered a blow to its military, both its rockets and its tunnels, and [Hamas officials] arrived in Cairo to find none of their demands on the agenda,” one diplomatic official said.

“Hamas could have achieved the same thing with the first cease-fire effort, but they rejected the Egyptian initiative then and now they are giving in to Egypt’s dictate. The blockade is not being lifted. At the end of the day, the Egyptian initiative won out and so Hamas lost.”
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DEBKA

As the Israeli delegation arrived in Cairo for indirect talks with Hamas, at the end of the first 24 hours of a three-day ceasefire in the Gaza War, Israeli government spokesmen went to great lengths Tuesday night, Aug. 6, to convince the public that the Gaza war was over and the enemy seriously degraded.

Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz went to so far as to declare: “We now move into a period of rehabilitation.” This was not exactly the message the soldiers wanted to hear from their commander as they headed out of the battlefields of Gaza after 28 days of hard fighting and heavy losses.

But government PR artists were already churning out a horror what-if scenario that depicted a theoretical operation for conquering the entire Gaza Strip.
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By Caroline Glick, JPOST

There is only one thing worse than reasserting Israel’s military control over Gaza: Losing southern Israel. 

[..]

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By Ted Belman

Why is Israel participating in the ceasefire talks.She will be forced to concede more than she wants to and will not get what she wants. At lease if she boycotted the talks, she wouldn’t be conceding anything.

For all Bibi’s tough talk and spin, the reality is otherwise. Bibi pulled the IDF out of Gaza to meet a prime demand of Hamas before negotiations started. In a blink of an eye he sent a delegation to Cairo for ceasefire talks knowing what the Arabs were demanding. A tougher response would have been to say “call me when you are ready to negotiate demilitarization”. The truth of the matter is that Hamas will never agree to demilitarization. The fact that Bibi didn’t draw a line in the sand means that he is flexible on demilitarization.

JPOST published an analysis by Herb Keinon of the negotiations that lie ahead.

[..] And now those EU leaders will ask for payback from Israel for giving it the diplomatic space to wage the campaign, and the currency in which they will want to see payment will be “progress in the Mideast peace process.”

“You want our help demilitarizing Gaza, be more forthcoming toward Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank” will be the likely refrain. And this refrain will also be heard from Washington, where the Gaza crisis further strained the already less than ideal Obama-Netanyahu relationship. Read more…

DEBKA

Israel and a Palestinian delegation to talks in Cairo, including Hamas, were due to start observing a 72-hour ceasefire in the Gaza Strip starting Tuesday, Aug. 5, at 8 a.m., to be followed by negotiations under Egyptian aegis for a long-term cessation of hostilities.

This decision flies in the face of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s solemn pledge 48 hours earlier to continue Operation Defensive Edge until Hamas and its terrorist allies stopped firing rockets (a massive barrage was fired up to five minutes to eight).

He stated that Israel was turning away from ceasefire accords, which Hamas had violated six times causing IDF fatalities, and reserving its military and diplomatic freedom of action to act solely in its own security interests. “No accommodation, only deterrence” was the motto of the moment Saturday night, Aug. 2.

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Preventing Hamas from rearming, with regional support, is government’s top priority; Jerusalem willing to ease Gaza blockade

BY RAPHAEL AHREN, TOI

Group hasn’t abandoned its ideology but swapped armed resistance against retaining control over Gaza,

bY BY RAPHAEL AHREN, TIMES OF ISRAEL
August 5, 2014, 5:59 pm 4

Fallen IDF soldiers in Operation Protective EdgeSecurity guard stabbed near Ma’ale AdumimDefeat for Hamas, devastation for GazaAs fighting halts, IDF chief promises help to rehabilitate GazaGaza minister: War caused $5 billion worth of damageThe tipping pointFear of Gaza tunnels empties kibbutz of childrenAs truce holds, Israelis set to negotiate long-term solution
By agreeing to the Egyptian ceasefire proposal, Hamas has temporarily renounced a part of its “terrorist identity” and relinquished its ability to carry out attacks against Israel, a senior Israeli official said Tuesday.

The group hasn’t abandoned its radical and violent anti-Israel ideology, but for practical reasons decided to swap armed resistance for retaining control over the Gaza Strip, said Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Yossi Kuperwasser, the director-general of the Strategic Affairs Ministry.
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TIMES OF ISRAEL

Some 900 operatives from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian terror groups were killed in the Gaza Strip in the four weeks of fighting, since Operation Protective Edge was launched by the IDF on July 8, a senior Israeli military source said Tuesday.

The source added that the Israel Air Force hit a total of 4,800 targets in the Palestinian enclave.

Health officials in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip say that close to 1,900 Palestinians have been killed since the fighting began, most of them civilians and many of them children. Palestinian rights groups have claimed that 84 percent of those killed in the conflict were civilians; Israel disputes those claims. Israel has blamed Hamas for the deth and destruction in Gaza, since it emplaced its rockets, rocket launchers, cross-border tunnel openings and other military infrastructure in homes, schools and mosques, and thus used Gazans as human shields.
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August 03, 2014  http://t.co/BSPEvGgiXI
Elders of Zion

I have described how Hamas is violating at least 19 principles of international law in the current fighting.

Now, is Israel?

The criticism most often given of Israel’s actions is that it is violating the “principle of distinction.” The Geneva Conventions Additional Protocol 1, article 52, states it this way:

1. Civilian objects shall not be the object of attack or of reprisals. Civilian objects are all objects which are not military objectives as defined in paragraph 2.

2. Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives. In so far as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.
3.  In case of doubt whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used.

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By Terrence McCoy August 4    Washington Post  

It’s a pattern of territorial expansion that has now become familiar. After the Islamic State captured Sinjar on Sunday, came the executions. Then arrived the orders to convert or die, the flash of the movement’s black flag, the fleeing of thousands — and, finally, the jubilant and chilling images on social media.

One showed a destroyed Shiite shrine, which had long sat in the ancient city of Sinjar in northwestern Iraq. Another depicted the executions of several blindfolded men. There was an image of two masked men who had climbed a tall building, enshrouded its edifice in a black Islamic State flag, and blasted a pistol into the air. Then there was a picture showing a masked jihadist hoisting a gun at the desk of the town’s mayor — a portrait of a famed Kurdish guerrilla leader looming behind.
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The NYT has so many blind spots that they fail to understand or acknowledge, what America has done wrong in trying to force Israel to the ’67 lines, stop settlements, release murderers, apologize to Erdogan and to prevent Israel from attacking Iran. How could they be so stupid? Furthermore, by now everyone knows that Israel didn’t bomb the school, everyone that is, other than the NYT. They fail to understand that stopping the violence in Gaza is effectively wanting Israel not to victorious. That to create a parallel ceasefire process with Qatar and Turkey to the one with Egypt that Israel prefers, is to knife Israel in the back. Not to mention rejecting demilitarization until a peace agreement is worked out. That to support all of the demands of Hamas up front is not a further cause for alienation. They complain about our tough talk about Kerry and the US proposals, but not a word of all the tough talk from the US which amounted to threats should we defy them. How could they be so stupid? Ted Belman

NEW YORK TIMES AUG 4/14

WASHINGTON — When the State Department condemned Israel’s strike on a United Nations school in Gaza on Sunday, saying it was “appalled” by this “disgraceful” act, it gave full vent to what has been weeks of mounting American anger toward the Israeli government.

The blunt, unsparing language — among the toughest diplomats recall ever being aimed at Israel — lays bare a frustrating reality for the Obama administration: the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has largely dismissed diplomatic efforts by the United States to end the violence in Gaza, leaving American officials to seethe on the sidelines about what they regard as disrespectful treatment.
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Al Arabiya News
Monday, 4 August 2014

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered Monday air support for Kurdish Peshmerga troops who are planning a counter-offensive against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria fighters in northern Iraq after being routed in battles on Sunday, the Associated Press reported.

A Kurdish official was quoted by AP saying the Kurds had been overstretched in the region but were now calling in a large number of fighters to hit back against the Sunni extremist group.

Thousands displaced by ISIS insurgency
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idfblog.com on Aug 4 2014

IDF forces in the Gaza Strip found a Hamas manual on “Urban Warfare,” which belonged to the Shuja’iya Brigade of Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades. The manual explains how the civilian population can be used against IDF forces and reveals that Hamas knows the IDF is committed to minimizing harm to civilians.

Throughout Operation Protective Edge, Hamas has continuously used the civilian population of Gaza as human shields. The discovery of a Hamas “urban warfare” manual by IDF forces reveals that Hamas’ callous use of the Gazan population was intentional and preplanned.
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This is similar to what I recommended namely, arrange for emigration of Arabs and annex Gaza. Whereas I wanted to get the international community to take it upon themselves to provide destinations for the emigrants to go to and to pay for same, Moshe Feiglin simply wants Israel to give financial inducements to Arabs to leave.  But they still need welcoming destinations.  Secondly I did not offer Blue cards to them.  The Arabs in Jerusalem still have the option to apply for citizenship. I prefer to offer them no alternative to emigration.  I presume, when he offers certain areas adjacent to the Sinai and the sea he means within Gaza.  Works for me. Ted Belman

By Moshe Feiglin To Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,

The failures of Operation Protective Edge were inherent from the outset, because:

A.  It has no proper and clear goal and;

B.  There is no appropriate moral framework to support our soldiers.

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Many nations want Hamas to be disarmed, but the Israel Defense Forces will doubtless be left to do the dirty work. It is a task of paramount importance.

By Moshe Arens, HAARETZ | Aug. 4, 2014 | 1:32 AM |

There is a long list of countries that would like to see Hamas in Gaza disarmed. To rid this terrorist organization and its terrorist ally, Islamic Jihad, of the labyrinth of tunnels they have dug under the Gaza Strip, housing its command and control centers, its supply depots, and which serve as launching points for attacks against Israeli cities, towns and villages. To rid it of the thousands of rockets still in its possession, after having launched more than 3,000 rockets against Israeli civilians during the past four weeks, and of the manufacturing facilities for these rockets.

This list is obviously headed by Israel, which has had to deal with this arsenal of weapons in the hands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and will have to contend with it in the future unless Gaza is demilitarized.
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Op-ed: Fighting an enemy state with one hand while supplying food and energy to its residents with the other hand is absurd.

Giora Eiland, YNET NEWS

Regardless of how Protective Edge ends, this operation appears to have one clear lesson, which doesn’t have to do with the tunnel issue but with a more strategic question. Israel is repeatedly falling into the asymmetry trap.

The story we are telling in this conflict is similar to the one we told in Lebanon in 2006. In this story we are fighting a terror organization, and only a terror organization, while the population the organization is operating from is not the enemy. Moreover, during the fighting we even feel obligated to supply Gaza’s residents with food, fuel and electricity.
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I certainly don’t want to conquer Gaza for the benefit of Abbas. I don’t believe Israel should be an occupier of Gaza long term. Nor do I want to give anything in return for a ceasefire. Hamas shouldn’t be rewarded for inflicting this war on us. It remains to be seen who has the staying powers under the new rules.  And what kind of pressure will the Obama administration put Israel under in order to open the borders. Israel should insist on demilitarization including unlimited inspection and access as the precondition for opening borders. In the meantime we should try to sell the idea of the world taking in about 900,000 refugees in
Gaza and leave it to Israel to annex the land and rebuild it at its own expense.  Until such time such an option is available, I see no value in occupying Gaza. Sooner or later we will have to end the occupation. The present choice is much better for israel.  Ted Belman.

By Sarah Honig

Posted on August 4, 2014

This is no wholesale retreat – all options remain open after Hamas was dealt grievous blowsThe rule of thumb in gauging any public’s mood is that the higher the expectations, the deeper the let-down. Put differently, it may be argued that the more unrealistic the expectations, the more groundless the grumbles.

By Mort Klein and Daniel Mandel,  ALGEMEINER

Has President Barack Obama ‘got Israel’s back’? When policy is compared to rhetoric, the answer is no. Thus, when Hamas, a terrorist organization which calls in its Charter for the worldwide murder of Jews, launched a new round of rocket assaults on Israel, Obama declared, “We support [Israel’s] military efforts … No nation should accept rockets being fired into its borders or terrorists tunneling into its territory.”

But Obama’s policy is entirely different –– imposing what he calls “an immediate, unconditional humanitarian cease-fire that ends hostilities now.” Moreover, Secretary of State John Kerry informed Hamas via Qatar that Hamas’ demands for weakening the Israeli blockade would be met. In attempting to reach this cease-fire, Obama has bypassed the Palestinian Authority and Egypt –– Hamas antagonists–– and worked closely with Qatar and Turkey –– both munificent Hamas supporters. Read more…