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Israel Might Have Won; Hamas Certainly Lost

(Times of Israel) David Horovitz - Whether or not Israel "won" - attaining "sustained calm" for its people - will be determined by the negotiations now taking place in Cairo. But Hamas certainly lost. Three weeks ago, with its rocket capacity largely intact, its fighting forces completely intact, the tunnel network it had spent seven years building intact, and most of the Gaza it claims to represent intact, it rejected an unconditional ceasefire. On Tuesday, with most of its rockets used to relatively little effect, hundreds of its gunmen dead, 32 of its major tunnels smashed, and Gaza devastated, it pleaded for the very same unconditional ceasefire. That constitutes defeat. The world is very angry with Israel. It holds Israel primarily accountable for the devastation in Gaza. But for what it's worth, Israelis most of the way across the spectrum honestly aren't too conflicted. They are not insensitive to the terrible death toll and devastation in Gaza; they just know that Israel didn't provoke it, and believe Israel's leaders and armed forces tried to minimize it, in a war Israel didn't want but couldn't avoid. Few Israelis believe that any other country would have tackled the particularly pernicious Hamas strategy of using Gazans as human shields more carefully than the IDF did.
2014-08-07 00:00:00
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