There is no "military solution", and this must also be kept in mind whenever military force is employed. None of the three that make up Israel’s decision-making troika - Prime Minister Olmert, Defense Minister Barak and Foreign Minister Livni - seem to know how the operation will end, or how the fighting will lead to Israel’s official objective : Quiet for Israel’s south and a new reality based on a revamped cease-fire.
We face a dangerous turning point : The UN has made a cease-fire decision, but both Israel and Hamas have rejected it. It’s not clear what Israel will do next. For some days, Israel has been hinting at a "3rd phase" of war, following the Phase I air attacks and the Phase II fighting around Gaza’s populated areas. Phase III would involve entering Gaza’s populated areas.
Israel needs to exhaust all avenues to reach a cease-fire agreement. Barak seems to want a negotiated cease-fire ; Olmert apparently wants to press on with the fighting ; while Livni is talking about Israel declaring a unilateral cease-fire, and waiting to see the Hamas reaction. The fighting will have to end soon : The world won’t give it more than another 48-72 hours, and Israel will not defy the entire world. Israel’s leaders are also cognizant of the upcoming inauguration of Barack Obama and what the change in Administration will mean.
To date, the Israeli Jewish public has been overwhelmingly supportive of the war, comparing it favorably to the debacle in Lebanon in 2006. However, the public is now beginning to ask questions regarding an exit strategy, and public opinion might start to change. For the Israeli Left, the war dynamic has been a predictable one, and things are developing in a pattern similar to that of the Second Lebanon War : Ongoing fighting without resolution, growing civilian casualties and suffering, and no apparent government plan as to how stop what it began.
About the Israeli media’s treatment of the war : Israel is an open society - the images are out there. Israeli TV is showing them in a somewhat toned-down way, but Israelis are also viewing the images on Al-Jazeera and other non-Israeli stations. The big question is the approach taken by Israel’s analysts, its "talking heads". For the most part, they and the general media have been supportive of the operation.
It is also important to understand that Israeli public opinion was very prepared for this war from a psychological perspective. The general sentiment is that the victims were the residents of Israel’s south, who have had to pay a price for 8 years. So despite the different "price" that the two sides are currently paying, Israelis generally feel that, "we didn’t start this". Although there has been a growing sensitivity to the suffering on the Palestinian side, this growth is still slow.
One of the tragedies of the present situation is that the war is being waged with one eye directed at domestic public opinion. To date, Barak and Labor have benefitted the most in the polls. Livni and Kadima had remained essentially unaffected. If there are critics of the war within Labor, they are holding their tongues in public, probably since they do not want to undermine Labor’s gains in the polls. After all, 90% of Israel’s Jewish citizens are behind the war.
As for the New Movement-Meretz party : The war has put an end to the tailwind that the party was enjoying in the polls, which had shown it at 7-9 seats. Nonetheless, the latest polls have the party at 6 or 7, which is very positive, considering the war and the party’s criticism of it.
One cannot absolutely prevent neighbors from arming themselves. Syria, for example, is much more heavily armed than Hamas, and could already hit Tel Aviv ; so could other neighbors of Israel. The question, then, is to how to create a situation, including through the use of deterrence and incentives, in which the other side chooses not to shoot at you. That being said, Reshef expresses support for ending the operation with an agreement that would control and limit the movement of arms into Gaza.
About the idea of "cleaning out" Hamas : realistically, this is simply not possible. Israel occupied much of Lebanon in 1982, that hundreds of Israeli soldiers were killed, and that this still did not stop the attacks on Israel.
The reoccupation of Gaza is simply not an acceptable alternative : A Phase III of the war would result in a great many Israeli casualties and tremendous Palestinian civilian suffering, not to mention the loss of whatever international public opinion is still behind Israel. So Israel needs to finish the war quickly with the best terms possible.
