Magazine

No ordinary trial by fire for Israel

Hamas must replace rockets with diplomacy and settle on some kind of formula that recognizes Israel’s right to exist.

Two IDF Iron Dome batteries
Photo by: Ben Hartman
Israel and Hamas are at war again. This comes after only one electoral cycle following the three-week nightmare that cost the lives of 13 Israelis and over 1,400 Palestinians in 2008-2009. Operation Cast Lead was intended by Israel’s then-centrist government to restore deterrence on the southern front. But typical of unresolved conflicts in this leg of the woods, one round barely ends when the countdown to the next begins.

With operation “Pillar of Defense,” the stated intent of the Likud-led right-wing government is still to suppress the constant “terror of rockets” that has been plaguing cities in Israel’s south and now also in the Gush Dan metropolitan heartland situated on the central coastal plains.

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