Much to the delight of critics abroad, some Israelis right and left have declared this summer’s war a failure, or at the very least a draw. True, Hamas remains in power, and is no doubt already preparing for its next war. But to see the war as anything but an Israeli victory is to misunderstand it deeply, writes Omri Ceren:
The story of the war is not a complicated one. In June, Hamas operatives activated long-in-the-works plans to escalate terror operations in the West Bank and military attacks from Gaza. Israel responded by launching Operation Brother’s Keeper and then Operation Protective Edge, which were aimed respectively at eroding Hamas’s terror infrastructure in the West Bank and its military infrastructure in Gaza. By the middle of August, Jerusalem announced that Israeli security forces had secured the strategic goals of both campaigns.
In fact, Israel’s strategic position—with no army in the Middle East capable of launching a full-scale invasion and with a Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, who at least says out loud that the Jewish state is not going anywhere—has never been stronger. The country emerged from the summer’s violence more rather than less secure.
Read more on Commentary: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/yes-israel-won-in-gaza/