Israel's Pillar of Defense achieved its goals

O is too busy with US to run Israel for Bibi.

I will wait to see what occurs over the next few months and the outcome of the elections. Israel will need a week to get back to business. Gaza will take a long time to clear its mess. But they will go about it with their heads high.

Its peace treaty with egypt

That's right; united arabs, lost mubarek and egypt, lost turkey with self developing military, electronic warfare, microwave, satellite and ballistic missile technology that will be transmitted to everybody and willing to develop nuclear bomb

And while all this plays out the tunnels will be re-established and the missiles will be replenished and the terrorists will find their courage again and crawl out from under their rocks and resume firing. And then zahal will be called upon again ad infinitum.

No ceasefire until Hamas and Gaza is completely destroyed and retaken.

During the last few years there were many in the Arab World who called for the destruction of Israel. However: Only two managed to gather serious support for this idea. Nasrala and Hanye. They were the only ones who said exactly HOW they would destroy Israel! Nasrala bought about 40,000 rockets showing (with the help of the Israeli media) that he is THE force to be reckoned with. Hanye, somewhat more modest, managed to accumulate 10,000 rockets. What happened during this Pillar of Fog mini-war? Hanye launched his rockets and lo! Nothing happened! ie, for 1000 rockets he achieved 3 dead. This fact will have a really MAJOR effect on the future of both Nasrala and Hamas and, Iran. Imagine Nasrala waking up tomorrow saying he will launch 40,000 rockets on Israel. This time however, there would be many who will say yeah, right! For every 1000 rockets you will kill 3 Israelis, so for your 40,000 rockets you will kill 120! Nonsense! You simply CANNOT win a war like this. The Iron Dome IS the new deterrent.

The goals are what the leaders say at the time of the cease fire Israels goal should have been to destroy hamas. We will see this repeat again until she does.

Other parts successful for Israel: receiving total US support, putting Iran on notice that we can and will take counter-action, that Iran cannot destablize the region so easily, that Hezbollah stayed quiet and cowed. Loss: some of the rockets were bigger and better than we had realized; Syria got a "free pass" for a week. Not to mention our harmed people and infrastructure. So, it was a "win-win" in the purely cold logic of realpolitik. Hamas didn't really lose (everything).

This war has achieved next to nothing other than killing, murder, and destruction of property. I bet 9 out of ten will agree with me. What a waste.

Come on Netanyahu, Barak and Lieberman be honest... Israel lost. Stop bowing down to that sinking ship America. Hamas will just re-arm and in the next round it will be the Sharon being hit.

If Israel wanted to topple Hamas, it would have sent its troops in to do the job. No, Israel's goals were to deal a great blow Tongans and re-in store the deterrence. I think both objectives were met with ease

I think this is putting a brave face on the outcome. From a political point of view, Hamas had teh upper hand given that a ground invasion would have likely cost the Israeli government teh elections. The moves now to lift or ease of teh blockage shows that Hamas will walk away with a net gain. It's too bad the politicians on both sides think of wars as political maneuvers and treat civilians as collateral damage.

You know the old saying "You are what you eat"? Well, it's also true "You are what ypu think"! We Israelis live in fear. Hamas lives in hate and the glorification of death. Both thought processes are destructive to the core. The trouble with fighting Islamic fascism in Gaza & South Lebanon is that our enemies target both our civilians and their civilians at the same time. Our survival requires that we suspend our Judeo/Christian western ethos of rationality and mercy, and crush our enemies as they would have done to us. In a twist to the Golden Rule "Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you" - what happens when the other side misinterprets this Western gem and turns it on its head? Are we supposed to do unto them what they do unto us? The answer is clear if we are to survive in this neighborhood.

No chance it will hold the water. Ground operation is going to happen this way or another, soon or after elections. The bloody bus in Tel Aviv would not wash with Bibi, no way. We are in the begging of another period of confrontation and military operations.

Israel needs to concentrate with the PA and not Hamas. It is not reasonable at this time to expect their acceptance of all the 3 conditions by the Quartet because the main focus is the PA-Israeli negotiations and Hamas agreed that President Abbas lead the talks on behalf of the Palestinians. Perhaps in the near future, Hamas and the other factions will not only change their ideologies and activities of violence, but will articulate Israel's existence in the ME after the PA signs a peace agreement on behalf of all Palestinians. Hamas is not ready. How can an addiction to violence and destructive behaviour against Israel be transformed within months ? It's not really reasonable for Israel to focus on Hamas changing politically in the near future and therefore indirect relations are at best achieved through the PA and Egypt. As long as there is quiet in Gaza, Israel has to focus on the PA and not Hamas at this time. Hamas's contribution now in exchange for quiet is more quiet during peace negotiations. If there is a relapse, then not to over-react and encourage the quiet for the sake of relations in the future. I think that's how it will work.

Netanyahu's meglomaniacal plans got him up to his neck in it given he got rocket fire to the density he did not expect and needed Egypt,Obama and Clinton to save his butt.

These comments all seem to be mental masturbation. This reporting good good analysis of the most positive outcome we could have hoped for

Cast Lead ended with a "unilateral ceasefire" by Israel i.e. Israel ended that operation without making ANY agreement with Hamas. This time around Netanyahu had to sign a document, which means that for the Very First Time Ever Israel has had to officially commit itself to a modus vivendi with Hamas. That's a big difference.

The objectives were to topple Hamas and stop rocket fire from Gaza. Both failed, meaning "Israel" failed. What else do you call it when your objectives are not met?

For the sake of the civilians on both sides.

So that's what it was +really+ all about - mainly stabilising relations with Egypt. What a relief to know that IDF's gratuitous murder and maiming of all those civilians had a point to it. And of course the really good news is that all those pulverised buiildings - homes and offices and whatnot, were a justifiable expense. Here is a totally unworkable ( I would bet) proposition: Get ordinary Gazans to clean up the remaining rubble left by their rocket attacks over the past two weeks, and get ordinary Israelis to clean up the mess made by IDF explosives in Gaza, over the past two weeks. And what a shame the people directly responsible for firing rocksts and dropping bombs, or for ordering the destruction, don't ever have to physically help clean up their mess with own two hands.

Something much more significant better have been agreed behind the scenes. Otherwise, this is the same old farce. The chance of Hamas keeping its word is about 0 to none unless some higher authority has provided a guarantee. Have they promised to change their charter and motivation? Will they stop teaching hatred and blood-lust in their schools? Are they finally going to hold the best interests of the Palestinians above the maniacal need to kill infidels? Something tells me that the "holy war' will go on.