Hamas hammered like Hezbollah in 2006

We know, because he told us so (although not in so many words), that Hezbollah's leader, Nasrallah, would not have given Israel a causus belli had he known how hard israel would strike Southern Lebanon and, in particular, Hezbollah and its fighters and arms supplies. In other words, they got hammered.

Now, "a senior [but unnamed] Israeli military officer" says that "...Hamas should be allowed to save face after failing to inflict more pain on the Jewish state. “Their jubilation was not from victory, it was from their relief at being able to emerge from shelters,” said the officer, who could not be identified by name under military regulations."

Further, this same officer argued that "Hamas and other armed Palestinian factions...were now “thoroughly daunted” by Israel and trying to shore up the calm or at least avoid breaching it."

Even better, for those of us committed to Israel's future in peace and security (especially the latter), the officer (who sounds pretty senior to me) went on to say, that while he couldn't estimate how long the cease-fire might hold, there was the threat of "heavier bombing in any future offensive. Though Israel killed the Hamas military chief, Ahmed al-Jaabari, in a Nov. 14 air strike, the officer said several other commanders had been spared because non-combatants were nearby." He also suggested that, next time, the IDF might be forced to be less selective in its targeting, if Hamas and other terrorist groups continued to place and fire missiles from within populated areas.

While we know how the rest of the world will react (only Israel breaches human rights, Hamas doesn't commit war crimes by using civilians as human shields, they'll say), it does suggest that, even if the Israeli officer is only half right, Hamas et al took a pounding from which they'll take a while to recover. We hope.

The full article is in The Forward.

By: Brian Goldfarb