To stop Hamas, Israel should cut electricity and supplies to Gaza
*Nice guy
8/21/2014
After the seventh cease-fire collapsed and more than 160 rockets were fired from Gaza in a single day — a record number since the start of Operation Protective Edge — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the nation on Aug. 20. He said, “This is the harshest blow Hamas has taken since it was founded.” Even in the course of the speech, alerts were sounded in all the Gaza envelope communities. The sirens continued throughout the entire day. These alerts cast much doubt on the prime minister’s emphatic declaration.
Although Hamas absorbed a hard blow and many neighborhoods in Gaza were demolished and destroyed, Israel lost its power of deterrence and the leaders of the strongest state in the Middle East are in a quandary. The elimination of three high-ranking Hamas members, including Raed al-Attar, one of those responsible for the abduction of Gilad Shalit in 2006, together with the attempt to eliminate Mohammed Deif, (though it is still unclear if he is alive or dead) were not enough to deter Hamas. The fact that Hamas continues to fire proves it.
The military campaign in the Gaza Strip has been going on for 45 days (as of Aug. 21), twice the length of the 1973 Yom Kippur War that extended for three very harsh weeks. Then, despite that it had been caught by surprise, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) succeeded in surrounding the Egyptian Third Army and completely changed the battle alignment. Hamas is not the Egyptian army. Its rocket and mortar firing obstruct the lives of Israeli civilians, but do not constitute a threat to Israel’s existence.
Yet there is one thing that characterizes the two campaigns that are separated by about 40 years. In the Yom Kippur War, the most traumatic of Israel’s wars, the Egyptian army was prepared and determined to reclaim its honor at any price — its pride that had been trampled on in the 1967 Six Day War. Hamas, like Egypt, is also adamant to fight Israel in an all-or-nothing war for the honor and future of the movement. Therefore, nothing but a clear knockout victory will cause it to deviate from its goal. Not even the heavy price already paid by the Gaza Strip’s residents in the course of the operation can sway it.
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/08/israel-hamas-deterrence-disconnect-gaza-strip-electricity.html##ixzz3B8L4Esdk
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