Israel's Gaza-war soul-searching
Those in the Arab world who claim that Israel lost many wars mistakenly perceive the democratic process of auto-criticizing and evaluating misjudgments during the war as admission of defeat.
The reading of Adnan Abu Amer's Al-Monitor article raised rueful thoughts in my mind. It seems to me that despite the fact that we have lived next to and among the Palestinians for almost 100 years, there has been no progress at all in the Palestinian understanding of Israeli society, its character and its principles. As if 67 years have not passed since Israeli independence and the Palestinian Nakba. As if we are not intermixed and jumbled together, cheek by jowl. Indeed, we still have a very long way to go until mutual understanding will prevail between us. I hope that we understand them more than they understand us.
According to Abu Amer, Hamas inflicted a resounding defeat on Israel in Operation Protective Edge in July-August 2014, at least according to the “war diary” and the leaks and testimonials publicized in Israel since the operation. In the exact same breath, Abu Amer details the fact that none of Hamas’ objectives in that war were achieved: the passages were not opened, the closure was not removed, a naval port was not established and an airport will not be built. So how is it that one side (Israel) was defeated in the war, while the other side (Hamas) did not achieve any of its avowed goals?
A short historical overview: Israel won the War of Independence (despite the fact that throughout the war, the Arab armies announced overwhelming victories in the battlefield). Israel also won the Sinai Campaign in 1956 and conquered a large part of the Sinai Peninsula, but at that time Egypt was forced to fight England and France as well, so let’s not count this event. What about the Six-Day War in 1967? This was a decisive Israeli victory that was accompanied by the famous Radio Cairo broadcasts that announced in Hebrew, throughout the entire war, that “Tel Aviv is burning.”
According to the Arabs, Israel hasn’t had a single victory since the Six-Day War. The Arab regimes, media and propaganda give Arab civilians their own version of events: According to them, Israel was routed in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and in the First Lebanon War in 1982. In the Second Lebanon War in 2006, Hezbollah won a great victory over Israel. Then Israel was routed by Hamas in the following operations: Cast Lead (2008-2009), Pillar of Defense (2012) and Protective Edge.
