Moshe Arens (Ha’aretz): "The prospect of ground forces entering the Gaza Strip is not particularly attractive, especially after we have been told that "we have left the Gaza Strip forever." But nobody has yet found a way of defeating an enemy without invading their territory."
Caroline Glick (Jerusalem Post): "Olmert, Livni and Barak have made clear that they haven’t changed their defeatist and post-Zionist view of Israel’s prospects at all. Their current operation in Gaza is not aimed at defeating Hamas."
David Grossman (New York Times): "We must not under any circumstances strike with such violence, even though Hamas has for years made life excruciating for the Israelis who live on Gaza’s perimeter, even though Hamas’s leaders have rebuffed every Israeli and Egyptian endeavor to achieve a compromise and prevent a conflagration. Restraint, and our duty to protect the lives of Gaza’s innocent inhabitants, must remain our commitment today, precisely because Israel’s power is almost limitless compared to that of Hamas."
Amos Harel (Ha’aretz): "Even though the IDF operation has thus far been considered a relative success (and the ministers who approved it have benefited from an improvement in their political standing as a result), a dispute has erupted among the country’s senior political echelon over the question of when to begin the process of winding down the operation. The disagreement is rooted in the antipathy that has taken hold among the major players on the Israeli side as well as the tense jockeying for votes."
Herb Keinon (Jerusalem Post): "The relatively modest goal for Operation Cast Lead articulated Saturday by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert — to fundamentally improve the security situation in the south — has morphed in the mouths of some of the country’s key spokespeople over the last three days into the destruction of Hamas, a change that has left some foreign ministry officials extremely frustrated."
Benny Morris (New York Times): "Israel’s sense of the walls closing in on it has this past week led to one violent reaction. Given the new realities, it would not be surprising if more powerful explosions were to follow."
Sever Plocker (Ynet): "Should Knesset elections not be postponed, one of the most fateful military-diplomatic campaigns in Israel’s history will be managed on the back of and in the shadow of a dumb, needless, and morally lacking election campaign. There could be nothing worse than that."
Jerusalem Post (editorial): "There should be no talk of a cease-fire until the declared goal of achieving long-term normality in the South has been attained."
Amir Oren (Ha’aretz): "After sterling start to Gaza op, Barak proves to be a petty politician."
Yigal Walt (Ynet): "Since when is war a mathematical equation? The basic objective of any warring party is to inflict maximal damage on the enemy while minimizing its own casualties."
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