so Israel rejects my good counsel and invades - bad move - unless you pursue invasion to its bitter end you've given upper hand to Hamas since all they have to do is survive to 'win' - and true to form civilian casualties mount, a UN school gets bombed, children die - and now Israel reported receptive to ceasefire talks - and so Hamas wins. By invading you're saying you believe there's a military solution to the Hamas problem, but that's only true if you take it all the way - anything short of that is a failure.
Possibly it works out - possibly Israel is gambling that raising the stakes forces Egypt to play a part, to take actions to rein in Hamas because they fear Iran using Hamas to leverage its power and influence in the region - conservatives in Egypt's autocracy very much fear Iran stoking radical Islamist unrest along the Nile [which is why they are almost alone among Muslim countries in chiding Hamas for breaking the truce - although Egypt is trying to play it both ways: fearful of alienating Hamas and its supporters and yet mindful of the complications arrising thereof] - maybe that's what they're thinking - but to me invasion puts too many cards on the table, you can't back away from it - my plan played close to the vest and focused on the to me much more reasonable goal of degrading Hamas' political power by rather viciously teasing its culture - ie Hamas somewhat stuck with the bravado of being the only Islamist force actually taking it to the hated Jews and being perpetually martyred for the cause - that bravado leaves them exposed to manipulation as they overreach, which is what they did by abrogating the truce - an invasion that doesn't end in obvious victory merely breathes life into that culture - which is why I said don't invade unless you're willing to pursue to the bitter end.
But, like I said, maybe their real goal was to put pressure on Egypt... Update: apparently Israel has now clarified its position re the French/Egyptian ceasefire proposal to represent a more hard line view of such - which I take it to mean they understand fully the logic governing the commitment to invade - does that mean you expect them then to take it to the bitter end? - well... they may still be expecting an Hamas capitulation short of that - I'm not particularly sanguine re such, but after the Lebanon fiasco one tends to want to believe they know what the hell they're doing... still, my approach was better... updated Update: a few missiles launched from Leb - would the Hezzies really try to escalate this thing? - dubious... that would be definite brinkmanship to tempt Israel now, not to mention a defacto admission that Iran is calling the shots - UN suspends relief efforts in Gaza after driver killed by IDF tank fire - you see, there's a cold and cruel logic to this invasion thing... I see very limited end game scenarios that play to Israel's long term advantage and all, I think, excepting the outright destruction of Hamas, could have been achieved without an invasion that by it's very nature then unnecessarily added risks...
