Former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert - Israelis Must Flood the Streets to Keep the IDF Out of Rafah

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-05-03/ty-article-opinion/.premium/israelis-must-flood-the-streets-to-keep-the-idf-out-of-rafah/0000018f-3aac-d516-afbf-feeea9ff0000

https://archive.ph/jEB1J



After more than six months of hybrid warfare – in the air, on land and underground – it's possible to conclude that the bulk of Hamas' military power has been dismantled. Most of its rockets and launch sites have been destroyed and there has hardly been any rocket fire from the Gaza Strip for over four months. This isn't the result of some tactical decision by Hamas intended to deceive and disarm Israeli security forces, to then surprise us again with an unexpected attack that could gravely damage the home front and our combat units. It is highly likely that Hamas has hardly any rockets or launch sites left and is incapable of operating the few it has, as the military controls most of the areas from which rockets could be fired at Israel.

A considerable portion of Hamas fighters has been killed, an accomplishment that is highly significant. These are not just its frontline combatants, but also members of its command level. It is almost certain that the most senior commanders, above all Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, are still alive. They are hiding in places whose penetration could exact a heavy price from Israel, one that would be wrong to pay. It will be possible to hit Sinwar and Deif in future targeted actions, even if it takes time and does not necessarily suit the prime minister's personal timetable. For him, the killing of Hamas commanders is an opportunity to throw a victory gala designed to obscure the magnitude of the failure for which he bears responsibility – the October 7 disaster.

However, as has been said repeatedly, the course of the war and its priorities must not be made subordinate to Netanyahu's personal needs. There is no one in Israel who isn't yearning to hear of Deif and Sinwar being killed. They are cold-blooded arch-murderers who lack moral inhibitions, terrorists in the fullest sense of the term. As much as we want to take them out, we must act with restraint, patience and reason. During the Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was defined as a target for a strike. We wanted to chop off the head of that poisonous snake, but we did not make the war subservient to this cause alone. Ultimately, Nasrallah stated on Lebanese television that had he known what 1 percent of the scope of Israel's response to the abduction and murder of Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev and other soldiers would be, and Israel's ferocious response to Hezbollah's rocket attack, he wouldn't have done it.

As an Israeli military accomplishment, such a statement from a live Nasrallah was almost the same as killing him and displaying his body. The 17 years in which he took caution not to initiate a single attack on Israel – not even with light arms – are a profound reflection of the military accomplishment of that 2006 war and the deterrence it created on the northern border. Even though some among us still enjoy criticizing its successes after all these years, the fact that Nasrallah understands the magnitude of his defeat is enough to put that war in the right perspective. At this point, we have achieved the same level of deterrence in Gaza that we had at the end of the Second Lebanon War. At the beginning of the ground maneuver in Gaza, the prime minister set an unrealistic goal, which there was no way to achieve and no way to measure. Benjamin Netanyahu did it, to my understanding, for vile conspiratorial reasons that can't be concealed. He knew talk of "total victory" over Hamas was an empty slogan. There will not be such a victory. In its absence, he can always blame the military for not accomplishing it.

snip