"..We now watch an army of reservists fight a war of materiel against an army of fanatics. The quality of the men will determine the outcome.."

Pat Lang, here

"...It is hard to see how they can profit from this effort against Hamas. They have gambled "the ranch" on this roll of the iron dice. They have never been good at long term thinking. They are too focused on their tribal enemies for that.

As I wrote previously, the "psychological weight" of Israel hangs in the balance in this effort. They must be perceived to have dominated this situation in order to emerge with at least as much deterrent "credit" as they entered it with. To do that they must force Hamas to stop firing into Israel, "not for a day, not for a month, but always." The US is peddling the IO line that the Gazans are being held prisoner by Hamas. For that to sell, there will have to be a revolt (in some form) of the Gazans against Hamas. Lastly, there must not be pictures of "brewed up" Israelis tanks being dragged out of Gaza. Better to blow them in place than have pictures like that. To achieve all this will be difficult..."