By the end of the conflict, Hamas was still firing rockets, but far fewer. Its rocketeers made easy targets. Within less than a minute after Hamas fired a rocket, the Israelis were able pinpoint and destroy the launch site. As one senior Israeli officer says, "Everyone is digesting the lessons of the Gaza war - us and them." And neither side expects last month's showdown in Gaza to be the last.
Which may mean Israel ended the war too soon.
Or maybe it means that the Israelis are just trying to win in a more low-key fashion:
While Hamas has declared itself the victor of the 22 day war, it is now much worse off than before the war. Less stuff is getting into Gaza and many Hamas assets and personnel are gone. Hamas has a PR boost from its status as chief victim in this situation. But you can't eat PR, and long term, Hamas faces continued resistance inside Gaza. Israel appears to be seeking a longer term strategy to defeat Hamas. There are a lot of people in Gaza who hate Hamas, and the longer Hamas cannot do anything to improve the daily lives of Gazans, the more disliked the Islamic radical organization is. While many Israelis would prefer a quicker take down of Hamas, using military force, that would get dozens of Israelis killed, and Israeli politicians feel more comfortable with a more indirect approach. Israeli politicians have been dealing with Arab politics for a long time, and see this indirect approach as eminently doable. Time, as in weeks or months, not years, will tell.
I'm always wary about underestimating the Israelis in war--the 2006 Hezbollah War notwithstanding. We shall see. I do recall that the Iraqis didn't absolutely crush the Sadrists and their Iranian friends in the spring 2008 Charge of the Knights, but the post-charge operations defanged them enough to lead to their absolute defeat in last month's provincial elections. I wrote back then that the post-charge phase would determine the ultimate judgment of whether that military operation was a failure or success, and so too may this post-charge phase determine if Hamas really does survive the war.
