Assuming the latest cease-fire between Israel and hamas-controlled Gaza holds, therefore the current round of fighting is over, you will be seeing/hearing/reading a lot about who “won” and who “lost”.
The answer depends on what you are talking about.
If you are talking about peace, no one is a winner:
-Much of Gaza is reduced to rubble. hamas\’s only “win” is the propaganda value of launching attacks from civilian locations, demanding its civilian population ignore Israeli warnings to evacuate before those locations are hit, and then using their dead bodies to “prove” how barbaric Israel is.
-The Palestinian Authority (which controls Judea and Samaria – aka the west bank – only at hamas\’ pleasure, and which our media keep trying to convince us is “moderate”, which is an absolute lie) has been humiliated into “powerless observer” status.
-Israel, despite its military victory, is still at war with hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and their supporters/benefactors around the world.
If you are talking about the results of hamas\’ attacks and Israel\’s retaliation, however, there is a clear winner and a clear loser:
-Israel wins. Not because it decimated Gaza (which it did), but because it still exists in any form whatsoever. Never forget that the purpose of hamas – its written mission statement that our media never seem to take into account – is the obliteration of Israel and death of all Jews, both in and out of Israel. Every day that Israel exists and Jews live, therefore, is a victory.
-hamas loses. What limited infrastructure it had (when the billions of aid dollars each year is used for weapons and terror tunnels instead of roads, housing and industry, there isn\’t going to be much) is damaged or destroyed. Its stockpiles of weapons are depleted. Many – maybe most – of its smuggling tunnels are gone. This means some or all of the concrete and steel which will be shipped into Gaza must ,at least for the short term, be used to rebuild, instead of to facilitate the next wave of attacks on Israel.
-And, while hamas rebuilds, Israel will be able to tell the world “As you can see, we are perfectly willing to be at peace with neighbors who are at peace with us – as our 35 year peace with Egypt and 20 year peace with Jordan should have told you already”. This might persuade at least some people who bought hamas\’s propaganda, that they were misled – which would be another loss for hamas.
Remember that old tag-line Warner Bros. cartoon characters ruefully used after something they did turned out all wrong: “Was this trip really necessary?” Sad to say, it\’s a pretty good bet that hamas and its pals won\’t be thinking about what happened over the past weeks and asking that question, instead of attacking Israel again in the near future.
But we can hope, can\’t we?
