Israelis Want to Feel Safe, Even If That Means War
There are political and strategic reasons for a cease-fire with Hamas now. But try telling that to the people exhausted from sleeping in bomb shelters.
The banner says, “We demand security.”
Photographer: Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images
It is rare that Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas in Gaza, and Avigdor Liberman, Israel’s hawkish and just-resigned minister of defense, agree in public. But agree they did this week, with both claiming that Israel’s hastily declared cease-fire with Hamas was an Israeli acknowledgment of defeat.
Liberman had once promised that within days of his becoming minister, he would have Haniyeh killed. That, of course, didn’t happen; neither the political or military echelons would have approved it. This week, with Haniyeh still very much alive and boasting that Hamas had defeated Israel, it was Liberman’s Israeli government that was seen by many as having capitulated to Palestinian terrorism.