Cease fire or completion?

Things are quiet today. Quiet in Gaza, quiet in Israel and quiet in the Israeli cabinet meeting. Prime Minister Netanyahu cancelled the scheduled cabinet meeting today. Was it cancelled so information on the progress of the cease fire talks wouldn’t have to be discussed or was it because nothing is happening and it would be better for there to be no news until the negotiations have run their course. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

What we can discuss though, is whether we should be attempting to reach a cease fire agreement with Hamas at all. There is a lot of anger from Israelis who want this security situation finished once and for all. Why not insert the special forces and decapitate the leadership already? Anyone that harbors notions that Hamas can be negotiated into any kind of peace that isn’t a temporary truce designed to allow them to get stronger is delusional. There’s nothing to discuss if this is your position, you are simply wrong and history has proven that on many occasions already. 

Others believe instead that we’ve bloodied their nose enough and can have relative calm for a while. That we have already lost too many lives (we have, one is too many) and we should just regroup and wait for the next incident. The problem with this train of thought is that we are essentially kicking the can down the road. While that may be fine for some things, when discussing Hamas there are extra costs involved with this strategy. These costs will have to be paid, there is no way around it.

Missile fire at night (CC-BY-SA),By http://www.flickr.com/people/69061470@N05, via Wikimedia Commons

 So what are these extra costs we incur by kicking the can down the road? Today we have a situation that is fairly under control. Their weaponry is not very effective, we are doing a good job at sparing the Gazan civilian population (As good as can be expected given the fighting environment that Hamas forces us into) and our citizens in the South are asking us to continue and finish this. Additionally, our enemies surrounding us are busier with other things right now than to deal with us also.

Middle East Map By W123 (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Who honestly thinks that in another two to three years that Hamas will not find a way to import more advanced weaponry? Weapons that will have the capacity to take hundreds of lives at a time, God forbid. Weapons that we will not necessarily have an Iron Dome solution for? If this happens, not only will we lose many more of our lives, we will lose many more of their lives too. We will have no choice but to go into Gaza and begin a true war, not a military operation. The results will be terrible, but we will stop them.

All of this for what reason? Hope? We hope that this will not come to pass? Sorry, the balance in my “hope account” is overdrawn. We need to take care of this now, while the costs will be much smaller.

Turkish Ship Mavi Marmara (CC BY-SA,Free Gaza Movement, Wikipedia)

The case has been made for completing this now rather than later. There is a variable that we’ve not covered yet though. The big picture. We aren’t privy to the entire map and all the pieces in play. There could be other considerations which would take considerable weight off the completion side of the scale and tip the balance to the cease fire side. Time will tell, but there seemingly wasn’t any such issue during the last operation two years ago that ended prematurely also.

Thank God for his continuing protection of us.