Did Hamas Win?

Andrew writes of me, in reference to this post: "He now sees Hamas as the victor of both the Gaza siege and Operation Cast Lead."

This is what I wrote about Hamas, and the way it capitalized on Ariel Sharon's unilateral withdrawal: "Hamas won the round, and then won the election, and then won the coup, and then, in a way, won the most recent war against Israel, and certainly the public relations war, which is the sort of war that really matters in the Middle East, and which Israel almost never fails to lose."

So Andrew is right, in part, but, in thinking about this, I realized that I neglected one consideration, a natural thing to neglect, given that I don't live in Israel: Since the Gaza operation, the rockets have pretty-much stopped flying. This is a temporary lull, I have to assume, but it is vitally important -- and a sign of at least a temporary victory -- if you're an Israeli civilian living within Gaza rocket range. Deterrence is not an entirely-defunct doctrine.
 
But the truth remains that as a public relations matter, the Gaza war was disastrous, because Israeli politicians never seem to consider, when making strategic decisions, that their country will always be held to a higher standard, and even to a double-standard. The cynics of Hamas and Hezbollah know that civilian deaths on their side benefit their cause politically, which is one of the reasons they fire rockets from schoolyards, as I've seen with my own eyes in Gaza. So it is Israel's job to minimize civilian casualties, not only because that's what a civilized country does, but because civilian casualties undermine Israel's legitimacy with people who sit in particularly harsh judgment of the world's only Jewish country.