Today I had not planned to write. After 50 days of war, it was clear that the war was over – at least, for the moment. This ceasefire will most likely hold until the Cairo talks fail. I felt it was too soon to write the "day after" article. The real "day after" will only be written after the fact – "How long will there be peace?"
Then, when I went to the bank with my daughter and as I was waiting, an alert message went off on my phone. The banker turned to me with a look of concern and asked: "That's not a Red Alert, is it?". No, it was not a red alert. Rather, it was a notification that an Israeli officer had been wounded on the Syrian border.
This is not the first time that the civil war in Syria spread into Israel. It turned out that the Syrian rebels had surprised the Syrian army and after a day long battle the rebels had seized the border crossing at Qunetra. A few hours later, an Israeli civilian on one of the kibbutzim in the Golan Heights was also wounded.
In the meantime, the mortar shells that landed in the Golan have started a number of fires that are being put out. At the moment the border crossing has been captured by the more moderate of the rebels. The concern, of course, is that ISIS might replace the moderate rebels now on the borders at some time in the future.
The Israeli news media led their evening broadcasts with the question: "Now that the southern border has become silent, is the north now becoming a problem?"
Anger at a funeral
The funeral of one of the two members of Kibbutz Nirim who was killed last night (an hour before the beginning of the ceasefire) was held today. Beyond the expected sadness these deaths brought, a certain level of anger was palpable at the kibbutz – anger that no one told them a ceasefire was about to go into effect.
Those killed were working to fix electricity in the Kibbutz that had been damaged by an earlier attack. Had they known the ceasefire was about to start, these men would have waited until the ceasefire went into effect to begin their work. They certainly would not have gone out during the hour before the planned ceasefire – when Hamas has the habit of firing barrages of missiles, full force.
So, who won the war?
From my viewpoint, only history will be able to tell us if we have achieved a significant period of quiet on the south. While I still believe it is way too early for an analysis of this war, I can still report the views of others. First, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) believes it achieved a significant victory and that Hamas in Gaza begged Hamas in Qatar to accept the ceasefire agreement.
The Israeli army believes they inflicted terrible damage on Hamas, and of course destroyed their tunnels. Iron Dome proved itself stellar – and with the exception of the mistake that allowed a missile to land near Ben-Gurion airport, causing foreign airlines to briefly interrupt their service, Hamas achieved no strategic victory.
The open question is what will happen in a month, when negotiations resume in Cairo and Hamas does not achieve its goals. The Israeli military believes that Hamas will not resume fighting (though the IDF did not think Hamas wanted a war in the first place.)
Attacked from all sides
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been hit with criticism from all sides today – on the right, from Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, claiming any agreement with Hamas is wrong, along with Minister of the Economy Naftali Bennett, who said pretty much the same. However, disapproval was not only leveled at Netanyahu from the right. The head of the Labor Party, Isaac "Bogey" Herzog, said that Netanyahu was strengthening Hamas.
Meanwhile, the Israeli public is no longer on Netanyahu's side either. 75 percent of the Israeli public believes that the government's goal should have been to bring down the Hamas government. Over 50 percent of the Israelis believe that a war will resume in less than a year.
The Saudi peace initiative
Tonight, Netanyahu responded to difficult questions during a press conference he held with Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon and Chief of Staff Benny Gantz. Together the three claimed that Israel achieved a significant victory against Hamas– who according to Netanyahu was hit harder than ever before. They said Israel had significant international support because it acted responsibly.
Furthermore, Netanyahu stated that Israel pulled its troops out of Gaza, since in Gaza the troops were targets to be killed or kidnapped. On the other hand, as long as Israel acted from the air the troops were safe. Therefore it made sense to pull out.
Netanyahu was honest when he said that he cannot guarantee that the ceasefire will continue once Hamas realizes that Israel will not agree to any of its demands. Moreover, Netanyahu went on to say that “Israel will hit back twice as hard if Hamas resumes fire”.
During the question and answer period, Netanyahu made some news by saying he hopes that Palestinian Authority President Abu Mazen will take over the Gaza Strip and that as long as Abu Mazen was committed to peace, he saw him as a partner for peace.
Netanyahu was asked, "Why not accept the Saudi peace initiative now?"
He answered, "It is too early. The war just ended and we are looking into possibilities."
Political historian Marc Schulman is the editor of historycentral.com. An archive of his recent daily reports from Tel-Aviv can be found here. He is also a columnist for the Times of Israel.
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