The economic warfare strategy expressed in the blockade has proven counterproductive; there are ways to prevent the entry of ordnance and strategic construction materials to Gaza without inflicting collective punishment on 1.5 million people, thereby strengthening Hamas. … Certainly no one in Israel wants to reoccupy the Strip. … Nor does holding all of Gaza hostage to the fate of a single Israeli soldier serve our needs. Maintaining these current failed strategies merely leaves Hamas with veto power, in the form of a few hundred or thousand rockets, over any peace process with the PLO that it doesn’t like. …
[T]he almost inevitable tragedy on board the Mavi Marmara is a metaphor for additional ticking-clock situations that are bound to explode in our faces if we don’t confront them in time. … One such ticking-clock situation is our deteriorating status in American eyes: when Mossad Chief Meir Dagan tells the Knesset that Washington is beginning to look upon us as a strategic burden rather than an asset, he is sounding a warning. Is anyone listening? Another such situation is the projected political endgame to the Palestinian Authority’s state-building project: will we really wait until August 2011, when the international community confronts us with the fait accompli of a recognized Palestinian state, before seeking ways to accommodate this direction of events?
Yet another important lesson concerns Turkey. … With a little ingenuity and less hand-wringing over the “loss” of Turkey and the ugly rhetoric of PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan, we could exploit Ankara’s new status to our advantage. Recall how then-PM Ehud Olmert embraced Ankara’s offer to mediate between Israel and Syria in 2008, with positive results, however temporary. Access the full article>>
