Letting the enemy off the hook.

Submitted by Reynald de Chatillon (Australia), Mar 17, 2018 at 01:35

On many occasions since it first came into existence in 1948, Israel has constantly let her enemies off the hook. In 1982 there was a chance to secure the unconditional surrender of Arafat and the PLO, but the opportunity was squandered. We could have seen the spectacle of Arafat and the PLO forces laying down their arms and going into captivity (think of Napoleon III's surrender at Sedan in 1870 and von Paulus' at Stalingrad in 1943). It would have shattered the Palestinian will to resist and completely discredited their leadership. Instead, they were allowed to depart from Beirut with their small arms and somehow turn a defeat into a victory.
Again. Israel went to war against Hamas in 2014. We really believed that this time, after all the provocations, the IDF was going to storm Gaza like the Russians took Budapest (1956) and Grozny (1999-2000). But, unfortunately this did not happen. Hamas was severely battered but still intact. In many ways it was a re-run of the 2006 Lebanon War.
American historian Shelby Foote claimed that the Union Army fought the Civil War with one arm tied behind it's back, that statement certainly applies to the IDF in it's last three conflicts.

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