Kerry doesn't get it

Extending the humanitarian truce by 24 hours is a gamble, intended to regain some of the international community's understanding for renewed Israeli measures. There is no other reason. There is also no justification for it other than the need to replenish the reserves of international support.

Hamas, after all, demanded or agreed to another 24 hours of holding fire. Israel granted four, and convened the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet. Hamas then proceeded to shoot as if no extension was in place at all.

In actuality, much like Tower of Babylon, the main players continue to babble on in the diplomatic battle for the end of Operation Protective Edge.

Over the past two years, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has traveled to Israel as if he were an El Al flight attendant. He has spoken to regional leaders more than any other foreign minister in the world. How can it be that he returned from Qatar on Friday with a cease-fire proposal that looked like a carbon copy of Hamas' demands, with a bit of fancy wording thrown in? What was he thinking to himself, that someone in Israel would accept such a proposal? Did he not consider what the Israelis and Arabs alike would think of him if he came to them with such a document-

He litigated a cease-fire extension. At 8:05 p.m. -- moments after the first humanitarian truce ended and Israel's agreement to a four-hour extension -- rocket sirens blared. The government wondered what had happened. The army could not provide an explanation. There were guesses that Hamas had pre-set the rocket launches in advance of the four-hour extension, but without taking into consideration that its own leaders themselves would be happy to extend it? In short: confusion.

Hamas does not understand Israel's language, which for its part arrives at the right realizations late. After all, only after Israeli ministers saw the terrorists crawling out of their tunnel openings did they include these underground passageways among the objectives of the IDF operation. Only then did the light bulb turn on, only then did panic set in, before the strategic achievement of locating and destroying the tunnels was added late, and only as an addendum, to the list of Israeli goals.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is the key to the campaign. What then is Kerry looking for among his enemy-rivals, Qatar and Turkey? Why did he adhere to the Qatari-Turkish proposal when he had the golden opportunity to mend his relationship with Sissi in Cairo? Kerry simply does not get it.

Therefore the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet that convened Friday in Tel Aviv to discuss the future of Operation Protective Edge needs to examine three possibilities:

• A secret Egyptian-Jordanian-Saudi-Palestinian agreement to eliminate the Hamas regime in Gaza with the help of Israel, which will immediately renew the airstrikes without mobilizing its ground forces. The Arab partners will be required to provide diplomatic backing with their silence.

• A long-term cease-fire with Hamas, which would perpetuate the existing situation as it currently stands, once the tunnels are destroyed. This option is in case Israel's neighbors do not want to act to remove Hamas, because Israel cannot do so strictly on its own. This would be a considerable achievement for the IDF even if it has the ability to do more.

• Israel will finish demolishing the tunnels and will reduce Hamas' rocket arsenal, and will pull back its forces with an unequivocal warning that it will immediately resume strikes, with utmost force, in retaliation to any rocket launched at Israel.

Sunday is a new day. The options, however are the same.

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