"I am angry, therefore, I am wrong." This newly coined phrase could describe President Barack Obama's conduct. Overnight Sunday he told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he had to announce an unconditional cease-fire. Israel can live with that, assuming that is all he wants. In fact, Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon echoed that sentiment Sunday when they said that "calm will be met with calm." Assuming Obama has not added new components that could complicate things, it would be safe to assume that the president's phone call with the prime minister was designed to rebuke Israel for turning U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry into an object of constant ridicule. Kerry arrived in the region with a draft cease-fire agreement after consulting his comrades (the Europeans) and our contrarians (the Turks and the Qataris), having forgotten to keep Israel, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority in the loop. The terms he set were pretty much identical to what Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal would have written on his Facebook page. Mashaal figured that if he could only convince Kerry to embrace his cease-fire draft, the secretary of state would manhandle Israel into a truce. Egypt and the PA would follow, or so he thought. But the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet said no and Netanyahu took a swipe at Kerry, saying the only mediator who could resolve the Gaza flare-up was Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. The Diplomatic-Security Cabinet convened for another session on Sunday. It deliberated well into the night. The ministers had a decision to make: Would they declare an unconditional cease-fire (one that would not preclude the destruction of more tunnels), or would they instead opt to widen the scope of the operation and bring about the toppling of Hamas and the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip- Despite this ongoing debate, both the public and the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet have for some reason overlooked the heavy blows Hamas has been dealt. Everyone -- those who would like to see a more aggressive operation and those who would like Israel to subscribe to the mantra "calm will be met with calm" -- must take inventory of what we know so far: The IDF has killed about 500 terrorists, Hamas' rocket stockpile has been severely compromised, and its cross-border tunnels have been seized and destroyed. Israel failed to grasp the strategic importance of addressing the tunnels, but once the fighting began this changed. This has made Operation Protective Edge all the more successful. Will the Israeli-inflicted damage suffice for a small cease-fire rather than a temporary truce? The fact that Hamas decided to launch rockets at 10 p.m. on Sunday makes this question irrelevant. Netanyahu, Ya'alon and IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz have tried to focus on what has been achieved so far. Should the goals of the operation include the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip or ousting Hamas? The question has crossed their mind, but they have deliberately decided not deliberate this matter any further. On the other hand, Hamas has had a hard time coming to terms with a de facto cease-fire that would put off the talks on a Gaza blockade, which is designed to deny Hamas access to the very cement, electricity and fuel it uses for its tunnels. By courting the Americans, the Qataris and the Turks, Mashaal hoped to create a new mechanism that would strip Egypt of its role as a mediator. But that plot was exposed and thwarted. One has to wonder why Kerry thought he could sell Israel such damaged goods. Israel showed Mashaal that it was capable of rejecting an U.S. initiative outright. That, in and of itself, is important. Without this flat-out rejection, the Palestinian Authority would have not had the courage to issue such a forceful condemnation of the U.S. over its kowtowing to Hamas, Qatar and Turkey. Operation Protective Edge has already produced many dividends. Expanding it would take a heavy toll. Moreover, the bang for the buck would not be as high. Ya'alon and Netanyahu would be well served by an upgraded mantra. They should discard the "calm will be met with calm" for "fire will be met with heavy fire."
