Anyone who tries to conduct one kind of investigation or another after Operation Protective Edge will find an appropriate framework in which to do so, and his committee will get to work. I am the last person who would stand in the way, even though I remember the second go-around of the committee headed by retired Justice Eliyahu Winograd. It was embarrassing and fudged the harsh truth about the Second Lebanon War, while ignoring what its members discovered during the first part of their task. Dissent is entirely legitimate. How were the underground tunnels left out of the combat plan that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz conceived as the army was heading for the Gaza border? And why did Israel agree to a cease-fire when the Gaza border communities were still a target for Hamas rocket fire? And should the goal have been from the start to reoccupy the Strip, what's known in the Israeli lexicon as "toppling the Hamas regime"? What to argue about, and what not As one who sees the aforementioned goal as something that cannot be achieved by Israel alone, but only by a coalition that includes Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinian Authority, and who believes that operations like these are limited in what they can accomplish (therefore Cast Lead should have been stopped earlier than it was while Israel employed the proper scope in Pillar of Defense), and as one who shares Netanyahu and Ya'alon's position that military operations cannot provide a definitive solution, it seems to me that Operation Protective Edge has clearly done what it set out to do. So what if the country's leadership erred in ignoring the tunnels, but rectified itself during the fighting and made them a top priority of the operation, with resounding success? And so what if Hamas, foiled by Iron Dome, is left with 3,000 rockets in its arsenal instead of 9,000? Who wouldn't be willing to head into battle for a result like this? All these points should be mentioned in light of the Cairo negotiations. If a deal is reached, it will freeze Hamas' rocket stockpiles, prevent weapons and concrete from being smuggled through the tunnels, and place PA President Mahmoud Abbas' people at the Kerem Shalom and Rafah crossings -- not in place of Israel and Egypt, respectively, but in addition to them, on the Palestinian sides. And if this puts Abbas back on the track of peace talks with Israel, which might prompt Netanyahu to freeze settlement construction for a few months, this would also be very positive. It looks like this is what might come out of Cairo. Not a seaport and not an airport and not a replenished supply of rockets, and money might even be transferred out of the Hamas funds to the Palestinian Authority treasury. Is that enough? There's a serious debate about it. Is it a lot? There can be no argument. If, despite everything, no such agreement is reached and the talks end in nothing, and an extreme situation forces Netanyahu, Ya'alon, and Gantz to send the army to reoccupy the Strip, history will say that they did so as a last resort, when they had no other choice, because despite the meaningless remarks author David Grossman made on Channel 2, Hamas truly has no interest in talking with Israel, only destroying it. At least for the foreseeable future.
