Despite Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak's claims, Israel did not achieve a decisive victory in Operation Cast Lead.

Israel's leaders claimed from the start that Operation Cast Lead had three main goals, delivering a blow to Hamas, ending rocket fire against Israel, and ending arms smuggling into Gaza. Their first failure was to even include the return of captured soldier Gilad Shalit on the list -- evidently "leave no soldier behind" is no longer on the agenda of Israeli leaders.

Hamas was hit, but besides that, none of the Operation's objectives were achieved. Rocket fire against Israel did not end! Hamas terrorists fired at least 20 rockets at Israeli cities every day of the war. On Sunday, after Israel had already declared a cease fire, Hamas still fired 20 rockets at Israel. The fact that Hamas decided to stop on Monday is because of their decision, not Israel's. And when Hamas will decide to start launching rockets again is their decision, not Israel's.

Arms smuggling to Gaza will not end. Notice that no deal whatsoever has been announced with regard to the arms smuggling, just some vague assurance that Egypt will act to end arms smuggling into Gaza. Israel had that assurance before this war started – it didn't help much then, and it won't help much now either. There is no international force, no Israeli force, and no Egyptian force in place – in short, there's no one to stop Hamas from rearming.

Gilad Shalit. Israel's leaders haven't even mentioned him except for some vague assurances that they're working to bring him back. The Israeli people have had those assurances since Shalit was captured and they know how much they're worth. My heart goes out to Gilad. I hope he doesn't know that his government has deserted him. At least his people hasn't. Olmert says it doesn't help to publicly mention Shalit. The public must mention Shalit as much as possible and with G-d's help he'll come home safely.

Israel has decided to leave Gaza for political reasons, whether it's for Obama's inauguration or because Olmert-Barak-Livni decided that no continuation of the war would help their political future. The bottom line for Israel's people is that rockets will one day return to the south, and the IDF will be back in Gaza whether they like it or not.

The people of Israel must hold their leaders responsible in the upcoming election for failing to decisively destroy Hamas and end terror against Israeli citizens.