Criticism of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu continued Friday over the ceasefire with Hamas that ended the Pillar of Defense counter-terror operation.
“The bottom line is, not only did the government and the IDF not deter Hamas, Hamas deterred the government,” said attorney Yoram Sheftel in his weekly column for Arutz Sheva.
“Terrorist organizations have no concept of ‘deterrence’ until they are wiped out,” he added. “That is how it was in the Defensive Shield [Homat Magen] operation when we destroyed Hamas in Judea and Samaria.”
Explanations that pin the government’s decision on a lack of international support are absurd, Sheftel continued. “Was there support for Defensive Shield? For the siege on Beirut?” he asked.
“Hamas is going to continue to arm itself and the situation will only get worse,” he concluded. “They will arm themselves with tens of thousands of rockets and they will decide when to fire on Israel.”
Sheftel noted that the Iron Dome defense system cannot be considered a solution. “Even if 98 percent of the rockets were shot down, there would still be one and a half million people sitting and trembling in fear in bomb shelters,” he noted. “Even if all the rockets were shot down, there would still be a huge part of the country shut down… The state of Israel cannot tolerate such a situation.”
Rabbi Zev Karov spoke to Arutz Sheva regarding the ceasefire. He, too, predicted that the government’s approach would make matters worse.
“Every time you see that they cannot stand up to outside pressure,” he said of Israel’s leaders. “It puts us back in the same situation over and over.”
“What we had here wasn’t a conclusion, just a break,” he added. “It’s true that we dealt a significant blow to Hamas, but on the other hand, we see yet again a type of weakness and non-recognition of the justice of our cause.”