A week after the ceasefire concluding Israel’s eight day campaign against Hamas, Operation Pillar of Defense, there is some debate as to who came out on top. The way one judges the outcome seems to depend on: one, what you make of the ceasefire agreement; two, what role you think that Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi played; and, three, other less tangible factors.
Not surprisingly, Hamas and its allies, especially Iran, say that the Islamic resistance won this latest round. And on the other side, senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and army chief of staff Benny Gantz all believe that Israel won a clear, if perhaps temporary, battle with Hamas, killing its top commanders and degrading its long-range missile arsenal, all without sending in the 30,000 troops that had been poised on the Gaza border. Moreover, with a success rate of shooting down 84 percent of the missiles destined for inhabited or security-sensitive areas, Iron Dome may have tipped the regional balance of power even further in favor of Israel.
