Gil, as the alternate Israeli Prime Minister, you are absolutely right and I am sure that the Cabinet you are leading right now is in complete harmony with your democratically arrived at decisions.
One wonders how on earth is Israel managing in spite of your eitzes, your unassailable political wisdom, strategic plans of action and, principally your objective criticism.
I respectfully thank you for the precious guidance you are giving me in my modest attempts to scribble something on an internet page.
Since you are so comprehensively valuable in all your interventions and unsolicited advice, maybe I can profit a bit from your anxiety of being of service. Look, I have this stubborn stain on me carpet , light beige small pile 60% wool, 20% acrylic, 40% jute and I have tried all manner of methods, including goat milk mixed with hydrochloric acid, but it wont budge and have relatives of me missus of Egyptian origin, Sephardi, and they are simply neurotic about this kinda stuff. They speak mainly French, which I can handle, mixed with Arabic, which I cannot. So, Gil what do you recommend for the stain and what does it mean in English ” you are a bloody hotna”. I know the bloody part but “hotna” is a mistery. Please Gil sort it for me and I promise that at the next elections for the PM in Israel I will tick you. TICK is not that bugger which gets into your hair and drives you nuts. Different if you are bald, which I am not, quite to the contrary, I am a gorgeous hairy alpha male all over.
Is all this now changing your opinion about me “ranting ” !!!! I hope so, Gil.

Otto,

You say of the Israeli cabinet that: “it bloody well functions BETTER than any other”. Have you taken leave of your senses? This seems more like a wishful thinking rant on your part, devoid of substance.

The bottom line is that there is absolutely no substitute for victory.
This was a just war that Israel should have prosecuted with ferocity but failed to do. The IDF engaged military lawyers who decided where, what and which targets had to be aborted, many virtually at the last second.

You have a ramshackle cabinet screaming at each other and now there is another ceasefire that Hamas will break at the time of its own choosing.

The south of Israel is a disaster, with people leaving for good.
Would you trust a word from Benny Gantz, the IDF Chief of Staff when he says “it’s OK folks you can go back now”.

Hamas has managed to bring day to day life filled with uncertainty for Israelis, who now realise their Government didn’t fight this war to win. To that degree, Hamas has won a significant victory and has prevailed and God only know what else Netanyahu has agreed to, we’ll just have to wait and see.

This debacle surely has to end with Netanyahu’s days as PM being numbered.
You Otto should wake up to reality.

Israeli spokesmen are outstanding only in their incompetence. They are always so, soooo intellectual, so legalistic, so circumspect, so proper, so humanitarian. So apologetic and such losers and dopes.

Israel has lost the battle, because in mid-East mentality if your opponent has not killed you, and killed you horribly, sadistically and with delight, you are not defeated. For someone born in Israel not to have tapped into mohammedam mentality, shows that he is an airhead and a light-weight who should never have become the PM and did so because of his fluency in English and the stature of his late father and brother.

His short term goal is ego and the perks of office. He is not interested in the long-term security of Israel, because he has twinned with defeatist Livni, who has the coward’s fear of victory; survival is more than enough. Except it isn’t.

High position does not make a man great. Portraying Bibi as a big man contending with crushing burdens only makes believers if that myth shallow. Netanyahu is hopeless and as delusional as his claque. If he faced reality he would long ago resigned. Yelling at Bennett and Lieberman and sacking Danon reveals his lack of reality and fear. Opposing the wish of the majority of Israelis displays a perverse arrogance and the mentality of leaders of Nazi era judenrats.

I hate to be the one to bring you up to date, but the jury is NOT out in respect to Netanyahu. By all counts the man is an abysmal failure as a war time leader and your pathetic defence of him is to me just nauseating.

Your last paragraph is mind numbing nonsense.
“But irrespective of Netanyahu’s short-term political future, if he ultimately succeeds in providing long-term security for Israelis, especially those in the south, he will have earned his political legacy and would be recorded in history as one of the great Israeli prime ministers.”

What about those living in the rest of the country?
At the end of the day, there is no substitute for victory. This whole action is not some response to an individual act of terror but is outright war and Israel better prosecute it as such.