“If it were up to me I would close the water and electricity [to Gaza] until they return Gilad. Let them starve and die.”
He says he opposes a prisoner exchange deal with Hamas. “I’d rather Shalit die there than do a deal with Hamas.
“It’s not about one soldier’s life. It’s about deterrence. They need to understand with whom they are dealing. Our deterrence was damaged after the second Lebanon war. Now we got it back.”
Indeed many Israelis were more concerned about ‘teaching the other side a lesson’ by using overwhelming force, than with the hundreds of dead civilians and the devastating destruction of infrastructure.
For the Israeli political leadership, military and much of the Israeli public, the Gaza war, as Israelis refer to it, was about scaring the other side into submission, so that it will not dare to hurt Israel again. And, many believe, that was what Israel succeeded in doing.
