Israel and Hamas have both lost

The Egyptian brokered cease-fire in Gaza may or may not hold, but this is an opportunity to assess who won what as a result of this carnage. Militarily speaking, “it is already clear that there have been no winners” according to the BBC’s defense correspondent Jonathan Marcus.

Given the sad predictability involved with this view only confirms what many said at the start of the Israeli operation. But is there a political winner? It is also clear that both Israel and Hamas have lost in this respect.

As usual, the West did its best to bend over backwards and allow Israel the leeway it needed against Hamas, despite the large number of women and children killed. But the Israeli slaughter of the innocents finally forced even the U.S., Israel’s staunchest supporter, into moral outrage.  

Washington could not hold back in the end and referred to the deadly Israeli shelling of a U.N. school in Gaza, which was sheltering 3,000 displaced Palestinians, as “appalling” and “disgraceful.” This had a five megaton psychological effect on Israelis, showing them there is a limit beyond which they cannot push without serious condemnation from even those whose support they need.

Worse than this, however, Israeli actions, more than ever before, were likened across the world to those of Nazi Germany’s. This is unjustified of course, but few will be bothered about factual distinctions when they see Palestinian children killed with the same moral indifference among Israelis that Jewish children were killed under the Nazis.

Inhuman remarks about Palestinians uttered by some Israeli politicians, on the other hand, merely added grist to this mill. Israelis and Jews across the world supported this...