ISRAEL – Israel has troops in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza. It has vowed to demili-tarize large swaths of all three, backed by an unwavering ally in the White House.
The war in Gaza, which Israel restarted earlier this month, increasingly appears likely to lead to an occupation lasting months or even years.
However, Netanyahu is a master tactician, not a master strategist, former Israeli national security officials tell CNN. He has seized opportunities to claw his way back from overseeing the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust to reaching unimaginable heights of power—at least within Israel.
To cement his legacy and for a grand strategy to take shape, the country and its national security leaders will need to overcome some fundamental, and perhaps intractable, contradictions. Netanyahu wants “total victory” over Hamas, a goal a top military official has dismissed as mere sloganeering, or “throwing sand in the eyes of the public.” The prime minister has never been willing to specify what Gaza should look like when the war is over—only what it should not be: governed by either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. (CNN)
