Jackson Diehl had an interesting column in this morning's Washington Post regarding a new consensus that Israel's military offensive aimed at stopping Hamas' attacks on civilians was a success:
But today, Operation Cast Lead, as the three-week operation is known in Israel, is generally regarded by the country's military and political elite as a success. The reasons for that are worth examining now that a new and even more hawkish Israeli government is weighing whether to flout Washington's prevailing opposition to a military attack on Iran.
Israel's satisfaction starts with a simple set of facts. Between April 2001 and the end of 2008, 4,246 rockets and 4,180 mortar shells were fired into Israel from Gaza, killing 14 Israelis, wounding more than 400 and making life in southern Israel intolerable. During what was supposed to be a cease-fire during the last half of 2008, 362 rockets and shells landed. Meanwhile, between late 2000 and the end of 2008, Israeli forces killed some 3,000 Gazans.
Since April there have been just over two dozen rocket and mortar strikes -- or less than on many single days before the war. No one has been seriously injured, and life in the Israeli town of Sderot and the area around it has returned almost to normal. Israeli attacks in Gaza have almost ceased, too: Since the end of the mini-war, 29 Palestinians, two of whom were civilians, have been killed by Israeli action.
Not only have the attacks against Israel (for whatever reason) slowed, but Diehl also points out that there was no backlash by any Arab country over Cast Lead. Perhaps some even tacitly approved it, not wanting the ideas of Hamas to spread. Nor was there any new tensions formed by Israel's strike on a Syrian nuclear facility in 2007.
Diehl segues into what this means for a potential Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear (weapons?) facilities, but I'd rather just stick to the discussion of Cast Lead, which at this point, as Israel's invasion of Lebanon did, has led to as close to peace as seems likely right now, with the civilians of Sderot being able to live normal lives.