Yossi Alpher, former adviser to Ehud Barak, recalls a conversation with outgoing prime minister Ehud Olmert:
I recall asking Olmert at a closed meeting about a year ago what his strategy was for dealing with Hamas in Gaza. His answer: well, now and again we close the crossings, we retaliate for rockets fired at us, we boycott Gaza economically. In short, he didn’t really understand the concept of a coherent strategy for Gaza.
Who says the Israeli political elite has any idea what it’s doing?