Likud’s chief asset, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, may also be its chief liability. His silence and ambiguity, his failure to preempt a nuclear-armed Iran and his alignment with Barak Obama on Middle East affairs affecting Israel’s vital security are hurting his party - the joint Likud-Yisrael Beitenu ticket – which, 17 days before a general election, is on a downward slide to 34 from its first 47-seat rating. Yet, the polls still put him in the top slot (43+ percent) as favorite for prime minister and his left-of-center opposition is falling back.

West Bank security has dropped sharply since the Gaza ceasefire brought in eased restrictions for Hamas and fellow terrorists and tight rules of engagement for Israeli soldiers. Palestinian mobs on the West Bank are free to hurl rocks and abuse at Israel soldiers who, like their comrades at the Gaza fence, are not allowed to shoot back. At the assembly the Palestinian Authority has permitted Hamas to stage in Nablus Thursday, West Bank Palestinians will be rallied to the united flag of “resistance.”

Israel’s operation was an intel coup to shut Iran’s gateway to Cairo via Hamas.

“Israel will do all it can to prevent Iran from re-arming Hamas after its losses in our Gaza operation,” said Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz Sunday, Nov. 25.
But debkafile intelligence sources learn that Saturday, Nov. 24, just three days after the Gaza ceasefire, three Iranian missile engineers managed to steal into the Gaza Strip. They reached Gaza from their Lebanese base on false passports through Sinai and one of the smuggling tunnels blasted in the Israeli operation and repaired by Hamas.

Even before the Gaza conflict was over, the next major steps were in motion: US-manned Patriots and Awacs are in the pipeline for deployment on the Turkish Syrian border; Moscow moved its Black Sea Fleet’s naval task force opposite Gaza/Israeli shores, joining Tehran’s concern that the US-led coalition which wrecked Iran’s “southern front” in Gaza would turn against Syria and Hizballah. The US and Israel are braced for violent Iranian retribution; while Egyptian President Morsi’s troubles could undo the fragile Gaza ceasefire.

The Hamas brought the Israeli offensive down on the Gaza Strip by pushing out the military envelope too far against Israel while it was still the weakest cog in Iran’s radical terror machine. When Obama learned of Khamenei’s design to convert the Gaza Strip into Iran’s southern front, he ...

A bombing attack on a bus in cenral Tel Aviv Wednesday, Nov. 21, left at least 25 people injured, five seriously.  A missile siren earlier alerted the towns and kibbutzim just west of Jerusalem – up to Beit Shemesh – Wednesday morning, Day 8 of the Gaza operation – the day after two Palestinian rockets missed the Israeli capital and landed at a West Bank Palestinian village. Two houses in Beir Tuvia took direct hits, injuring a woman and causing shock. Iron Dome saved Ashkelon and Beersheba from missile barrages.

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Jerusalem, Cairo and Gaza awaited US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's arrival Tuesday night, Nov. 20, to clinch the Gaza ceasefire accord. Israel held back from approval until then and the Palestinians stepped up their missile blitz. debkafile’s analysts say that by giving in to international pressure for a ceasefire – against the objections of top military chiefs and intelligence pros - Israel’s leaders would show they have not learned from their predecessors’ mistakes in ending two wars inconclusively.