It looks obvious

In a speech given to the Israeli army officers at the and of the war of independence Ben Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, opened a window to his strategic philosophy, which many of us start to realize only now. Ben Gurion warned the officer from the sin of hubris and from believing that IDF victory was achieved because it was superior. He stress that Israel won because the Arabic armies that invaded were divided and corrupted. His warning for the young army commanders was to repair to strategic scenario of united Arab world leaded by competent leaders.

Ben Gurion’s believed that the status-quo is dangerous and acted to create a strategic environment to protect Israel. His strategy didn’t count on the conventional army but on nuclear weapons combined with minimal control of Arabic population. This combination intended to minimize the friction and to stabilize the borders by making conventional war to risky.

Ben Gurions’s strategic concept is still relevant. It took Rabin many years to realize that his mentor’s opposite concept was wrong, a  change that trigger the Oslo accord; It took many years to Sharon to accept Ben Gurion’s concept which was the trigger for the Disengagement in Gaza. Additionally up until the end of the last war in Lebanon it seems like Olmert following the same strategic concept.

In a very good post (in Hebrew) Yosi Gurevitz predicted that the Palestinian hope for independence is one of the losers of this war. He explained that Israel was willing to take the risk of Palestinian state on the hills based on the mutual believe (Israelis and Palestinian) that Israel is strong enough to handle such risk. However the continual rockets firing on Israel from Gaza and from Lebanon after Israeli withdrawal and the inability of Israel to destroy the Hezbullah making additional withdrawals not realistic.

Gurevitz’s analysis and predictions realized even faster than I though. Haaretz reports that Olmert declared that:

The combination of Israel’s need to restore its deterrence, to allow creation of Palestinian independence, The Syrian renewed combatant line and the amazing ability of the Palestinian to make every possible mistake is a powder keg waiting to explode. Unlike a Greek tragedy it isn’t a destiny that cannot be change. The key to such change is in the hand of another player, the real winner of the last war - Iran, but that will require another post.