The World Moves Toward a Bad Deal
Just last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors Iran’s declared nuclear facilities, issued its latest report.
The Islamic Armageddon Lies between Turkey and ISIS
Do ISIS and Turkey hold competing views of the Caliphate?
The Gaza War 2014:
The War Israel Did Not Want and the Disaster It Averted
The war preempted a terrorist massacre inside Israel’s heartland.
About the Authors
Hirsh Goodman established the program on media strategy at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. He was a former military correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Report and a strategic fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Ambassador Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the […]
The Limits of the Diplomatic Arena
Operation Protective Edge, waged in July-August 2014, was the third major military campaign undertaken by Israel in the Gaza Strip since 2007, when Hamas seized control of Gaza, and since 2005, when the IDF completed its unilateral withdrawal from that territory. Each of the three Israeli engagements in Gaza occurred in response to escalating rocket […]
Israel, Gaza and Humanitarian Law: Efforts to Limit Civilian Casualties
Addressing an audience in New York on November 6, 2014, the highest ranking officer in the U.S. military, General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that Israel went to “extraordinary lengths” to limit civilian casualties and collateral damage during its Operation Protective Edge in July-August 2014. He also related that the […]
Israel’s Narrative – An Overview
A Catastrophe Averted The 2014 Gaza war was a seminal event for Israel, a moment when a potential catastrophe was averted as an indirect result of a war Israel did not want and tried to contain and limit after hostilities broke out. During the ensuing 50 days of warfare that began on July 8, Hamas […]
Telling the Truth about the 2014 Gaza War
The 2014 Gaza war began with an outright act of aggression by Hamas of escalating rocket attacks on Israel’s towns and cities. But over time, a completely different version of events emerged, based not on the truth of what happened but on a Palestinian narrative that seemed to capture the imagination of many observers in […]
Key Moments in a 50-Day War: A Timeline
Overview In the first week of July 2014, Hamas’ rocket attacks against Israel intensified. In response, the Israel Air Force struck targets in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli government emphasized that if Hamas stopped firing rockets, Israel would have no reason to act. Hamas continued to escalate its attacks. On July 8, Israel declared the […]
Hamas’ Tunnel Network: A Massacre in the Making
In the past decade, Hamas methodically built a sophisticated network of tunnels that would enable its fighters to infiltrate Israel and carry out terrorist attacks and abductions on an unprecedented scale. Operation Protective Edge exposed and targeted this tunnel network, eliminating one of Hamas’ strategic assets and preventing a devastating surprise attack on a wide […]
Hamas’ Order of Battle: Weapons, Training, and Targets
In the course of their 50-day war against Israel, Hamas and its terrorist partners in Gaza fired more than 4,500 rockets and mortars at Israel. The weapons’ ranges varied from two to 160 km., and the gross inaccuracy and inconsistency of the rocket fire meant that Hamas had unleashed real terrorizing weaponry. Rockets and mortars […]
Gazan Casualties: How Many and Who They Were
The 50-day Hamas war against Israel left 66 Israeli soldiers and six civilians dead; there were a total of 842 Israeli casualties during the conflict.1 On the other side, UN and Palestinian sources claimed that some 2,100 Palestinians in Gaza were killed, of whom 72 to 84 percent were civilians.2 There are strong reasons to contest […]
The Legal War: Hamas’ Crimes against Humanity and Israel’s Right to Self-Defense
The ideological foundation of Hamas as set out in its national charter, and its actions of indiscriminate terror directed against Israeli towns, villages and citizens, clearly define its character as a terrorist entity. This is reflected in the fact that Hamas has been formally outlawed in major states. The terrorist actions by Hamas, including the […]
Preface
What follows is a researched and documented narrative of the 2014 Gaza war. While written from an Israeli perspective, this is not a document intended to negate criticism of Israel’s actions during the war or improve Israel’s image in the eyes of the world. It has but one goal: to relate the truth as it […]
Hamas’ Silent Partners
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh set out his strategy for political warfare against Israel in parallel with his military campaign on October 19, 2013, when he offered “Blessings to all the commissions, individuals, civil society groups, and human rights organizations that worked to break the siege on Gaza and who fought against the [Israeli] fence […]
