It is an odd thing, this ceasing of fire proposed to be negotiated between Israel and Hamas.  A throwback to wars of old, it postulates that in the absence of shooting, the parties will retrieve their dead, celebrate their festivals (see the 1914 Christmas truce on the battlefield of Flanders), or even, possibly, figure out what to do in the longer term.  It is entirely in-applicable to Israel -- first and foremost because the shooting is not the greatest problem Israel faces. Israel's problem is more of certainty and uncertainty. The concentration of Israeli brainpower and American funds on the problem of Gaza yielded Iron Dome -- a homegrown Israeli system that not only tracks and hits incoming rockets and missiles, but differentiates spatially between those that will hit populated areas and those that will fall outside the boundaries of major population centers.  So when you read that Iron Dome has hit X percent of the rockets overall, it has hit a much greater...(Read Full Post)