The Gaza War 'victory' - Has Israel grown dependent on terror?

It is a sickening thought. It is one that many in Israel have had to live with for months. One they have kept inside, silenced, some for reasons of guilt, others out of sympathy, superstition, or denial:

Despite everything, despite international denunciation unprecedented even by the standards of past Israeli operations, despite mind-reeling devastation of residential areas and unconscionable loss of life among Palestinian civilians, could the winter invasion of Gaza have actually been a success?

The suggestion was put forward this week in a Washington Post opinion piece headlined "Israel's Gaza Vindication." The Monday column was written by Jackson Diehl, who covered the first intifada as the paper's Jerusalem bureau chief, and who early in the Gaza war had called Cast Lead "Olmert's final failure."

Diehl noted that while a number of Israel's stated - and patently unrealizable - aims for the war went unaddressed, two crucial elements of the postwar reality were cause for distinct Israeli satisfaction: a precipitous drop in Palestinian rocket launchings against the Negev, and a considerable rise in the strength of Hamas blood rival, Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Israel's defeat in Gaza has widely been portrayed as a foregone conclusion. During the war, Time magazine's cover was headlined "Why Israel can't win." An accompanying article asked darkly "Can Israel survive its assault on Gaza?"...