Vulnerable to charges that they are wimps and not ripe for their respective offices the duo succumbed to the generals' pressure and responded by making wrong decisions based on gut feelings of vengeance. The Israeli reaction is unfortunately a "Pavlovian" instinct of using the old, conventional methods of eye-for-an-eye, which have characterized the Israeli security doctrines and wisdom in fighting Palestinian and Hezbollah guerillas and terrorists: bombing, targeted killing, kidnapping of leaders and collective punishment.

Israel should have instead used the unexpected crisis to launch a new diplomatic and military initiative, which would have been beneficial to its own interests and a challenge to the Palestinian leadership. Israel should have installed secret channels of communication with both the Palestinian Authority led by Fatah leader President Abu Mazen and with the Hamas government headed by the relatively moderate Akram Haniyhe. Israeli leaders could have offered the following deal: in return for the release of the kidnapped soldiers, leaders of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prison including Hamas and Islamic Jihad commanders who recently signed the conciliatory document calling for a recognition of the State of Israel be released too. Among them should be the charismatic and popular Marwan Barghouti, who seems to be the only secular leader who can rally Palestinian masses back to the national secular agenda of Fatah and a two state solution from the religious agenda of Hamas, which denies the right of Israeli to exist.

Israel should have also demanded a cessation of all hostilities, for at least one year, a complete cease-fire, which would halt also firing of rockets on its towns in the south. Such a proposal could have achieved six aims simultaneously at a relatively low political cost. It would: release the soldier, remove the threats of rocket shelling, restore political stability, and advance economic prosperity. It would have also created splits between the moderate Haniyhe faction and radical Hamas leadership in Damascus and bring back to the political arena a serious and popular Palestinian leader, who can inject new momentum to the deadlocked Israeli-Palestinian crisis. Instead, Israel finds itself once again in a vicious circle of violence, which reminds us of the 1982 invasion into Lebanon which was supposed to last 48 hours and dragged on for nearly 18 years.