Not only Israel, but every country facing a terrorist threat has an interest in ensuring that the brutal tactics in play in Gaza are not seen to have succeeded. This means having the courage to stand firm and to engage in the unbearably difficult exercise of responding, proportionately but effectively, to terrorists wherever they may be.

To do otherwise would to be to broadcast an open invitation to terrorist groups to set up shop inside hospitals and kindergartens, not only in Gaza but throughout the world.

Another group which will be drawing their own conclusions from the conflict is the population of Israel. The lessons they draw will clearly impact on their approach to future security challenges, but at the same time it will also affect their approach towards any future peace deal.

The international community insists, and rightly so, that the only lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be a negotiated settlement between the two sides. If the negotiations do restart, then Israel will undoubtedly be called on to make significant territorial withdrawals from the West Bank as part of a peace package. When the international community urges Israelis to make this sacrifice, it should be aware that Israelis will naturally think back to the last time they were urged to pull out of land for peace, and the value of the reassurances they were given at that time.

In 2005 the world urged Israel to pull 9,000 civilians and all its soldiers out of the Gaza Strip as a step to advance prospects for peace. At that time it tried to assuage Israel’s security concerns, insisting that were the withdrawal to turn sour, the legitimacy afforded by the withdrawal would guarantee international support for a firm security response to acts of aggression.

The relative silence of the international community in the face of the thousands of rockets and mortars, fired from the very areas evacuated by Israel, in the years since the pullout has begun to raise questions among many Israelis regarding the value of such international assurances.

Read the article in full at The Sunday Telegraph.