One should not underestimate the significance of what has occurred in the last couple of days: Israeli civilians have been murdered and Israeli ministers had reasons better than ever to grind Gaza to dust yet again. However it did not happen. What did happen was amazingly measured, according to the standards of the Israel's not too scrupulous practice of dealing with its neighbours, perfectly justifiable, local and accurate hit at the heads of the military wing of the organization known (or assumed) to be responsible. While some country may still raise their brows or at any rate consider it perfectly normal, Israelis right now have the feeling that they have been throughly duped. Indeed, Kadima, famous both for being left wing opposition to the government and for starting two bloody and very damaging for Israel wars against Gaza and Lebanon, adopted a usual for the Israeli leaders stance of calling for yet more punitive actions against Gaza. Only the Likud government headed by ferocious Bibi has got itself in this mess of self restrain.

So what is the meaning of this new policy and what are its ramifications? On the surface it is make no sense. Of course Israel has saved itself from yet another round of senseless bloodletting with the usual finale of international opprobrium. It has quite probably saved the lives of several (or several dozens) of young Israelis. On the other hand it failed to refocus country's attention to the problem of security at the expense of social issues. I don't tend to assume that Bibi or Barak have grown any conscience. For such a conclusion much more serious evidence is needed. Currently, the only thing that comes to mind is that finally some of the Arab spring effects kick in somewhere in the vicinity of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Not completely, but to the point when troubled Israelis are bound to take heed.

In fact, may be a tragic miscalculation on Israel's behalf of proceeding to attack the terrorists on the territory of sovereign and wary nation of Egypt has forced Egyptian to take some measures, which ultimately made Israelis reluctant to burn the bridges. May be it was the Americans who suggested that Israel owes them something and it's time to put some of it back. Maybe it's Turkey whose sheer schadenfreude in watching Israel loosing one partner after another has made Lieberman slightly more cautious. Whatever the reasons, the impression is that Israel at least in principle can forgo the policy of righteous “they had it coming” in favour of “are we going to be better off”.