It was a good year for Israel. Beyond the paralysis on the peace-process front in 2009, for which the hardline Israeli prime minister can claim credit, Israel has had the quietest year since the beginning of the second intifada. Its territory was kept secure and fewer Israelis were killed and injured (although more than 1,500 Palestinians lost their lives at Israeli hands in the meantime).
On the three war fronts that remain open, Israel has managed to establish deterrence by steeply and decisively raising the cost of war. Rejecting the notion of targeted, proportional and graduated responses, it has sought to retaliate so overwhelmingly that its enemy would simply prefer to stop the fight.
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