The contrast here is paramount, because at the end of the day, for Israel, the loss is primarily strategic, while for the Palestinians it's mostly civic and humane. The terror of Israel's so-called "war on terror" has surpassed anything we've seen in previous wars. It flies in the face of any and all Israeli claims of a "clean fight". Of course, Israel was careful to blame Hamas for the human suffering in Gaza, accusing the Palestinian movement of using civilians as human shields. But not only has this been proven largely false and unsubstantiated, the intensification of bombardment over the last few days of fighting revealed the true aim of Israel's strategy: causing great damage and suffering to the people in order to exact concessions from their leaders. These are war crimes by any standard.

How many victories has Israel achieved since 1948 on the long path of more conquest; how many more will it fight until it realises it can't win if Palestine refuses to lose or to go away! Clearly, Israel has not learnt the primary lesson of asymmetrical wars. Namely, the strong is bound to become weak when fighting the weak for long. States make wars to achieve favourable peace. But Israel, which has already been recognised over 78 percent of historic Palestine, continues to fight wars as a way of crisis management; a way to gain time when time is anything but on its side. Take the newly introduced rockets for example. If Palestinians can produce them at a mechanics garage in Gaza, what will stop them from producing more in the West Bank? Won't that expose the whole of Israel to new threats and render its separation wall, or "security fence" as they like to call it, superfluous?

Benjamin Netanyahu, who's known to be more cautious in waging war and negotiating peace than his predecessors, has tried to take advantage of the strategic chaos in the region, and more favourable conditions in Egypt, in order to defeat Hamas, corner Abbas, and get Obama's attention. Alas, he has achieved none of his main objectives. Hamas has grown more popular, Abbas' national unity government with Hamas ever more indispensable to maintain any ceasefire, and Obama no less indifferent. Worse, Israel's impunity is down a notch or more as its image is tarnished with more Palestinian blood.

Asymmetry

And if the Palestinians go the International Criminal Court, a potential indictment of Israel for war crimes would be a major diplomatic and perhaps economic blow. Meanwhile, the diplomatic wrangling has begun around the talks of an open-ended ceasefire. Expect the two sides to negotiate with no less vigour than they fought on the battlefield. Whether the Egyptian regime will act fairly to ensure the lifting the siege on Gaza, or will act in complicity with the Israeli occupation to tighten the siege in order to weaken Hamas, remains to be seen. What's clear, for the time, being is that after so much death and destruction, we're back to square one - just as we were after the last war, and will be following the next. It's rather foolish to go at it again and again hoping for a different result. As they say in Jerusalem: If you beat water again and again, it'll remain just that, water.