Analysis: Does "Israel" know where it is heading?

By Paul Adams, Diplomatic correspondent, BBC News
Two weeks after "Israel" launched Operation Cast Lead, is it clear what the government is trying to achieve?
Against the constant din of gunfire, ministers and officials have kept up a steady barrage of comment, which points to a range of possibilities.
The most frequent refrain has also been the most ambiguous.
"The fundamental objective of the operation," said Defense (War) Minister Ehud Barak earlier this week, "is to change the reality of security for the south." I can't see any evidence that it was a thought through operation from a political point of view
On the face of it, this means protecting "Israeli" civilians (occupation-settlers) from rockets fired from inside the Gaza Strip by Hamas and other militant groups.
And given that rockets are still being fired, it is possible to argue that "Israel" is still pursuing this primary goal.
But "Israeli" newspaper reports speak of differences at the heart of the "Israeli" cabinet, with Barak content to pursue a limited objective, while Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni harbors grander designs.
"Harsh disagreement between [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert and Barak and Livni over way to end the war in the Gaza Strip," read a headline in Thursday's Haaretz newspaper.
Inside, columnist Ari Shavit wrote: "Barak believes there are those suppressing the fact that toppling Hamas entails the occupation of Gaza."
Public unease
Certainly, no one in a position of authority has spoken of wanting to take over the territory "Israel" vacated - with some relief - more than three years ago.
But at the end of December, Ehud Olmert's deputy, Haim Ramon, also spoke of the need to "topple Hamas", while "Israel's" ambassador to London, Ron Prosor, told the BBC: "Without Hamas... we will be able to reach out to the ones on both sides... who are willing to move forward."
A world without Hamas is certainly something most "Israelis" would welcome, even if polls suggest the public is deeply uneasy about going into Gaza on the ground.
But Major Gen Uzi Dayan, the former Chairman of the "Israeli" National Security Council, said "Israel's" real goal should be to surround the Gaza Strip and "dismantle" the Hamas regime.
Asked who would run Gaza in its place, Gen Dayan said this was none of "Israel's" business.
"I prefer a vacuum to what is there now," he told me.
Gen Dayan was giving his own view, not the official "Israeli" position, but as "Israeli" troops press home their campaign inside the Gaza Strip, and diplomacy fails to bring the conflict to an end, some are wondering whether "Israel" really knows where it is heading.
"I can't see any evidence that it was a thought-through operation, from a political point of view," said Yossi Mekelberg, an associate fellow of London's Chatham House think tank.
"And if it creates a political vacuum, even more extreme elements can enter into this equation," he added.
Mekelberg believes "Israel's" forthcoming elections, now less than one month away, help explain both the timing and the "excessiveness" of Operation Cast Lead.
It would not be the first time "Israel" has gone to war with elections looming.
In 1996, Shimon Peres launched Operation Grapes of Wrath in Lebanon. He lost.
This time, polling evidence suggests the war has helped Tzipi Livni to narrow the gap over her Likud rival, Binyamin Netanyahu.
But the rockets are still flying and there is no obvious end in sight.