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/ BARAK / 145 Hamas based its launchers in precisely those places. So it was not easy. At one point, we announced a call-up of reserves. We hinted at a possible ground incursion. But both Bibi and I knew we were going to avoid that if at all possible, and we did. Though there were inevitable civilian casualties, most of the Palestinians killed were Hamas fighters and leaders, including not just Jabari but the head of Hamas’s rocket program. By limiting ourselves to air strikes and naval fire, the Palestinian death toll was around 150, about one-tenth of what it had been in 2008. Six Israelis, including four civilians, lost their lives. On the 21* of November, the cease-fire was announced. Yet with the election approaching, and my time in public life drawing to a close, I had no illusion that this latest military operation, or future ones, would bring us closer to the negotiating peace with the Palestinians that had eluded us since Oslo. Nor was I confident that, having been unable to mount a military strike of our own on Iran, Obama’s “bigger, stronger kid” in the schoolyard would take military action. I did trust him to do all he could to use diplomacy to constrain Iran’s efforts to get a bomb. I feared he might fail. Even if he succeeded, I figured the best case would be an agreement that, at least on paper, delayed the Iranians’ development of a weapon. My hope remained that Israel’s relationship with the Americans would be sufficiently strong for us to reach a formal understanding of what form of surgical military strike each of our countries might take if Iran didn’t honor the terms of a negotiated deal. When I first left political life after my election defeat in 2001, I'd described my status as the equivalent of a reserve officer. I said, and believed, it was unlikely ’'d return for the foreseeable future. But I knew it wasn’t impossible. This time was different. When I announced publicly that I was leaving politics, five days after the Gaza cease-fire, I pointed that I had spent the greater part of my life as a soldier. I’d never had a burning desire to be a politician. Though I believed that what I'd attempted, and achieved, in government would prove to have safeguarded and strengthened Israel, I knew that important challenges and decisions still lay ahead. So did our unfulfilled dream of being a country that was not just strong, secure and prosperous, but socially just and at peace. Yet I believed it was right to draw my time on the front line of politics to an end. Though I didn’t say so, I thought to myself: this time doesn’t feel like a step back into the reserves, but genuinely like the end of something. Though my dedication to a secure, strong, just, democratic and ultimately peaceful Israel would not change, whatever contribution I might 431 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011902