Gaza Victory Defined

The lives of the hostages held in Gaza are not worth the ultimate destruction of the Jewish People. Twenty souls should not be allowed to outweigh the fate of fifteen million or so Jews not being held captive. What was needed to dissuade future attacks on Jews was a victory like Rome enjoyed over Carthage where every field was burned and each well salted, so that what used to be Rome's rival could not sustain life for thousands of years. That is the only sort of triumph that would have restored deterrence and protected Israel and more broadly, world Jewry.