Netanyahu stands to gain from Gaza flare-up Israel's latest clash with Hamas is over. The ceasefire appears to be holding. Rocket fire from Gaza has stopped, thousands of Israeli reservists are back home, and air raid sirens from Tel Aviv to Ashkelon have fallen silent again. The mood in the country, however, is far from jubilant. Many Israelis appear to see the latest offensive as a missed opportunity. On the air waves and opinion pages, commentators are asking why the Israeli army did not go "all the way," by sending ground forces into Gaza to crush the Hamas rocket squads once and for all. Residents of southern towns such as Sderot complain bitterly that Israel failed to achieve a decisive victory, and worry that their homes will come under fire from the Palestinian enclave again soon. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has good reason to worry about the grouchiness that greeted his decision to accept an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire last week. He faces a general election in less than two months and he knows the contest will be shaped - at least to some degree - by how voters feel about the latest clash with Hamas. For the moment, opinion polls show that many take a dim view of Mr Netanyahu's decision to accept a ceasefire. One survey, published last Friday in the Maariv daily newspaper, found that 49 per cent of respondents said the offensive should have continued, while only 31 per cent said they were in favour of the ceasefire (and 20 per cent had no opinion). The same poll found a sharp drop in support for the joint list between Mr Netanyahu's Likud party and the Yisrael Beiteinu group, which is headed by Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister. The rightwing alliance was predicted to win only 37 out of 120 seats in the Israeli parliament, down from 43 in a survey last month. On the surface, then, the latest clash between Israel and Hamas would appear to have damaged Mr Netanyahu's political standing at a crucial time in the electoral cycle. Dig a little deeper, however, and the picture starts to change. What matters, says Abraham Diskin, a professor of political sciences at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is not so much whether the prime minister loses a few votes and seats - but to whom he loses them. Likud voters who are disappointed by Mr Netanyahu's failure to flatten the Gaza Strip are most likely to vote for more extreme rightwing parties in January. Such a switch, however, does nothing to tip the balance between the two broader political camps - the left, led by the Labour party, and the right, led by Mr Netanyahu's Likud. On the other hand, [the ceasefire] strengthens the Likud vis-à-vis the centre, and that is the more important electoral frontier. Whoever dominates the centre, dominates the whole system," says Prof Diskin. The fact that the government was decisive, that it went in to hit Hamas, but that it then also showed restraint, agreed to a ceasefire and co-operated with the US - I think all this helps Netanyahu with centrist voters. There are at least two other reasons why the latest Gaza conflict may help the prime minister. First, it ensures that security and defence are once again at the heart of the political debate in Israel. This deals a blow to the efforts by Labour and other parties to make the forthcoming election a contest about socioeconomic issues, such as rising inequality and the high cost of living. Second, the offensive has allowed Ehud Barak, the defence minister and leader of a small breakaway faction in parliament, to revive his political fortunes. Polls show that his Independence party may after all win enough votes to re-enter parliament, possibly with as many as four seats. This would allow Mr Netanyahu not only to keep his trusted defence minister, but would give him a centrist coalition partner to balance his allies on the far right. Much, of course, will depend on how the next two months develop. If rocket fire from Gaza resumes, the Israeli prime minister will face accusations that he failed to finish the job. If the border between Gaza and Israel stays calm, however, Mr Netanyahu will be an even stronger favourite to win the January election than he was before the conflict started.