Israel aims to defeat Hamas, then leave Gaza. Who would fill vacuum?

In September of 2014, Barack Obama gave a White House address in which he pledged that the United States and its allies would “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State.

The world could not tolerate a terrorist organization that kidnapped and killed innocents in the most barbaric of manners, the president said, or that possessed a base from which to launch its attacks and spread its poisonous ideology.

After several years, heavy destruction of several Iraqi cities, and the loss of many innocent lives, ISIS was substantially degraded and denied the “caliphate” it briefly declared in parts of Iraq and Syria.

But it was not eradicated, and it remains active today.

Now Israel, in the wake of the worst terrorist attack of its 75-year history – with more than 1,400 people killed, thousands wounded, and more than 220 taken hostage – is promising its