The Israeli air strikes on Gaza over the past few days were unavoidable, but their significance is not yet clear, Prof William Harris, of the University of Otago political studies department, says.
Much would depend on whether Israel decided to continue with a ground operation in the next week or so in an attempt at near total dismantling of militant group Hamas' infrastructure.
This was within Israel's capability " if it is prepared to go that far".
Such a move, however, would not remove Hamas as a political or ideological movement.
Prof Harris said it was inevitable Israel would respond to the provocation of daily missiles fired by Gaza militants, which it had issued repeated warnings about through Egypt.
The retaliation of Israel was going to come sooner or later.
Prof Harris said he was not really surprised at the scale of the response.
Israel had been backed into a corner and Hamas had discounted Israel's military capability, which was "really pretty silly".
He did not accept that the situation was linked to the February Israeli elections.
An interesting aspect to the current situation was the attitude of some Arab states, with the Egyptian media going "hell for leather" against Syria and its involvement, making it plain that Hamas "had it coming".
Syria was acting as an agent provocateur, trying to demonstrate that nothing could be achieved between the Israelis and Palestinians and that the peace process should be looking towards Syrian city Damascus, the political headquarters of Hamas.
Syria was also interested in "muddying the waters" because from March 1 it was likely to be implicated when an international tribunal began prosecuting suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
Western countries, while making "vaguely worded" condemnations about the bloodshed and the violence, were not putting serious pressure on the Israelis.
There seemed to be some understanding that the Israelis had no choice but to do what they were doing.
The West's attitude, however, could change and countries would "run for cover" in the event of a huge atrocity involving the deaths of dozens of families, he said.
