by Atty. Ziv Maor, journalist and writer, translated by Hillel Fendel.
Two
countries currently exist between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea:
the State of Israel, and the (imaginary, but still very real) State of Tel
Aviv. Both of them had a troubling Saturday night about a week ago: The State
of Israel wondered with concern how the government managed not to take
advantage of President Trump's ultimatum to Hamas that if the hostages are not
released by Saturday at noon, "all hell will break loose." At the
same time, those in Israel's other state were involved in the suspense of a
particular reality TV series…
In
any event, after Prime Minister Netanyahu met with US Secretary of State Marco
Rubio the next day, he made a public statement not exactly explaining why the
deadline had been ignored by both parties to the conflict, but still relating
somehow to Gaza: "We are in total security coordination with the
Americans," he said, and added, "Not all the details can be
divulged."
But
actually, that's exactly part of the problem. No one expects that "all
the details" should be divulged – but how about at least some of
them? Why should everything happen behind closed doors? Why should everything
be concealed from the public that is paying the price of the long-running
restraint?
This
has long been Netanyahu's approach. We in the nationalist camp have already
gotten used to it. But what's making it harder to accept over the last few
weeks is the total contrast with Trump's tactics. When he talks, he speaks
clearly: Transfer. Gates of Hell. All the hostages. He doesn't mince words –
and this has become "cold water for a tired soul," as we read in
Proverbs. Netanyahu's tendency to keep everything quiet and vague has exacted
prices from Israel in the two campaigns that have come aggressively upon us:
the campaign against the Arab enemy, and the left-wing uprising. In both cases,
the opponents act predictably and consistently. Trump's clarity shows the importance
of the "speak clearly" approach.
Shortly after the beginning of the current
war, our Prime Minister declared the country's ultimate war objectives: the
release of the hostages (who numbered some 250 at the time), the destruction of
Hamas as a military and governmental/administrative body in Gaza, and the
removal of the security threats facing the Jewish communities in the western
Negev. Not much later I wrote here that aside from the first one - freeing the
hostages - the others are not truly objectives; they speak of what won't be,
but not what will be.
This is a sad repeat of what happened when
Hizbullah attacked us and we responded with outright war. The government set
the "collapse of Hizbullah" as the objective, but did not state what
should happen afterwards. What would be the ideal situation in Lebanon as far
as Israel was concerned? Our government had no answer.
Trump, however, has the answer for Gaza,
which he stated in bombshell fashion: American control of Gaza, via the
transfer of the local population elsewhere. Will this actually happen? No one
knows. But the very fact of the clarity of the goals brought immediate
diplomatic results: Everyone is talking about the Trump plan. He announced the far-reaching
American demands, and now everyone is analyzing him and trying to figure how
much of his utopian vision he might be willing to compromise on. Wherever the spinner
stops, it will certainly be much better than it is now.
If Israel had announced, with the dust of
the massacre still rising, that its goal was to renew the thousands-year-old
Jewish settlement in Gaza City, everyone from Biden's Washington to EU capital and
Saudi Arabia's Riyadh, might not have agreed, but they would have taken this as
the starting point. The question then would have been, "What would Israel
be willing to compromise on?" It would certainly not have been, "How
can we get Hamas to agree to release the hostages?" If Israel had made
that announcement, the war would have been over a long time ago.
But the government chose political fuzziness,
and "without [political] vision, the country falls apart" (see
Proverbs 29,18).
Some say that it was this that caused the
downfall of none other than Napoleon Bonaparte. Though his ultimate defeat was
due to a number of factors, one of them might have been that he sought to
conquer Russia without any plan for what would happen afterwards.
Trump well knows this lesson. Let us hope that Netanyahu, as well, will learn it very soon.