The Sharp Strategic U-Turn in Our Consciousness

by Kobi Eliraz, former advisor on settlement affairs to four Defense Ministers, translated by Hillel Fendel.

Israel's current war, not only in Gaza, is not the result of a particular or individual failure. It was not just an isolated military mistake that brought about Oct. 7th, nor a temporary or even long-term intelligence failure.

It was rather brought upon us by a failed understanding – the notorious "misconception" that everyone talks about – that became entrenched in the popular thinking of many in power, and not in power, in the State of Israel. It was the dangerous illusion that concessions, appeasement, and restraint would bring about quiet and stability.

This terrible failure that brought us to where we are does not belong to just one particular government, or to one Chief of Staff or another. It is a very deeply ensconced misunderstanding of Middle East reality that developed over the course of decades of naively mistaken policy.

It was manifest in a long series of false slogans that were disseminated and became principles of our public policy. For instance:

·         "The new Middle East" popularized by Shimon Peres [and echoed, in the context of an anticipated peace deal with Saudi Arabia, by Prime Minister Netanyahu in the United Nations just two weeks (!) before Oct. 7^th]

·         "Peace is made with enemies" – forgetting that this does not include enemies who will use the "peace" to find new ways to destroy you; and

·         "There is no military solution" – leading to a situation in which the enemy continually fortifies himself, in the knowledge that our response will be limited.

Instead of reading the reality as it truly is, we became addicted to the illusion that concessions will lead to calm. At the same time, the enemy took advantage of our weakness to build himself up with a powerful military apparatus and prepare for his next offensive.

Between the Oslo Accords of 1993-95 and the Disengagement/expulsion of 2005, Israel repeatedly retreated, while the terrorists kept on growing stronger. The thought that our withdrawals would decrease Palestinian violence was proven to be downright wrong: Our departure from Gush Katif and Gaza did not turn it into the "Singapore of the Middle East," but rather into the capital of international terrorism.

Every round of fighting in Gaza over the past three decades ended with an "arrangement" – but not with a decisive defeat of Hamas. This in itself strengthened Hamas, giving it not only confidence, but also the ability to rearm, regroup, and rebuild. Our restraint in the face of Hamas rockets, tunnel-building, and terrorist attacks sent Hamas a clear message: "Israel will not fight you forcefully and you have little to lose by continuing to attack us."

This ongoing mistake of believing that we can simply "manage" the dispute instead of "winning" it has nothing to do with the lack of intelligence at any given time. It does, however, explain why whatever intelligence was received was woefully misinterpreted.

When commissions of inquiry are ultimately established to investigate what happened on and before Oct. 7^th, they must not be allowed to suffice with attempts to figure out who is most to blame for the military and intelligence blunders. The critical question that must be answered is rather: How did Israel allow this situation to develop in the first place?

The officers who went to sleep early Simchat Torah morning in the belief that the signs of an imminent attack were not substantial made a local mistake. Those who waved off the warnings of the female lookout soldiers made a worse mistake. They must all pay for them. But most culpable of all are those who led the State of Israel into deceptive "peace" agreements and who tried to sell the public false dreams of "peace for land" and insisted that there "is no military solution." These include many in academia, the media, the security establishment, and in the broad public. They helped form a reality in which Israel was perceived as weak – which invited our enemies to act against us in every way they could.

The current war must lead not only to a change in our military, but to a change in how we think. We can no longer strategize in terms of how to manage the conflict, but rather how to win and end it; no more ceasefire, but only total destruction of the enemy's military capabilities; no more unilateral concessions, but only steps that strengthen our grasp on the Land and our deterrence capabilities.

For Israel to return to strategic security, there must be a total change in our thinking, and on the ground. We must not return to the same cycle of weakness, false illusions, and baseless hopes. The time has come, once and for all, to stop hoping that everything will work out on its own – and to start shaping it the way we want with force, strength, and strategic clarity.

The Mistakes of Oct. 7th Go Back Not Five Years, but 32

by Din Milo, former Political Advisor and current Strategic and Economic advisor, translated by Hillel Fendel.

No one disputes that the governments of Israel over the years could have done things differently to prevent the events that led up to Oct. 7^th. What people do dispute is how and what exactly the governments should have done differently.

As in most of our other national disputes, this one is chiefly waged between the right- and left-wing camps. Most of the latter feels that the government did not take Hamas seriously enough over the years. They say that the governments led by Netanyahu, and primarily Netanyahu himself [who has served as Prime Minister for 18 years, beginning in 1996], armed and supported Hamas for years, while at the same time overlooking and sidelining the Palestinian Authority.

On the other hand, many on the right-wing side of the aisle look at Netanyahu's governments' military campaigns against Hamas, of which there were many, and say that they simply were not strong enough. None of the rounds of fighting – Operation Protective Edge, Operation Days of Penitence, Operation Summer Rains, etc. – produced a sound defeat of Hamas; they rather enabled the terrorists to regroup, rearm, and resume their attacks months or short years afterwards. They also maintain that Oct. 7^th was a direct outgrowth of Ariel Sharon's 2005 Disengagement plan – Israel's unilateral pullout from Gaza, including the dismantling of 22 Jewish communities and the "relocation" of their nearly 10,000 Jewish residents. They see the freeing of over 1,000 Palestinian terrorists, including Yichye Sinwar and other budding Hamas leaders, in exchange for Gilad Shalit in 2011 as having contributed as well.

To resolve this dispute, we must understand why our governments refrained from acting against Hamas as they should have. The reason is simple: the Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995. These agreements stipulated that Israel would withdraw its forces from most of Gaza and Jericho, and would later further withdraw from many areas in Judea and Samaria.

The Oslo agreements led to a number of things, among them:

1.      When Israel pulled back its forces from Gaza in 1994, it left the Jewish residents there without proper protection, and the security forces without sufficient intelligence. It enabled the enemy to establish terrorist infrastructures and strengthen itself militarily, which led over the next few years to increased terrorism and the murder of many Israelis.

2.     The creation of the Palestinian Authority granted the terrorists the international legitimacy it had long sought. The PA police forces received professional training by American experts, as well as massive funding and weapons from around the world. Oslo paved the way for the establishment of an Arab state in the heart of our homeland.

In 2001, when Ariel Sharon took over as Prime Minister, he faced a major crossroads: Should he order the IDF to reoccupy the terror nests that had sprouted in Gaza over the preceding years? Or should he rather order the evacuation of the Jews living there, and thus finalize Israel's detachment from Gaza? He took with him to the grave his true considerations in choosing the latter. However, inter alia, it can be assumed that he concluded that it was not really possible to abolish the Oslo Accords and return to Gaza – because it would have involved too many IDF casualties, and also because the Western world would never have let such a decision pass without emplacing painful sanctions upon Israel that could have dealt us a death blow.

We thus see that without Oslo, the Disengagement would likely not have happened. The Oslo Accords of the early 90's led to Israel's total withdrawal from Gaza and Gush Katif in 2005.

As is now well-known, soon afterwards, Hamas easily took over the entire Gaza Strip, including by throwing some of its Fatah opponents from roofs. Still, as a nation we did not actively recognize the danger that Hamas represented.

When Gilad Shalit was taken captive by Hamas, masses of Israelis took to the streets – but what did they demand? Not that we return to Gaza, and not even an Israeli military operation to free him. Rather, they demanded that Israel come to an "agreement" with Hamas regarding the release of imprisoned terrorists in exchange for Shalit's freedom. As is well-known, the public pressure succeeded, and Shalit came home - as did 1,0270 terrorists, several of whom went on to murder a dozen Israelis, and one of whom went on to mastermind the Oct. 7^th massacre.

In the years since then, despite many battles, Israel never won a single resounding victory over Hamas – because we never really considered executing the one thing that would do the trick: a total take-over of Gaza. Only after Oct. 7^th has the Israeli public begun reconsidering this.

The only thing we can hope for now, after having allowed the Simchat Torah massacre to happen, is to do everything to make sure that it does not recur. To this end, we must investigate in depth the operational and political failures that enabled the travesty. The main lesson that must be learned is therefore this: "Yes, peace is made with enemies – but only with those enemies who want to make peace."

The Oslo catastrophe happened because we tried to negotiate peace with an enemy who didn't want peace, and this simply enabled him to fortify himself in our own backyard.

In conclusion, I believe that in order to make sure that the Oslo travesty does not repeat itself, we should stop talking so much about specific personages, whether they be politicians, top IDF officers, or anyone else of authority. We should instead be concentrating on the terrible policies that led us to where we are today – namely, the Oslo Accords and its ramifications in the form of Oct. 7^th and more. The current leaders of our country dare not make the same mistakes as their predecessors.

Last Week's Hamas Attacks that Mean Just One Thing: All-Out War

by Prof. Elisha Hass, member of Professors for a Strong Israel, translated by Hillel Fendel.

Last week, a most amazing miracle in Israel was widely overlooked when Islamo-Nazis placed mis-timed bombs on at least five public buses, and five other Islamo-Nazis attempted and failed to blow up themselves and their fellow passengers on the light-rail nearby. The proper approach to these events is of course to give thanks to G-d – and also to go out to war against the terrorist infrastructures in Yesha from which the attacks originated precisely as if 200 Israelis had in fact been murdered that Friday morning.

In terms of the military response, there must be no difference between 200 funerals and zero funerals. The threat is the same threat, the significance of the attempted attacks is the same, and the conclusion must be identical as well: We are in an existential war, there is no ceasefire, and war is no fun: One must storm the enemy wherever possible.

One of the attackers left a note: "Regards from the Tulkarm refugee camp." Tulkarm was perhaps once a refugee camp, but today it is a full-fledged Arab city in Samaria, very close to Kfar Saba and Raanana. Either way, it must be erased from the earth via massive air-raid bombings, without delay. Those who dream only of the release of the remaining hostages and who are prepared to absorb, to that end, additional hundreds of murdered Jews; those who don't understand that Hamas rules not only in Gaza, but also in Judea and Samaria; those who don't understand that the hostages will not be freed until we stop the humanitarian aid going into Gaza, withhold water and electricity, and open the gates of hell upon the entire Gaza Strip and any "refugee camp" that initiates terrorist attack anywhere in Israel – is partner to bringing near a very much more dangerous war in the future.

We signed an insane deal, extricating only about half of the live hostages for unprecedented concessions, including the release of untold number of murderous terrorists. This was a surrender to emotional blackmail created by the powerful and ongoing propaganda machine that was nourished by the energy and resources of enemies of Israel. The agreement caused us to lose the military achievements accomplished by our soldiers, genuinely deceiving those brave and patriotic warriors. They had sacrificed their lives to eradicate the Muslim enemy, and then came along a deal that revived this very enemy. They embarked on a war that was to be decisive, and the agreement then reversed everything, and turned the fighting into a wishy-washy "war of rounds" wherein we give some, lose some, and then try again, and again, and again.

Now is the time to stop this ongoing defeat, and set out to truly destroy the enemy, once and for all, without hesitation. It is time for us to activate our maximum firepower in Gaza, with no apologetics and without advance warnings. We recall what the Allies did in Europe in World War II, especially in Dresden [and during Operation Meetinghouse in Tokyo], and this is what must be done in Gaza. After no building is left standing there, only then should our ground forces enter again into the same places that we left thanks to the hostage release deal. An enemy who does not cease his efforts to destroy us is not one to make deals with; the principle must rather be, in the spirit of Purim, "to destroy, to kill, and to erase." This is a law of nature that cannot be ignored.  

There are two ways in which the hostages can be freed: Either we wage war to destroy Hamas and they beg and plead for a short ceasefire in order to release them, or we actually destroy Hamas and then we find and free the hostages. True, the second option means that not all of them will actually be freed alive – but we must remember that when a nation finds itself in an existential war, it sends soldiers to the front lines in the clear knowledge that some or many of them will not return. Similarly, in a profoundly ethical manner, a nation knows that in order for it to exist, it will suffer individual losses for the sake of the life of the nation. The current war in Gaza and Lebanon has cost us several hundred bereaved families – and now we have to start almost all over.

The recent failed bus bombings mean that Hamas has ended the ceasefire and renewed the war.  Hamas in Judea and Samaria is same Hamas as in Gaza. Anyone in authority who takes comfort in the fact that, by the grace of G-d, the operation failed, is disgracing his position. Anyone who does not heed this battle cry of Hamas and realize that continuing the deal to its Stage 2 means destruction of the Zionist enterprise must vacate his position.

We now have the full backing of the world's one superpower to act precisely as it itself acted in World War II, without restraints, and without distinguishing between combatants and those who are "uninvolved." As the Allies fought then, we too are righting in the name of humanity to wipe out evil. We have the unique chance to save the world from radical Islam that has thrived on the weakness of the progressive elements throughout the West and in Israel. Now is not the time to make business calculations with the murderers for the sake of receiving individual hostages in drips and drabs. We must relate to the hostages in the same way we relate to our brave soldiers, who are willing to make the supreme national and universal sacrifice for the sake of something greater than themselves as individuals.

There is no time left. The massive terror attack of this past Thursday night is a stormy wake-up call: "Forward, charge!" It was lacking only the actual funerals – but it has the same thunderous message nonetheless: "Forward, charge!"

We are no longer in the ghetto, crying over calamities that befall us. We are the Nation of Israel that has been granted nationalism and sovereignty anew, and we must act accordingly. I call on the Prime Minister to issue the strongest possible "Fire!" order, immediately, and to flatten every house still standing in Gaza, and to tighten the complete food blockade, including water and electricity, right now.

History will not forgive those who hesitate today and give preference to individual lives at the expense of the future of our national existence.

Advice to Netanyahu: "Let's Make One Thing Perfectly Clear"

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. 

The Trump Light is Green – Go!

by Emanuel Shilo, editor of Besheva weekly , translated by Hillel Fendel.

1. Why oh why, many are asking, did we agree to enter into negotiations with Hamas and consent to give them almost everything they wanted at such an early stage of the deal?

In general, it is hard to avoid the impression that the push to reach a deal right there and then, and the cave-in to the pressure of the media and the "Bring Them Home!" groups, caused our negotiators to wage the negotiations in a rushed and most unprofessional manner. Perhaps we would have done a lot better had we sent to Qatar and Egypt not the senior figures in our security establishment – Gen. Nitzan Alon, Shabak chief Ronen Bar, and Mossad head Dedi Barnea – but seasoned and savvy businessmen or lawyers.

The price is unfathomable. What could have justified the exponential jump from the fairly reasonable price we paid for the release of some of our hostages at the end of 2023 and the outrageous price we are now paying? The gap is huge, in terms of the number – and quality – of terrorists we are releasing for each hostage, the number of ceasefire days that the enemy will use to rearm and rebuild itself, and of course the dangerous precedent of our concession of strategic assets that we won with the blood of our soldiers.

2.  But beyond that: Is it not obvious that when and if one has to deal with a cheat and liar, one must ensure that he leaves sufficient assets in his hands to ensure that the other side carries out its part of the deal? Why did we agree to pay in full even before receiving the promised goods? How could we have allowed the Gazan population to return to northern Gaza, and agreed to withdraw our forces from the Netzarim axis, at such an early stage of the deal? We could have agreed, in the first stages, to call a ceasefire, to release terrorists, and to allow even more humanitarian aid – while retaining the cards that were so important to Hamas, such as the return of the population to northern Gaza and the IDF's withdrawal from Netzarim, until after the all our living hostages were freed.

Another elementary rule is that our enemy is not to receive live terrorists in exchange for dead bodies; only dead terrorists are to be given over in exchange for our corpses. This principle - one of the conclusions of the Shamgar Committee that was established in 2008 after the Gilad Shalit deal to set guidelines for future hostage exchanges - is both just and smart, for it motivates the abductors to preserve the lives of those they have kidnapped. For some inexplicable reason, in exchange for several corpses in the coming days, Israel will release all the women and minors who were arrested in Gaza ever since Oct. 8, 2023, the day after the massacre.

Certainly bringing deceased Jews to proper Jewish burial is a great Torah commandment and value. But it cannot justify the future danger to lives inherent in the release of murderous terrorists. We have in our hands many "valuable" terrorist corpses, such as that of Yichye Sinwar. If the negotiations had been handled correctly, all of our dead hostages could have been attained in exchange for Sinwar's cadaver, with perhaps a few more thrown in for good measure. It's true that ultimate justice requires that his remains be lost forever in the sea, as we did with the ashes of Eichmann and the Americans did with Bin-Laden. However, for the sake of Jewish burials for our dead hostages, we could have compromised on that point. 

Of course, it's not only the negotiators' fault, but also that of our Prime Minister and other government minister who approved the deal. We can be happy at least that from now on, Minister Ron Dermer will replace the failed negotiators and head our negotiating team.

3. Another missed opportunity – so far – was the threat last week by Israel's friend U.S. President Donald Trump that "all hell is going to break out" if Hamas did not release at least the three hostages it promised to free this past Saturday. Given that the "excuse" for the current agreement was pressure by the incoming Trump Administration, there is no reason that Trump's support for a strong Israeli reaction should not be utilized now to extricate ourselves from this terrible deal.

That is, now that this past Saturday noon did not see a full release of all the hostages, we have a green light from Trump to attack Hamas again with abandon. With full American backing, a new Defense Minister who thinks differently than his predecessor, and a new Chief of Staff, this is the time to wage the ultimate offensive that will achieve the war aims of destroying Hamas and freeing the hostages – as well as the new goal of transferring the Gazan population to other countries, in the spirit of the Trump vision.

[Ed. note: We now know that Hamas has agreed to release six living hostages this coming Saturday, in addition to four corpses beforehand and another four afterwards. It is therefore far from certain that the writer would call for an immediate Israeli attack under these circumstances.]

4. The war objective of dismantling the Hamas regime should be done in three stages. First, Israel must take over all of Gaza and establish a military administration that will control, among other things, the distribution of food and humanitarian aid to the populace. When the Gazans are no longer dependent on Hamas for food, and are no longer threatened by Hamas, they are more likely to cooperate with Israel and provide information for the release of the hostages and the capture of the Hamas leaders.

Secondly, any Gazan who wants to leave should be helped to do so. Pres. Trump has laid his prestige on this initiative, and will be of great assistance to this end.

And thirdly, the IDF must wage war on all fronts in Gaza simultaneously. The only agreement that can ever be made with Hamas is its surrender, in which all the hostages, dead or alive, are returned safely. If we allow Hamas to end this war with a victory of any type, the chance that it will return all our hostages is microscopic, for they serve to guarantee that Israel will not continue to attack and destroy Hamas.

If we muster up the strength, courage and resourcefulness to resume the military effort with a new spirit, there is a very good chance that Hamas will reach its moral breaking point very quickly and will agree, from lack of choice, to hand over all the hostages to us as part of its surrender.