In war, impatience is not a virtue

Photo: Flash90

IT has been clear for a long time that the primary goal of Israel’s war in Gaza was to ensure the safe return of as many hostages as possible, with the defeat of Hamas being secondary. If this had been Israel’s decision alone, any debate over those priorities — stifled as it has been —would have been valid and fair.

However, Israel left many of its war goals unfulfilled, due either to domestic pressure to avoid military activity that could jeopardize the hostages’ lives or to international condemnation and interference. As long as our enemies have yet to lay down their arms or change their goals, the lack of a total victory could come back to haunt us in the years ahead.

The Biden administration pressured Israel into an early ceasefire in Lebanon just as it appeared Israel was on the verge of routing Hezbollah. It hasn’t turned out as badly as it could have because Israel has maintained its freedom of action, attacking Hezbollah strongholds every day, but the fact that those strongholds still exist is due to the war ending prematurely.

That pattern has persisted, even into the new Trump administration. Trump struck his own deal with the Houthis in early May that stopped attacks on American ships. Since then, the Houthis have fired more than 100 ballistic missiles and projectiles into Israel, sometimes forcing Ben-Gurion Airport to shut down for a few hours and closing the Port of Eilat.

That’s no victory.

The same applies to Iran, where combined US-Israeli airstrikes destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities, but just as Israel’s air force was about to deliver its final blow, President Trump ordered Prime Minister Netanyahu to call off the attack, and Netanyahu complied.

In his Knesset speech, Trump claimed Iran was not rebuilding its damaged plants, even though satellite photos show otherwise, while also insisting that Iran is interested in some form of peace agreement. Trump definitely knows more than we do, but it’s hard to believe that a radical Islamic regime with nuclear ambitions, driven by a apocalyptic Islamic ideology that dates back over 1,000 years, is ready to back away from its hatred for the Great and Little Satans, as it calls the US and Israel.

Now, Gaza. Trump deserves credit for pivoting and securing the release of the hostages in one fell swoop, rather than the scattered approach of ten now and ten maybe later — or never — but his declaration in the Knesset that Israel won the war and can now pursue a new era of peace sounds hollow.

Would Israel be better off today if it had been able to fight these wars to their full conclusion? We will never know. Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran are weaker but still capable. New threats have emerged, including Syria’s new Islamic government, which is evolving; and Egypt and Turkey adopting a more assertive and dangerous posture. The players have shifted, but the anti-Israel dynamics remain the same.

Peace Cannot Be Coerced

As confident as President Trump sounded about the prospects for regional peace during his Hoshana Rabbah Knesset speech and at the follow-up Arab summit in Sharm-el-Sheikh, peace between Israel and the Arab and Muslim world remains as elusive as ever.

Trump has a lot of clout with all the players in the process, but all of the arms and business deals in the world will not put an end to centuries of religious conflict and decades of Arab wars waged against the State of Israel.

Trump persuaded Egyptian president Al-Sisi to extend a last-minute invitation to Bibi Netanyahu for the Sharm conference, but the invite quickly ended up in the dumpster when the presidents of Turkey and Iraq both threatened to turn back — in mid-air — if Netanyahu set foot in Sharm.

Does that sound like they’re ready to make peace with Israel?

The prime minister of Indonesia canceled an Isru Chag visit to Israel when news of his visit leaked. Does that sound like he’s ready for peace with Israel?

Saudi Arabia dispatched a lower-level diplomat to the conference because they were upset that Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar were upstaging what they perceived as their leadership of the Muslim world. Sounds petty.

Trump and his envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, will keep promoting membership in the Abraham Accords. They might as well try, as relationships between Israel and other Arab and Muslim nations are desirable — as long as they’re treating Israel as an equal and not acting like they’re doing the world a favor by doing so. It is an uphill battle.

Freezing Israel out in sunny Sharm el-Sheikh proves that even when Israel plays nice and stops the fighting, there is no guarantee the other side will reciprocate.

Will Phase Two Happen?

The fact that Hamas would violate the terms of Trump’s 20-point plan to bring the hostages home and end the war was as predictable as the fact that it doesn’t rain in Israel in the summer. Hamas is dawdling in returning the remains of the deceased hostages. Their fighters, who were hiding underground as Israel expanded its control of Gaza City, have surfaced after Israel’s withdrawal and are marauding around Gaza, slaughtering rival militia members in broad daylight. Trump and Netanyahu, apparently, agreed to this Hamas show of force, for some unfathomable reason, and will regret it.

The idea that Hamas would voluntarily disarm, accept exile to places like Dearborn, London, and possibly New York after the November mayoral election, and turn Gaza into a demilitarized zone, is pure fantasy. Trump hopes that other Arab nations in the region will do the dirty work that he didn’t let the IDF finish, but even if Hamas handed over its weapons to a joint armed force that included Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, it’s not hard to guess where they would end up.

There are plenty of reasons for skepticism over plans to rebuild the Gaza Strip. The UN Development Programme estimates there are 55 million tons of debris in Gaza, enough to cover all of New York’s Central Park to a height of 50 feet. If it ever happens, rebuilding will take a decade or more and cost $70 billion, in today’s dollars. The Arab Middle East nations have plenty of money, but is this where they want to invest it?

The IDF destroyed over 80% of Gaza’s buildings. Who really wants to live amid the rubble and construction noise?

It’s possible that Trump’s original plan, to resettle Gaza residents elsewhere, might come back on the table sooner rather than later.

Israel Needs Some New Lines

During the war, Israeli officials repeatedly described Hamas’s murderous rampage on October 7, 2023, as the highest death toll against Jews since the Holocaust. While true and also an attempt to claim moral high ground and justify our response, how effective is this in a world where Holocaust denial, distortion, and ignorance are widespread? The Claims Conference released results of an eight-nation survey in January 2025, showing that even in the United States, 44% of participants say Holocaust denial is common, and 33% reported encountering Holocaust denial on social media. About 46% of French young adults aged 20–29 say they have never heard of the Holocaust.

Qatar can teach us how to respond to a military violation of our territory.

After Israel’s failed attempt to assassinate Hamas’s top leadership at their five-star luxury headquarters in its capital of Doha, Qatar swiftly charged Israel with violating its sovereignty, a charge echoed by several countries that Qatar has plied with money over the years.

By their reaction, you would think Israel violated the sovereignty of a land that has been in existence since the Six Days of Creation.

Contrast that with more than 37,500 ballistic missiles, rockets, drones, and explosive projectiles fired into Israel over the past two years, according to figures from the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. Aren’t these violations of Israel’s sovereignty? Where is the outrage over the 61,534 times Israelis have had to run to a secure area, according to the INSS figures?

Israel must stop complaining and seeking sympathy. They’re not getting it anyway.

We don’t need anyone telling us we have the right to defend ourselves. We just need to do it and stop apologizing.

A New Ethos, Defined

Now that Israel has agreed to another lopsided exchange of innocent Jewish hostages for prisoners serving life sentences for murder, some pundits have suggested that Israel must change its ethos. They contend Israel should make a new compact with its citizens and let them know that if another October 7 ever happens again, G-d forbid, that Israel will not enter negotiations with terrorists for their release or exchange.

The idea may be well-intentioned, but it is a non-starter. The IDF will never abandon a soldier on the battlefield, nor an innocent civilian held by kidnappers.

There are some changes Israel can make that will significantly lower the enemy’s incentive to take hostages. Of course, this is controversial, and the usual leftist legal scholars contend it’s also unconstitutional. Israel often chooses to imprison terrorists in the hopes of gleaning intelligence information from them, but perhaps the time has come to repay lethal force with lethal force.

Israel must provide enhanced training and better tools to special forces so they can leap into action the instant a kidnapping occurs. Go after the kidnappers with full force and close off all entrances and exits to keep them in a confined area.

Had Israel sealed off Gaza entirely right after October 7, and resisted the entreaties and pressures to ensure the flow of humanitarian aid to kidnappers and murderers, and kept the pressure on long enough so there was no water, food, fuel, or electricity, much of what we have suffered in the past two years might never have come to pass.

True, Israel did inflict far more damage on its enemies than they inflicted on us, but Israelis will live with the trauma of the last two years for the rest of their lives.

It is a time to heal, especially now that 20 young men have returned to the arms of their families, who greeted them with hugs, kisses, shrieks of joy, and many shehecheyanus.

It also remains a time for vigilance, realism, and letting our enemies and friends know that we will make the final decisions on what’s best for us, and that we have no margin for error.