To pick up where I left off. Since it has been a while, let me recap:
(1) I cannot fathom Israel's failure to capture Rafiah and the Philadelphi Corridor during the earliest stages of our land campaign that began on October 28, 2023.
(2) Whatever his motivations, PM Netanyahu is correct when he says the Philadelphi Corridor can't be abandoned to Hamas because it really is the primary funnel of weapons and wherewithal into the Strip. Just because a man lacks credibility, integrity, and decency does not always make him wrong.
(3) Similarly, Israel needs to retain the Netzarim corridor that cuts Gaza in half from east to west. If we are to track down and kill Yehya Sinwar, we need to be inside Gaza.
(4) Simultaneously, Israel needs to offer an initiative for the day after in Gaza that hinges on finding Arab trustees for the Strip. We want military control over the Strip for the foreseeable future, but a civil, preferably Arab trusteeship, even if drawn from PLO technocratic elements.
(5) The needs of the many override the needs of the few. The meaning of "bring them home now" is a ceasefire that leaves Hamas in place to rebuild and rearm. Once Israel leaves captured territory – history plainly demonstrates – it can't simply return.
(6) Any hostage exchange with Hamas is a walk down a blind alley. We do not even know who is alive (what a way to "negotiate!"). Hamas demands a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Strip. It also demands the release of hundreds, perhaps thousands of terrorists from our prisons, from the most infamous to commonplace butcher-rapists. Their release will jeopardize the lives of all Israelis for a long time to come. "Prisoner exchanges" bring immediate gratification followed by enduring torment. I refer you to the Shalit deal.
(7) Israel's mainstream news outlets uniformly support "bring them home now." So does Yair Lapid and Benny Ganz. That don't make it right. It only shows that Netanyahu is not our only problem.
(8) Since the Biden-Harris administration has no leverage over Hamas, and it needs to appease the woke elements within the party, it relentlessly pressures Israel to withdraw from Gaza unilaterally and limit its retaliations against Hezbollah.
(9) Israelis, I know, feel they have to "do something" to show solidarity with our captives. However, an unintended consequence of what they have been doing is bolstering Hamas. Look at it from the enemy's viewpoint: they murder six Israeli hostages, and tens of thousands of us pour into the streets demanding surrender. My advice is don’t just do something. Sit there!
I am a hawk, not a capitulationist. For that reason, the Netanyahu government must go. I will not take part in catch-all demonstrations against it during wartime. But let me be clear: This Likud-Hardal-Haredi government is a proven catastrophe. It is culpable for weakening Israel's domestic body politic before October 7 with Netanyahu's judicial putsch spearheaded by Yariv Levin and Simcha Rothman. This Likud-Hardal-Haredi government is accountable for Israel's lack of preparedness on October 7. It failed in its fiduciary responsibilities to properly administer the IDF General Staff. Nor did it take them seriously when they made an effort to warn that Israel was forfeiting its deterrence because of internal fragmentation.
After October 7, Netanyahu refused to step down. Failing in that elemental decency, he also failed to bring together the heads of all the Zionist parties in the Knesset to serve in a genuine War Cabinet. He has refused to take personal responsibility for his failures. Nor will he now sanction a state commission of inquiry that would investigate October 7 when this war is over.
He has sullied Israel's brand globally.
By empowering messianics prostrating themselves on the Temple Mount, they have united a bickering Islamic world – Sunni, Shi’ite, Turkish, Persian, and Arab – against Israel. Our fanatics have finally managed to make the Israel-Palestinian conflict into a war of Islam against Judaism and, in the process, helped to further fan already red-hot antisemitism flaming through so much of the West.
That’s the way it is 337 days into Israel’s longest war. A multi-front conflagration. We are facing our arch enemy Iran in the east and its Syrian and Iraqi-based militias; in the Jordan Valley and in Judea and Samaria (which need I remind you overlooks Ben-Gurion Airport) Iran is stoking an already smoldering front; in Gaza, the battle to defang Hamas is ongoing; in the north we are in a draining war against the country formerly known as Lebanon now a Hezbollah Zombie, and against the country formerly known as Yemen now a Houthi Frankenstein.
Realistically, we can’t address Hezbollah until Gaza is reasonably pacified.
Internationally, we are facing a lawfare onslaught orchestrated in the first instance by South Africa on behalf of Hamas and the PLO. Britain's new Labour Government is slowly but surely feeding Israel to its Corbyn wing. France is no better.
Meanwhile, the Jewishly-affiliated, genuinely pro-Israel community in the US is in an utterly unenviable position less than 60 days before the American presidential elections. A vote for Trump-Vance brings with it neo-Nazi "demons of influence" into the White House. A vote for Harris-Walz brings with it Islamist and woke "scamps-of-influence" into the White House. MAGA versus intersectional rapscallions. To me, that is no choice at all.
It is good to be back.
Glad you are back. I missed your commentary.
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