It has seemed likely for several weeks that Israel would attack Rafah, reportedly the last holdout of Hamas’ forces, on Purim, which began a few hours ago. Nothing would make more sense. Purim is a time to remember that when under threat, the Jewish people unite.
With pressure building up — most especially, of course, due to losses on the battlefield … the IDF has to strike and strike as hard as possible.
Ts’al, Israel Defense Force, has been under intense pressure to get the first phase of the war over and done with, namely knock out Hamas’ battalion-level formations. When this job’s done, they still will have the job of mopping up small units and policing the area, but isn’t that what they’ve done since 1948, on all fronts and even at times within the country? (READ MORE from Roger Kaplan: Where Are the Israeli Players at the Australian Open?)
They will have to decide how to do this, with what help they can obtain from their neighbors and the U.S. Without help, they must do it alone. They also must pursue the leaders who escape — or who have safely stayed out of the combat areas since they launched the attack of Oct. 7 — to the ends of the earth, and that may take years.
The pressure comes from many sources, the main one being, of course, the imperative of defending themselves. You cannot waste a moment against an enemy who has explicitly stated he means to kill you. Then there is the pressure from the so-called international community, which the Biden administration has all but joined. I say all but joined only because they haven’t yet embargoed arms deliveries to Israel, as far as I know.
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that his country would prefer if the U.S. — and others, if there are any — helped it finish the job against the terror army of Hamas, but if necessary, Israel would do it alone. Coming from a Revisionist family (supporters of the Likud political party, which voices the intellectual heritage of Zeev Jabotinsky) Netanyahu of all Israeli leaders knows that if Israel does not count on its own resources, it certainly cannot count on help from others.
Actually, this is not an exclusively Revisionist viewpoint, though the left and the liberals in Israel always hoped, and expected, that they would not be alone against wicked enemies. And they had strong reasons to hold to this hope and this expectation. First the French (until the Six-Day War), then the Americans, helped, quite a lot in fact, in sustaining the state’s defense capabilities. Obviously, this help would not have been forthcoming if Israel had not demonstrated again and again its own determination to survive and to prosper, in every sense.
Now the situation is dire, as the U.S.A., traversing a period of spiritual and political confusion, shows signs of losing its grip. We may get ourselves together sooner than some pessimists think, but Israel can scarcely wait. It is up against an enemy that has sworn to kill every last Israeli. It must expend resources to defend its northern front against another enemy with the same intentions and who is if anything better equipped than the one with whom Israel has been fighting in the south, Hamas. And in the background is a major state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, which the U.S. and Europe both have been appeasing in ways that make the term “Munich” almost too gentle.
Time is therefore of the essence, and Purim, which every Jew in Israel and indeed the world knows is a time of near-destruction when only the heroism of Esther, the firmness and wisdom of Mordecai, and the benevolence of the Almighty stopped disaster. Thus the calendar, at times, serves a morale-boosting purpose.
With pressure building up — most especially, of course, due to losses on the battlefield, every one of which is felt personally by everyone in Israel — the IDF has to strike and strike as hard as possible to get the brunt of Hamas’ fighting force off the board.
There will then be a job for the experts from Washington, to wit convincing Arabs to finally do the job they have avoided since 1948: the diplomatic job of being good neighbors with Israel, the Islamic job of caring for their fellow-Muslims, instead of leaving them to rot in refugee camps that produce killers instead of doctors and musicians.
The Arabs, in their vast majority — I sincerely believe — know perfectly well that the terrorists who want to destroy Israel want to destroy or at least enslave them as well. The goal of Islamic radicals is to rule over terrorist-regimes like they one in Gaza. They bear the guilt for the sufferings of the people living there. The goal of Islamic moderates should be to show there are other ways to build, or rebuild, creative and healthy societies, and along the way find practical ways out of the cycles of anti-Israel violence.
[I]t is impossible to see how the State department’s critique of Israel’s war strategy is anything but willful stupidity.
Whether “radicals” and “moderates,” with their connotations in the liberal political traditions of Western societies, are accurate designations for the politics of societies where Islam is the major social factor, is another question; but as a practical matter, the question is whether it is in the interest of the regimes — and the general populations — of Egypt, or Saudi Arabia, or Algeria (to take three examples of “typical” Arabo-Islamic states) to have “radicals” like those actively operating against Israel (Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran) score a win, any kind of win? These radicals have repeatedly threatened and made war on precisely such different types of states as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria. (READ MORE: The French March Against Anti-Semitism)
A victory against Israel, even a tactical victory like the repulsed but devastating October 7 invasion, emboldens the radicals to take on the “moderates.” These moderates, instead of being terrified, should be fighting the radicals no less tenaciously as Israel does. They should encourage their populations to do what they really want to do — again, I sincerely believe — namely, take care of their families and their businesses and invest in medical schools and musical conservatories, and develop some athletic prowess of their own instead of buying Western football clubs and golf leagues.
The U.S. State department should know this. Calls for a cease-fire in Gaza indicate the depths to which the Western liberal democracies have sunk morally and intellectually. There is only one condition under which Israel can reasonably consider a cease fire: one in which Hamas unconditionally surrenders, gives up its commanders for trial in Israeli courts, turns in its weapons, and testifies to its dependence on the Iranian regime. Nothing short of this can break through the collective mental and moral blinkers that the West’s “elites” wear.
‘Nor can anything short of this do anything for the West’s security. If the Arab-Islamic radicals have the “moderate” Islamic regimes in their sights, they are not about to forget the scores they have to settle with the infidels in the dar al Harb, which they view as lands to be conquered. The attack on Moscow’s theater a few days ago, appalling as it is to say so, is in this regard a bracing reminder: even an anti-West part of the West is not safe from attack. Maybe the terror attack was staged by Putin’s thugs — they’ve done this sort of thing before. But in practical terms, all this would mean is that the ISIS commando responsible for the attack, in traditional Islamist fashion, lent itself to “manipulation” by an enemy regime, willingly or unwittingly calculating that a temporary tactical alliance with a kafir is okay if it kills kuffaar. (Such diabolical calculations are not unique to Islamic radicals, obviously; the communists used to say, “the worse it gets the better it gets.”)
Obviously, we do not know. But in the short term perspective, it is impossible to see how the State department’s critique of Israel’s war strategy is anything but willful stupidity. You should not attack Rafah, the argument goes, because it will make the world dislike you for harming civilians. Rather, you should accept a cease fire, which will allow Hamas and the UNRWA and assorted grifters succor these same civilians.
However, the self-designated spokesmen of “the world” have amply shown their dislike for Israel. Their dislike is so visceral and irrational that there is zero chance a charitable act will soften their feelings for the Jewish state, or Jews in general.
Hamas, on its side, has shown exactly how much it cares for the welfare of Gaza’s population. It has stolen their food, their medical supplies, and their lives, and still it uses their broken bodies as shields against Israel’s fire. Which, though reminding “the world” of this detail really is futile, Israel does its best to direct only at armed enemy targets, at considerable cost to its own fighting men and women. (READ MORE: ‘Right or Wrong, My Country’: Americans Need to Imitate Israel)
The State department’s arguments, in short, are stupid and even wicked, because their purpose, the securing of a cease fire, will allow Hamas and related gangs to regroup and resupply and begin all over again — causing more suffering among Gazans and more anti-Israel hatred in “the world.” If this is American diplomacy at its finest, give me a random pick of the Juneau, Alaska phone book to fill the embassies and the offices at Foggy Bottom, the Republic will be served better.
