Benjamin Netanyahu’s Preferred Policy Carries a Deadly Price

It is hard to grasp how many soldiers and hostages have been killed, murdered, or wounded because political survival was placed above human life. And despite repeated warnings, we are once again handed the same package that “surprised” us on October 7. If those responsible do not go home, the next disaster will come – and sooner than we think.

Let us pause and consider how much time has been lost. How many soldiers have fallen, how many have been wounded, how many hostages – men and women – have died or been murdered, all because of callousness, political foolishness, malice, and above all, a determination to survive politically at the expense of human lives.

Unlike the prevailing conception before October 7, this time there were many who shouted warnings, who pleaded: “Let’s discuss and decide on the day after. Let’s plan ahead.” I myself warned that there would be no alternative to the involvement of the Palestinian Authority, that there was no other viable solution.

And then – surprise. We received the full package: the Palestinian Authority, Turkey, and Qatar, alongside yet another strengthening of Hamas. As if there were a guiding hand that reinforced Hamas in the past and, having learned nothing, is now strengthening this terrorist organization once again. As if October 7 never happened. One can only hope this is stupidity, not malice.

There is a blood price to the loss and deliberate wasting of time in the Middle East – Benjamin Netanyahu’s favored policy. It is measured in hostages who were not returned in time or were murdered in captivity, in soldiers killed or wounded in body and soul, and in a society whose reserves of trust are steadily eroding.

We have been here before. In Lebanon, between 1982 and 2000, Israel remained for 18 years without a clear political objective, without a “day after.” There was no civilian framework to replace military force. In the end, we fled with our tails between our legs – and created Hezbollah. It took 18 years and countless fallen soldiers to understand that reality cannot simply be allowed to unfold; it must be managed. And here we are, doing it again.

To understand what has happened since October 7 does not require strategic genius. It requires drawing a single graph: the graph of postponement. At every point where a strategic decision could have been made, discussion was deferred to “after the war,” for narrow political reasons. At every point where a political-civilian framework for the “day after” could have been established, we were told, “Now is not the time.”

Yes, it is complex – and that is precisely why it is urgent. Anyone who does not see how this complexity has been repeatedly exploited as an alibi, as a stalling tactic, as a means of political survival, is not seeing reality. And as always, reality eventually kicks us in the face.

We are returning to the same story. Again.

The most basic truth – stated for months by figures across the political spectrum, by regional partners, and by Americans – is that there is no war without a “day after.” War, after all, is “the continuation of policy by other means,” as Carl von Clausewitz famously wrote.

In other words: you can enter, strike, and dismantle infrastructure – but someone must administer the territory, manage the flow of goods, provide civilian services, and maintain public order. One may despise the Palestinian Authority, distrust it, even loathe it – but without a local body with minimal legitimacy (and Arab-international backing), a vacuum remains. And a vacuum, as everyone knows, never stays empty. Never. And so Hamas moves back in and grows once again, as if we have learned nothing from this story.

For months, a political campaign was waged against allowing the Palestinian Authority any role in Gaza “the day after,” under the slogan of “not rewarding terror” – even though the Palestinian Authority is, in fact, a partner of Israel in preventing terrorism. As if this were a symbolic moral question rather than a strategic operational one.

Just in recent days, a senior Arab diplomatic official stated explicitly that Israel’s refusal to allow the Palestinian Authority a role in governing Gaza after the war is what created the vacuum that ultimately led the Americans to bring Turkey and Qatar into Gaza.

And that is the end of the ceremony. You wanted a “solution without the Palestinian Authority” – you got Turkey, Qatar, and Hamas. Anyone with their head on straight understands what this means: two actors with sharp interests, their own regional worldviews, and independent channels beyond Israel’s control. In other words, exactly the opposite of what a sovereign state wants on its southern border – alongside two countries that support Hamas and are hardly friendly toward Israel.

So if we were ultimately dragged into a civilian administration of Gaza that is not in Israeli hands – because Israel has no real desire to manage the lives of two million hungry Palestinians – why didn’t we set the terms in advance? Why was the “day after” turned into a political curse while reality took its own course?

The answer is clear: because Netanyahu viewed the “day after” as more dangerous to his government than the war itself. It would have required a clear statement: that there are limits to force, that partners are necessary, that one cannot govern one-and-a-half to two million people with tanks and slogans alone. Such an admission would shatter the myth sustaining the most extreme coalition in Israel’s history. And so Netanyahu chose to delay.

The result: since the start of the ground maneuver in October 2023, 471 soldiers have been killed and 2,995 wounded, with thousands more suffering from post-traumatic stress. Worse still is the hostage issue – one that Netanyahu recently boasted about, declaring: “We brought all the hostages back, as we promised.” As if they were kidnapped under another government, and murdered by accident.

One can only hope this is stupidity – and not malice.

And now the most important part: I reject the self-flagellation about a “stupid people.” This people is not stupid. It mobilized, volunteered, fought, supported families, donated, rebuilt, and stood at hospital bedsides. The stupidity – if one must use the word – resides somewhere above, in the ivory tower. And as I have said, I hope it is stupidity, not malice.

Therefore, this must be stated plainly: those who dragged us for months without a “day after” created a far worse “day after.” Those who tried to avoid the Palestinian Authority at any cost ended up with Turkey, Qatar, and Hamas through the back door. Those who conducted hostage negotiations as if they were a political campaign must look the families in the eye and apologize – and then go home in disgrace.

Because any other outcome carries a horrific meaning: the next disaster will come, faster than we can comprehend. Those who waste time, waste lives.