PM Netanyahu’s Moral Dilemma

As I said in my blogpost yesterday, I do not experience cognitive dissonance keeping the hostages and their families in the absolute center of my heart and mind, yet at the same time urging Israel to stay strong in the face of terrorist cruelty, even as my heart has been broken into many pieces by the tragic losses the Jewish people have suffered this week.

May the memories of Eden, Almog, Carmel, Alexander, Hersh, and Ori, as well as Roni, Hadas and Arik, HY”D, always be a blessing. May Hashem comfort the loved ones among the mourners of Tziyon and Yerushalayim. 

And nor do I experience cognitive dissonance wishing the complete and speedy eradication of Hamas, but at the same time hoping that Palestinian civilians can receive relief soon and a better future overall.

If you can manage to get through this blogpost, and can penetrate the lengthy and convoluted writing that typifies my prior blogposts, you will find I am someone spectacularly untroubled by cognitive dissonance on many matters.

And so now, with this warning, I am about to wade – with extreme reluctance – into the murky world of Israeli politics.

Before doing so, a word about my worldview. I believe the Jewish people should aim high with our politics, much much higher than where we hold at present in Israel today.

But most importantly, I believe the labels ‘left’ and ‘right’, which may once have served as useful shorthands, have become idolatrous.

I do not identify with either label. Indeed I strongly detest both, and politics overall. To the best of my ability, I strive to form my opinions based on conscience, logic and experience alone. I do not distort my view to be loyal to a particular camp, left or right.

To be clear, the root of idolatry is in making such distortions – in blindly following the camp rather than one’s conscience.

What my conscience, logic and experience tells me now is that on this issue – the terms of a possible ceasefire, and the excruciatingly difficult decisions which involve the lives of our cherished hostages, the overall security of the nation, and (importantly) the wellbeing of nearly 2 million Palestinians who have been homeless for many months – I could not agree more with PM Netanyahu.

While I may disagree with him on many matters, and have deep deep anger with him on some, on this issue, I am thankful for his herculean stubborn-ness, his capacity to resist the otherwise overwhelming pressure that bears down on him now.

Moreover, the PM, in taking his position, is apparently facing off against the heads of all Israel’s security agencies, including, it seems, his own defense minister. No member of the public such as myself has the facts to hand. None of us see the full picture. So it is a matter of trust with whom to stand.

And yet, despite everything (and there’s a lot of ‘everything’), the PM is convincing me that the heads of the security agencies are not arguing on the basis of security but on the basis of a certain conception of morality for which they, as security figures, have no mandate to do.

The lessons of history also suggest the PM is right to be skeptical about their advise, that Israel’s military leaders have an inadequate grasp of politics and strategy.

To understand why, we can turn to the Jpost, in its editorial of 22nd August, which is worth quoting at length (but not in full – I strongly encourage reading the original article):

“Netanyahu’s commitment to securing the Philadelphi Corridor is crucial. Critics are wrong—leaving this area would repeat past mistakes, risking Israel’s safety and future…

The lessons of October 7th are not the only ones Israel needs to learn. It also needs to learn the lessons of September 1, 2005, and the decision at the time – concretized in an agreement with Egypt – to evacuate the Philadelphi Corridor and authorize Egypt to deploy border guards to patrol the corridor on the Egyptian side.

Some members of the security establishment argued that, despite Israel’s full withdrawal from Gaza in August 2005, it should hold on to the corridor to prevent the smuggling of arms and terrorists into Gaza, but then-prime minister Ariel Sharon overruled them… That decision has proven disastrous.

Those who argued adamantly against this move were cavalierly dismissed as doomsayers and told that if Israel saw that the corridor was being used to smuggle in arms and material, the IDF could easily retake it.

That turned out to be hubris. Israel saw that the corridor had become a highway for arming Gaza, but it did not take action to retake it. Why not? Because doing so is not simple, neither militarily nor in terms of international legitimacy. Now that Israel has retaken the area, it will vacate it again at its own peril.”

The always excellent Seth Frantzman, in today’s Jpost, elaborates further.

And yet for all this, and actually because of it, now is the right time for PM Netanyahu to resign. 

Anyone watching last night could clearly see, PM Netanyahu feels passionately, with all his heart, that Israel’s future security, and possibly its existence, G-d forbid, depends on making the right decisions at this moment in time.

It should therefore deeply trouble the Prime Minister that large swathes of the country oppose his position, not necessarily based on facts, but simply – as mentioned above – based on trust.

Or rather the lack of it: they don’t trust him. And that will not change any time soon.

Some may argue, so what? They may say, well, this is the government that Israel elected. That is democracy. And it is.

But let’s get past the egos and the politics. If PM Netanyahu truly believes that the nation’s future hinges on getting this decision right, he will know that Hamas will draw strength, grow stronger, remain resilient, stand mocking and triumphalist, from the spirit of division and resentment that pervades Israel’s streets. This will likely get worse not better, G-d forbid.

That is what Hamas wants.

To achieve what PM Netanyahu truly wants, what he truly believes is necessary to assure the country’s future security – i.e. a relentless, resolute Israel that will stand strong and defiant until Hamas and its fellow travelers are finally defeated, in Gaza and elsewhere – and to shatter the confidence that Hamas, Hezbollah and the rest of them still have, he must resign.

For the sake of uniting the nation around the right decisions, excruciating decisions; for the sake of facilitating the difficult but necessary shift in public psychology; to bring our brothers and sisters home; to eradicate Hamas; to return the evacuees; to protect civilians – Israeli and Palestinians alike – from the next spiral of violence; so that our heroes and martyrs have not died in vein; for the sake of being able to look each other in the face as the brothers and sisters we are; for all these reasons and more, PM Netanyahu should hand over the reins to someone else who can stand strong like him and make the right decisions.

And there is such a leader, a humble leader, but a strong leader, one whom the public will come to trust.

Let me finish with some words from Rabbi Sacks Z’L, writing to this week’s Torah reading (‘shoftim’) in a commentary he entitled ‘The Greatness of Humility‘:

“Ezra Taft Benson said that “pride is concerned with who is right; humility is concerned with what is right.” To serve God in love, said Maimonides, is to do what is truly right because it is truly right and for no other reason.”