There is no substitute for victory over Hamas

Israel’s existence as a strong and stable Jewish state able to hold its own in the volatile Middle East now requires a clear and decisive victory over Hamas. The IDF is surely able to achieve such a victory, but it’s being held back by legitimate concern for the hostages. Although the lives of the hostages are a very high priority, as are the lives of the soldiers fighting the war, the very highest priority has to be the nation’s long term security needs.

Refraining from hitting Hamas targets for fear of harming the hostages greatly prolongs the war, costing the lives of numerous soldiers. Already, the number of IDF personnel lost in the war, about 900, far exceeds the original number of hostages, about 250. If Israel had gone all in from the beginning, with a single-minded focus on destroying Hamas, and not wilting under international pressure, the war would be long over by now. Some additional hostages might have been lost, but many more soldiers would have been saved. The total number of Israeli deaths would have been far less, and the nation would be in a much stronger position both at home and abroad.

Continuing efforts to free the hostages by trying to make a deal with Hamas are a fool’s errand. In every previous deal Israel made with Hamas, it lost much more than it gained. In the current war it’s already traded large numbers of unrepentant terrorists for very small numbers of hostages, thus guaranteeing more terrorism and more hostage taking in the future. And no matter what Hamas promises, it will always find a way to keep a few hostages as insurance.

There’s no substitute for a quick and decisive victory. This is the only way to defeat the Hamas strategy of prolonging the war as long as possible and creating an artificial humanitarian crisis for which Israel will be blamed, thereby isolating it internationally and cutting it off from outside support.

The continuing pressure to prioritize the feeding of enemy civilians over the defeating of enemy forces, even though most of these civilians are as hostile toward Israel as Hamas itself, puts the Jewish state in an intolerable  position.

The pressure to accept a two state “solution” also keeps increasing, with leaders of major western powers like France, Britain, Canada and Australia threatening to recognize a Palestinian state in the very near future. This is despite the fact that the Palestinians have no history of nationhood whatsoever and none of the expected characteristics of an actual nation. They have no normal institutions of governance and have never show any interest in developing them. The entire goal of Palestinian nationalism is, and always has been, not to create a nation for the Palestinians, but to destroy the Jewish nation by first dividing it and weakening it, which is exactly what the two state “solution” is intended to do.

It’s long past time for Israel to remove the threat of a Palestinian state by ruling out the idea of Palestinian statehood publicly and unequivocally, not just because there are no Palestinian leaders who can be trusted to live in peace with Israel, but also because surrendering the heart of our historic homeland, especially to confirmed enemies, when not compelled to do so militarily, would be a deadly betrayal of our entire Jewish history and heritage.

Some people say the current situation in Gaza is a humanitarian disaster, and regardless of whose fault it is, compassion is a core value of Judaism, and Jews have a moral obligation to do everything they can to alleviate suffering, even if it goes against their own best interests. It’s true that Jewish culture places great value on human life, both Jewish and non-Jewish. But Israel cannot allow its culture of life to be used as a weapon against it by those who practice a culture of death, if it hopes to survive in a hostile Middle East.

Israel’s overarching goal must be the complete removal of Hamas from the Gaza Strip. Efforts to rescue the hostages can and should continue, but must not impede the war effort. Ultimately, the best way to recover the hostages, and discourage future hostage taking, is not to pay Hamas an exorbitant price for releasing them, but to make Hamas pay an exorbitant price for keeping them.