War and Peace

We are not at war with Yemen or Lebanon. We are not even at war with the Palestinian Authority. We are at war with Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels, terrorist organizations, who have nothing to lose and are proxies for the country with which we are really at war, Iran. These terrorist organizations do not even fight for the people with whom they have embedded themselves and in fact use them as human shields. So why does our military strategy seem to rest on deterrence of these proxies? Our belief in military strikes strong enough to “deter” our enemy is so strong that when they fail, time after time, our only answer is “hit them harder”.

The NATO website defines military deterrence as “the threat of force in order to discourage an opponent from taking an unwelcome action”. Do we imagine that there is anything Israel can do to the Houthis which will discourage them from continuing to fire missiles at us? Like Hezbollah and Hamas, they will continue to fire missiles until they run out or their forces are depleted enough that they need a break to regroup and restock, but that is not deterrence. The ceasefire with Hezbollah does not mean that Hezbollah has given up its struggle against Israel. Hezbollah will regroup and restock and when it is ready, it will attack Israel again. Hopefully, Hamas will agree to a ceasefire which will free the hostages, but this will not be Netanyahu’s “complete victory”. According to the latest news reports, Hamas is recruiting more new militants than it is losing in battle. With the destruction reigned upon Palestinians in Gaza, Hamas will have no problem returning to its pre-October 7^th numbers. Hamas may agree to a ceasefire but not because they are deterred but because they want time to regroup and restock.

Iran is run by Islamist extremists, but it is still a country, with a population with social and economic needs. Iran’s government does have what to lose and therefore, has been very cautious about directly attacking Israel. Even though the direct confrontation taboo has been broken, the tit for tat exchanges between Israel and Iran have been relatively contained. Both Israel and Iran have been deterred from an all-out war because both countries understand that all-out war would bring massive civilian casualties which neither country can suffer. Iran’s advantage in the war with Israel is that it does not have to attack Israel directly to inflict harm. It can continue to support proxies around the Middle East, inflicting pain on Israel without exposing itself to direct military threat. Israel has no parallel strategy. Israel, in fact, seems to have no strategy at all for dealing with Iran.

In his recent book, War, Bob Woodward describes how multiple times over the past 15 months, Mohammed Bin Salmon, Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia has told the Biden Administration that he is ready to move forward with normalization with Israel. All Israel must do is agree to stop the war in Gaza and to some sort of political process which gives the Palestinians a political horizon. Netanyahu is well aware of this option but chooses to ignore this historic opportunity in favor of never-ending war with Iranian proxies which drains Israel’s resources, takes more of our soldiers’ lives, sacrifices the hostages but maintains Netanyahu’s power.

Israel is at war with Iran, and we need a strategy which can compete with Iran’s strategy of using radical Islamist terrorists to fight its battles with virtual impunity. Building an alliance of moderate Arab States, the US, Europe and Israel to confront Iran directly with economic sanctions, arms embargoes, and coordinated military action is the only realistic way for Israel to win the Iran proxy war. Such a strategy would require a balanced mix of military might and diplomacy. Israel would have to become a team player and not a lone wolf. Most importantly, Israel would have to recognize that the pathway to diplomatic relations with the most important Arab State in the region and the stability along its borders this would bring, is through a renewed and legitimate effort to re-engage with the Palestinian Authority and reach a sustainable peace agreement with the Palestinian people.