What We Here in Israel Have Accomplished

There has been a lot of talk over the last week since the fall of the Assad regime in Syria about what Israel has been doing in Syria to destroy the military capabilities that had been built up by the now-defunct government there. Criticism has been heard from some quarters about whether we had the right to enter a sovereign country and destroy their war machine, for example. In response to those accusations, coupled of course with accusations of genocide in Gaza and weeks of bombing of Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon as well, permit me to share some specific facts and impressions with my readers.

After 14 months of war, I assume that everyone now knows that Israel’s war against Hamas was not one that we started, but rather was as a result of the unprovoked invasion of Israel by the Hamas forces on October 7, 2023 which caused the death of over 1,200 Israeli and other foreign nationals along with instances of rape, beheadings, torture and incineration of so many people during the onslaught. It was, as has been noted many times since, the worst slaughter of Jewish people just because they were Jewish since the Holocaust. In addition, 251 people, mostly Jews, were taken hostage by Hamas and brought to Gaza, some of them  who had already died that day in the attack.

The very next morning, October 8^th, well before Israel began its defensive war against Hamas, and many weeks before we entered Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon began the daily firing of missiles, drones and rockets into northern Israel, oftentimes reaching as far south as Tel Aviv.  To date, tens of thousands of such aerial attacks have been directed at Israel from Lebanon causing 80,000 residents of the north to move out of harms way and, for many of them, watch from afar as their homes were  being damaged one by one.

At that point we were fighting on two fronts. Nevertheless, in the course of the ensuing month the Houtis in Yemen, Iranian proxies in Iraq, local terrorists in Judea and Samaria (i.e. the West Bank) and ultimately, even Iran itself joined the fray. The excuse provided by Iran and its proxies was always the same, they were fighting in support of Hamas in Gaza.

Hamas knew from day one, of course, that Israel’s military power, once unleashed, would basically destroy the enclave and cause untold loss of life and livelihood as well. Hamas could have stopped the war in an instant by recognizing that they were outgunned and were doomed to lose the battle. If, at any point, in the past 14 months, the leadership would have decided to lay down their weapons and return the hostages, Israel would have had no choice but to stop the fighting and withdraw.

Instead, Hamas continued to fight, continued to steal as much inbound humanitarian aid as they could, take what they wanted for themselves and then try to sell the rest to their own citizens at inflated prices. While the world screamed and yelled that the people in Gaza were starving, Israel’s calculations of the humanitarian aid that was allowed to enter Gaza would have provided 3,200 calories a day for every man woman and child if the Hamas leadership would have let it reach its own population.

Instead, their leadership continue the battle, continued to expose their own citizens to the risk of death and destruction, continued to use their own population as human shields in schools and hospitals while resisting any serious attempt at ending the war diplomatically.  And instead of taking responsibility for causing Israel to engage Hamas in combat, we were accused of genocide and found guilty by the International Court of Justice which will forever be a stain on their sordid reputation.

By the end of October, Israel’s leadership decided it had had enough of being the recipient of aerial bombardment from Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran’s other regional proxies and from  two direct attacks by Iran itself on the heartland of Israel.

In a matter of seven weeks, the leadership of Hamas was eliminated, the top three echelons of Hezbollah’s leadership were neutralized, and core portions of Iran’s defensive capabilities were destroyed.  Wonder of wonders, all of a sudden Hezbollah thought it was time to end their assault on Israel; Hamas, in an effort to come to a cease fire. dropped many of the demands they had made of Israel earlier in the war; and even once-powerful Iran restrained itself and did not respond to Israel’s demolition of their air defenses and rocket making capabilities.

The momentum was now on our side when, earlier this week a rebel uprising in Syria after 14 years of civil war, brought down the 54-year regime of the Assad family.  This forced Syria’s dictatorial leader Bashar el-Assad to seek asylum in Russia once he realized that his Iranian and Russian backers were no longer ready to support him.

Israel, seeing that the ring of fire around the country which threatened our survival just eight weeks ago, was now disintegrating decided to act. The only obstacle to totally neutralizing that ring of fire was to destroy the cache of weapons and military capabilities that were stored in Syria, pointed at Israel, and supplied by the Iranians and Russians. In effect, the anti-Israel Syrian leadership of the past was gone, we had the keys to the gates, and the capability to neutralize the Syrian threat as well. It was, as they say in the ‘hood, a “no brainer.”

For those who want to criticize Israel for invading a sovereign country, first of all we did not do so to inflict death and destruction. Israel’s only purpose was to defang the military capability of a former enemy. But if going into Syria bothers people so much, I would ask why those same people were not similarly bothered by Russia’s illegal seizure of Crimea during the Clinton years? Or the illegal invasion of Ukraine two years ago which has resulted in the death of tens of thousands of Ukrainians and almost a million Russian troops as well?

Those were land grabs, pure and simple. Israel, on the other hand has no desire to occupy Syria nor any desire to occupy Gaza (even though there is a small but vocal element here that advocates for that). Our war with Gaza was defensive, our entry into Lebanon was similarly defensive and we are on our way out of there as well, while in Syria, the Israeli government has made it very clear to all concerned that our presence in Syria is also temporary.

As many of you know, I am no fan of this government. I do not think any prime minister should be in office for 20 years, and I think in the year prior to October 7^th the government in power had little respect for the will of the not-so-silent opposition. Yet today, I am very proud of our leadership for having proven what former Prime Minister Bennett said so many times in the early days of this war.  To paraphrase: We don’t need your troops, give us the weaponry to do the job and we will do it ourselves.

Frankly, while we will not be thanked, the world owes us a debt of gratitude for making this region infinitely safer today than it was just two months ago. We stood up to those that threatened us and, as it turned out, their bark was indeed bigger than their bite.

And we dare not forget that for those of us who are believers, there is no doubt that the Heavenly One was on our side as well.  Let us hope that we will see the end of the fighting sooner rather than later, that our hostages will come home and that the descendants of Abraham will indeed beat their swords into plowshare and not learn war anymore.