1. What scares Hamas?
Complete victory is not about honor, although this too is of decisive importance in the Middle East. Complete victory is a categorical existential imperative and therefore must resonate among our haters and enemies lest they consider executing a similar massacre in the future. From this perspective, there is no choice but to eliminate Hamas as a military force until we gain full control of the Gaza Strip – above ground and below.
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We are very familiar with our enemies. While they cry out "genocide" because they know that the lie will be accepted in the West, especially among diehard critics of Israel and even more so among antisemites (what kind of "genocide" is it when the Arab population between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River grows from year to year?), the truth is that no matter how many fatalities there are, they will not change their murderous attitude towards us. As long as there are even a few Hamas members left to crawl out of their holes and raise their arms in victory, as far as they are concerned, the adventure - from their point of view - will have been worth it.
In the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, King Arthur encounters a black knight who does not allow him to cross a bridge. They do combat, Arthur cuts off the knight's arms, but the knight does not admit defeat. Armless, he keeps jumping up and declaring his certain victory. When Arthur chops off his legs and the Black Knight lands with his torso on the ground, he murmurs: "All right, we'll call it a draw." Arthur crosses the bridge and walks away, but not before the limbless knight shoots at him: "Running away eh? You yellow bastard. Come back here and take what's coming to you. I'll bite your legs off." The scene reminds me of an Arabic proverb I was taught by Prof. Moshe Sharon: "Get off me, my neck is red from beating you ..."
That is why eliminating Hamas is essential, but for its defeat to resonate for many years to come, it is necessary to hit the most painful point for the enemy: land. Losing land is what they are most afraid of. This existential battle must end with the loss of land; at least part of it. This is the price that must be exacted from those who send murder and rape gangs from their land to our communities, from those who turned their land into a haven for murderers and a prison for Israeli hostages. For the sake of our future, the war must end when the enemy has less territory than it had on the eve of the massacre.
2. Remember the "realignment"?
The fantasies of countries around the world, that at the end of the war, we will present the Gaza Strip on a silver platter to the Palestinian Authority means that the massacre has paid off. Sinwar and his gang will be portrayed as having paved the way for the unification of the PA and Gaza, on the way to a Palestinian state. Given the region's ancient historical and religious codes, that result will pave the way for the next massacre which will be worse even than that of October 7. Let's restate the obvious: the disengagement from the Gaza Strip was an attempt to implement the "two-state solution." Israel withdrew down to the last inch and the result was that Gaza became the biggest terrorist fortress ever erected.
Shortly after the "ingenious" disengagement got underway, the Olmert government and the defense establishment brought up the idea of a similar plan in Judea and Samaria –the "realignment plan" that would have seen a unilateral withdrawal from most of the territory, the evacuation of Israeli settlements and the expulsion of the pioneers on the mountain ridge, while converging in three settlement blocs covering just a small percentage of the homeland. Had this plan materialized, everything we experienced with Gaza – a low-lying area on the coast that launched countless missiles at us and forced us to engage in military campaigns and wars, leading up to the massacre of October 7 and the current, ongoing war – would have paled in comparison to what would have happened in the hills of Judea and Samaria, hundreds of meters above Israel's large population centers.
The PA educates its children to destroy Israel, and Article 20 of its charter is a genocidal clause that states that the Jews are not a people but a religion (and therefore not entitled to national self-determination), effectively erasing the Jewish people from the family of nations. Anyone with a historical consciousness must understand that a Palestinian state is a recipe for Israel's defeat. We did not return home after a long exile to commit national suicide.
3. Security technicians, not intellectuals
Israel loves the former generals and security officers who flock to TV studios in times like this. We can learn from their experience on the battlefield. That is not the case when it comes to outlining a vision for Israel. Many of them promised peace with the Oslo Accords (1993) and stated that the disengagement (2005) would boost security. For the most part, they supported a Palestinian state, and with great persuasion argued that there would be no military problem in dealing with the consequences of this dangerous experiment. Some of them spent most of their security careers in the shadows and were accountable only to their commanders. When we see them emerge into the public spotlight, they often turn out to be intellectual simpletons.
Indeed, one of the paradigms shattered on October 7 concerns the question of what advantage former security officials have over civilians. In his book "What is National about National Security?" Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen coined the term "security technician": most of these people's lives were spent dealing with military issues, maneuvering military formations, destroying the enemy, and planning covert operations in hostile countries, for which the nation is grateful and appreciative. However, this does not give them an advantage in understanding the historical, cultural, spiritual, religious, and intellectual issues from which Israel's political goals are derived.
4. It's not about Gaza, it's about Jerusalem
Hamas is once again raising the issue of Jerusalem and demanding that Jews be prohibited from ascending to the Temple Mount. For the past hundred years, our enemies have inflamed the passions of their followers with the conspiracy theory that "Al-Aqsa is in danger." This Shabbat, we will read in the Torah portion about the idea of establishing a spiritual and religious center for worshiping God. This is not a project of a ruling power, but the fruit of the people's volunteerism: "Speak unto the children of Israel, that they take for Me an offering; of every man whose heart maketh him willing ye shall take My offering" (Exodus 25:2). The ultimate goal: "Let them make Me a sanctuary (or: a temple) that I may dwell among them" (Ibid 25:8). God will dwell not in the temple but among the people.
Rabbi Isaac Abarbanel (1437-1508), a statesman, intellectual, biblical commentator, and financier during the period of the expulsion of the Jews of Spain, writes that God's intention was "that they not think He has left the land... and to remove from their hearts this false faith, he commanded that they make a temple for him, as if he would dwell among them so that they believe God lives among them and that His providence is with them ...". in fact, he encouraged his contemporaries with these words, saying that despite the expulsion, God has not left us; there is hope for our future."
King David made Jerusalem the capital of Israel, and his son, King Solomon built the Temple on Mount Moriah (the Temple Mount). In doing so, he implemented the idea that underpinned the establishment of the nation: the connection between heaven and earth, between spirit and matter, and between faith and nationalism. It is because of Jerusalem that we survived in the valley of the shadow of death of history, and during our long exile, our thoughts, prayers, and imagination were occupied with the rebuilding of the "Sanctuary of the King, royal city." Indeed, it is not Gaza that our enemies want, but Jerusalem. They understand that this is where the core of our national and spiritual existence lies, and so they wish to control it. The deluded individuals who are in favor of a Palestinian state should note this. Zionism is the political expression of the dream of generations to return home to Zion and Jerusalem, and from there to all parts of the Land of Israel. That is what we are fighting for.
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