Our leaders do not understand how to fight war. The results for the last 30 years have been mostly stalemates as an outcome of their cluelessness in defining and fighting an enemy.
Working out on a rowing machine means that I need something to take my mind off of going backwards and forwards. My latest viewing has been reruns of Hogan’s Heroes. It dawned on me that western militaries have taken Colonel Wilhem Klink as their role model for an ideal officer. Obtuse, stupid, foolish, self-aggrandizing, arrogant, moronic: like Klink of the 1960s, these are our wartime leaders, military and civilian.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war on Japan in 1941, he stated that the United States of America was in a state of war with the Empire of Japan. What he did not say was that the US was in a war with Hirohito, his officers and armed forces. What he did not say was that the Japanese people were really swell and of course we were not at war with them. No, he realized that war would have to be with all of Japan—whether it be with their navy or army, their merchant marine, or towards the end of the war with the home production economy. Roosevelt neither tried to limit the scope of Japanese targets, nor did he make the fatal mistake of claiming that there was some renegade militaristic element in Japan, and that the remaining millions of Japanese citizens were just fine people.
I bring this example for two reasons. The first is that the Japanese surrender in August of 1945 might be the last clearly defined victory for the US military. Yes, General Schwartzkopf and his forces routed Saddam’s armies but the political branch held them up from securing a total victory on the ground. The second reason is that we keep hearing from Washington and Jerusalem that the war is against Hamas and not against the Palestinian people living in Gaza. This ridiculous distinction would embarrass even Colonel Klink. One does not have to go back to the last Palestinian elections of 2006 where a majority chose Hamas over the corrupt PLO to rule them. A person might reasonably argue that in the course of 17 years of misery, maybe the people have changed their thinking and do not want Hamas in power. No, look at the situation today. Gazan citizens can be seen on Israeli security cameras going into Israeli towns and kibbutzim for the purpose of killing, raping, plundering, and taking captives. If one had run a snap poll immediately after the attack and before the air strikes, 90 percent would have supported the barbaric attacks on Israeli citizens and soldiers. They definitely gave out candies as is their custom. They pranced in the streets as women were marched through the throngs of excited Palestinians. Have we heard about any resistance movement? Have citizens offered to free the captives and return them to their families? No. The war Israel has is with the Palestinian people—all of them. I am not in any way suggesting attacking civilian targets with no military purpose. What I am saying is that the mentality has to change both in the prosecution of the war and with the expectations as to what happens after the war ends.
Recommended
Let’s imagine that magically Israel killed every Hamas member tomorrow. Throw in the terrorists of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. There is absolutely no Hamas or official jihadi presence in Gaza. Okay, so what happens next? Let’s say that you have elections in a few months. Who would win? Hamas II? Palestinian Islamic Jihad New and Improved? ISIS? If you think that they would elect a slate of university-educated, western-thinking intellectuals, then I would like to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. These people think like Hamas, they like when Hamas succeeds in harming the Jews, and they will replace Hamas with another Hamas. Hamas is the Palestinian people and the Palestinian people are Hamas. That’s not my invention; they say it loud and clear. One may even note that the Western cheerleaders of murder and rape are also pro-Hamas. Nobody is talking Palestinian Authority or Abbas anymore. The Palestinian support movement on campuses and in the streets of western cities has gone full jihad.
The implications are significant. Israel must make total war in order to destroy Hamas and the ability of any Palestinians to fire missiles or attack Israelis. That has to be the goal. As I previously wrote, any outcome that does not provide 50 years of quiet from Gaza will be a failure in the eyes of the still-scarred Israeli populace. Bibi’s political future is over. There will never be peace with the Palestinian people. Not every movie has a happy ending. The Palestinians want “from the river to the sea” and the Jews do not want to die. The Palestinian Arabs who want to live side-by-side with Israel in peace can be put into a Volkswagen Beetle and still leave room for two of your friends. Any Palestinian who wants a better future simply leaves the region. The Palestinians are more than happy to come into Israel to make a living; but many of the same ones would be happy to murder their employers the next day as some of them did on 10/7. The thrill of killing Jews outweighs having a better life. We don’t understand that way of thinking and for that I am grateful. Everyone knows that the Palestinians were given all of the Gaza Strip and they made nothing of it. Western investors babbled about Singapore in the Middle East. Instead, they got ISIS 2. The Palestinians do not want peace as it would require them to recognize a Jewish place in the Land of Israel. They would rather die than make such an admission. Even the wobbly Palestinian Authority will not admit that the Jews have any relationship to the Land of Israel.
Our weak leaders use this false separation between the Palestinian people and Hamas to justify sending in food and medicine to the same people who danced around and spit on captives paraded before them. If one saw them all as the same, then there would be no place to give a thing until the captives are released. A solid siege would make for a shorter war, but our leaders don't understand that point either.
So please, please stop telling us that this war is with Hamas and not with the Palestinian people. The latter want to kill and destroy Jews no less than the former. Again, I do not suggest targeting civilians; that’s how our enemy cowards fight. Rather, I want our military and political leaders to be aware of this fact when they define success on the battlefield and after the war has ended. The Palestinians do not want peace. They want Israel and the Jews to be gone and they need to keep that in mind. There is no future Israel-Palestinian peace agreement in the offing. Get used to it and fight and plan accordingly.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member