Israel has shown great progress in dealing with its various terrorist threats. The question still remains: what is the endgame in this war?
Many years ago, Microsoft was accused of stealing material from other companies and incorporating it into its Windows operating system and internet browser. It came out in court that in fighting Netscape, Microsoft threatened to cut off the latter’s air supply.
How does Israel win its seven-front war? It cannot kill every Hamas member, and even if it could, new members would sprout up from the youth living in Gaza. Hezbollah has tens of thousands of members, many of whom have moved north or crossed over into Syria. However well Israel is destroying their weaponry and killing their fighters and commanders, the IDF cannot get rid of them all. So how can Israel win? How can Israelis go back to their homes feeling confident that they will not be shelled or once again invaded? The only way short of nuclear weapons is to cut off the oxygen of the terror groups.
A point that is often forgotten is that under pressure from Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat threw his lot with the Iraqi dictator prior to the First Gulf War. The immediate effect was that he lost all of his funding from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Gulf states that had been bankrolling his anti-Israel terror activities for years. The PLO was in dire straits in the early 1990s as its funding had dried up. It was none other than the Israelis who saved Arafat and his terrorists by signing the Oslo Accords that provided land, money and weapons. I wish that I could have been at the meeting in Tunis when Arafat told his stunned associates that the Israelis would save the PLO and fund their fight to destroy Israel. They must have thought that he was mad.
The only way that Israel can win the current conflict with its barbaric enemies is by cutting off the source of the terror groups’ weapons and monies. Qatar is a serious problem because it smiles at the West while it funds the groups and organizations that support anti-Western and anti-Israeli activities. I doubt that Israel would be inclined to attack Qatar, with a big U.S. air base being present there. But the ultimate source of weapons and money for Hamas, the Houthis, and Hezbollah is Iran. As the tennis match of aerial bombardment has now moved to Israel’s serve, Israel must weaken Iran to the point where it can no longer fund and arm its proxies. If these groups cannot receive weapons and salaries for their fighters, the groups will wither and die. There is no other country today that would want to take on Iran’s role of being the sugar daddy to all of the anti-Israeli/anti-Western terror groups. Iraq is a basket case, the Gulf states want stability, and Qatar gives cash but not weapons. Israel cannot kill all of the terrorists but it can take out their source of money and weapons.
To hammer home the point about terrorist salaries, it was reported today that 42 of 45 trucks that entered Gaza from Israel were hijacked by Hamas. Commentators claim that the trucks serve in place of salaries for the rank-and-file who cannot get paid due to serious cash problems in the Strip. Even terrorists want a salary and maybe a paid vacation and a few days of sick leave after blowing up.
There are only three ways that Israeli civilians can once again live within spitting distance of the border fences of Gaza and Lebanon. One would be to kill all the bad guys and put them out of business. The second option is deterrence: if you look across the fence at our people, we will bomb you again back to the stone age. One should note that after the brief 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon, it took years to rebuild the Shiite neighborhoods of south Beirut. The destruction they are presently experiencing is orders of magnitude greater. The final route to bringing about peace is to wipe out the source of money and weapons. Without Iran, the proxies are like octopus tentacles missing the main body of the creature. They will splash around for a while but they will not be viable. China, Russia, and other big players would not want to be funding groups whose activities one day might be pointed at them. Defanging Hezbollah and Hamas would be a big driver for Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords and cementing a Sunni-Israeli axis against whatever is left of Iran and its similarly violent friends.
The fact that Gulf countries are more inclined to make peace with Israel than fund terror groups opposed to the Jewish state is an incredible change in the region. The Gulf leaders for decades supported anti-Israel groups and countries and hosted people like Arafat regularly. With Donald Trump’s Abraham Accords, it has come out that these countries value stability over Arab cohesion. Islamic radicals present a far greater threat to the stability of Gulf countries than Israel ever has.
During the First Gulf War, a sitting U.S. senator came to Saudi Arabia to visit the troops. Because he had an Israeli stamp in his passport, he was not allowed into the country. The local embassy whipped up a new passport, but the lesson was clear: any association with Israel was forbidden. Not today. I don’t imagine that the UAE rulers or those in Saudi Arabia love Israelis, but they understand that they will sit on their thrones longer and their countries will grow faster by working with the Jews and not the destructive and corrosive terrorist organizations. That is a tidal change, one that is good for all who look forward to a future peace in the region.