By: Kurt Schlicter (Town Hall)
Israel is risking losing this war because it is focusing more on avoiding criticism from its enemies than winning. I blame Benjamin Netanyahu in large part, but also our incompetent and loathsome alleged president. Now, I’m not one of those reflexive Bibi haters, and while I certainly don’t think the United States should have a say in who Israel chooses to lead it, I do believe in accountability. The disaster of October 7 happened on his watch, and he should’ve resigned the day after, but that’s not up to me or up to any American. What is up to me as an American is who our president will be next year, and it can’t be Biden again. But the desiccated old zombie aside, Bibi needs to go. He screwed up on October 7, and now he appears to be screwing up this war.
The problem is not that Netanyahu has been too harsh, as our idiot president claims. It’s that Netanyahu has been too gentle (Yes, I understand a war cabinet is leading Israel, but he is still the face of it.). And too slow. Joe Biden has betrayed every ally America has had, from South Vietnam to Afghanistan and Bibi somehow imagined that creep would not sell-out Israel? Speed was of the essence. Why was Rafah not glass months ago? Netanyahu waited, and that gave Biden the time to sell out Israel.
Restraining was a mistake. The fact is that Israel has, to a far too great extent, tried to fight this war on terms that would satisfy its leftist enemies in the United States and other anti-Semites around the world. That was an error from the beginning. Israel’s strategy should have focused on victory, not on trying to mollify its critics. They will cry no matter what. Let them cry over defeated terrorists. Do you know what mollifies critics most effectively? Winning. Israel should’ve done that, and fast. But it didn’t. Despite the courage and skill of the IDF, who are a credit to their great nation, Israel’s leadership chose to fight this war and is still fighting this war in a manner that allows others who do not have Israel’s best interest at heart to dictate its strategic and tactical prerogatives. That is a grave error. That is putting Israel in danger.
Israel has three main related strategic military objectives at the moment. First, Israel needs to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Second, Israel must eliminate Hezbollah on its northern border. This Jihadi militia is dug in inside Lebanon with enough Iranian-supplied rockets to devastate Israel’s infrastructure, as well as having the ability to launch October 7-style attacks. And third, Israel must destroy Hamas in Gaza. A surviving Hamas can launch more October 7-style attacks and has promised to do so if able.
Now, these strategic objectives are interrelated in the sense that Iran is behind all of them. And there is also the diplomatic issue of maintaining some level of Israeli support throughout the world, particularly within the United States. As long as the fighting continues, diplomatic support will continue to deteriorate. Solving the second and third strategic challenges resolves that diplomatic issue – there’s nothing like victory, and a decisive Israeli win would allow Israel to retake the diplomatic initiative. Dragging out the issues of Hezbollah and Hamas has given Israel’s enemies time to concentrate propaganda power against it. Seeing the war on television every day helps our enemies. But a victory over Hezbollah and Hamas would put Israel in a better position, and that supports the strategic objective of stopping Iran from getting the bomb. Israel losing to Hezbollah and Hamas makes it more likely that Iran will seek to get the bomb.
There are a lot of hard truths here, and somebody must speak them. The first hard truth is those hostages are probably dead. Hamas likely murdered most of them. It’s certainly torturing and raping the survivors. You cannot have a successful strategy that prioritizes hostage lives. You just can’t. The priority has to be defeating the enemy. Defeating the enemy solves all the problems. Ideally, you want a situation where the enemy is so devastated that it begs you to accept your hostages back. But the hostage issue is driving this bus, and the leftist hostage families in Israel are attacking the government – not a lot of people understand that the main victims of October 7 were Israeli leftists who lived in socialist kibbitzes or were at a “peace rave” near Gaza and embraced the fantasy of Palestinian brotherhood right up until the moment their “brothers” raped and slaughtered them. In any case, those leftist hostage families are demanding that the government prioritize the lives of their likely-dead relatives, while the real priority needs to be defeating Hamas – the one thing that provides the only chance of getting those captives back alive. Because our regime media is inept as well as corrupt, you don’t hear about this fracture in Israeli society, but this is a huge issue in the
Jewish State.
But Israel did what it did, though Israel never should have gone into Gaza the way it did, first and slowly. Oh, Gaza needed to pay. And it needed to pay hard. The real threat, the main strategic challenge that Israel needed to resolve, was Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel is going to go to war against Iran’s catspaw to the north, and the only question is when. It should’ve done it on October 8. It should’ve invaded Lebanon and wiped out Hezbollah’s military forces. Lebanon is not a country anymore. It is a puppet of Iran whose Hezbollah forces are actually the army of the country. Israel should’ve wiped them out, day one, no quarter.
What should Israel have done about Hamas? Made Gaza a supporting effort. Israel should have surrounded it, probed it to degrade the enemy, and targeted its leaders, all while making the main effort Hezbollah. Crushing Hezbollah would have eliminated an existential threat to Israel, whereas Hamas could never destroy the country. It could only cause mass casualties and drive down Israeli morale. Crushing Hezbollah also would have the effect of neutering Iran in the Levant and taking a threat off Israel’s border. Hamas could be dealt with later. You seal it off. You don’t let supplies in – I don’t understand why suddenly the ancient art of siege warfare has transformed into an obligation to feed your enemy’s population, a population that supports the terrorists. You attrit Hamas with some of your forces, while you use the majority of your army to conquer Lebanon. When Lebanon is secure, then you go in after the weakened Hamas. Again, your goal with Hamas is to run the terrorist casualties up so high that they beg to surrender their prisoners to you. You don’t negotiate with terrorists. You let them plead with you to stop killing them.
Won’t that mean civilian death? Yes, because wars mean civilian deaths. This is why you shouldn’t start them. But it does not mean you should not finish them. You need some spine. You need to be tough. You need to win. Yes, some aid workers are going to get killed. Not intentionally. Not by choice, but by the mere fact that they are in the midst of a battlefield.
The enemy will try and leverage the reality of the war they caused to save themselves. Sadly, the cynical ploy is working in some quarters. It’s like the terrorists are Cleavon Little and the regime media and our trash ruling class are the dumb townspeople in “Blazing Saddles” – except this isn’t funny.
That’s why you need to keep the war short and victorious. Don’t spend your time trying to sanitize it. Win it. The Israeli PR effort seems to be driving its war effort. It is spending far too much time trying to prove to people who hate it that they are the good guys. Stop trying to prove you are the good guys – anyone who is not a moral illiterate knows that you are the good guys – and start proving that you are the winners. Nothing succeeds like success. Nothing is more victorious than victory. When you win by destroying your enemy, you dictate the terms. As long as you have not won, you are losing.
And the Israeli leadership is letting this happen. Israel has slowed down for Ramadan or whatever and allowed the enemy to dig in and mobilize its foreign allies to pressure Israel to adopt a suicidal cease-fire. Insane. Of course, Biden, a certifiable idiot who Robert Gates once accurately observed has been wrong about every single foreign policy issue of the last 50 years, is now doing exactly what Hamas wants. He is guaranteeing more war, more death, and more destruction – including here at home, where the terrorists will strike because they will see we are led by cowards and weaklings – all in exchange for a short-term gain in the form of improving his electoral chances in Michigan and appeasing the left. He might get some Muslim votes (let’s hope he loses a lot more Jewish ones), but he’s never going to appease the left. The left will not be appeased until every Jew in Israel is dead or gone – and then it will start agitating for their friends to slaughter us settlers here in America. So, stop trying to appease the enemy. Start destroying the enemy. The left will still hate you, but at least their deadly friends will be dead.
Israel has taken too long to win this war, and it began the war at the wrong end of the battlefield. I blame Israel’s leaders – I am Old Army where the guy in command is the guy who is responsible. But I have hope. Israelis are tough, brave, and resourceful, and they can still refocus and prevail. We patriots should back them up 100% because their enemies are our enemies, but only Israel can win this war. That’s what it needs to do. If not months ago, now.
THAT'S WHAT I'M SCREAMING 