But you do have a position—you’ve written several times that it’s important to continue and not stop until Hamas is destroyed at any cost, or as you wrote, “to keep slaughtering them and not stop for decades.” How did it suddenly happen that you have no position on an issue that directly concerns that?

Wow, what a tremendous question. I suggest you try answering it yourself and I’ll correct you if necessary. I assume that if you had thought for five seconds before writing, you wouldn’t have written this.

I admit I didn’t understand, so I’ll try to ask differently. Do you think the war should continue and that we should slaughter them for decades until final victory, as you thought in the past, or are you not sure, and maybe it’s preferable to stop in light of the costs, as Nissim asked?

My claim was a principled one, mainly moral and also strategic: we should continue and eliminate them until they surrender, even if it takes years. We should not recoil from killing civilians, nor from the fate of the hostages, and it is not right to end the war.
Of course, this was said on the level of principle, only if the thing is actually possible. After all, I don’t have concrete information. If it turns out that we have no ability to defeat them—for example, if our soldiers are broken, there is no budget, or if the prices we will pay internationally are too heavy—then clearly those considerations must be taken into account. That obviously depends on how long this will go on and what is at stake internationally.
Did I write something here that is not self-evident? Did you think I was in favor of collective suicide for the sake of continuing the war at any cost? I usually note that I don’t have information and that my remarks are only on the principled level. But that is self-evident even if I didn’t state it.

I understand. Since you don’t have enough information (and certainly neither do I), we have to rely on the decision-makers. Do you trust them? In your opinion, does Netanyahu, who has enough information, actually make the right decisions for the good of the public?

In principle, no. But where I have no concern that his interest runs contrary, and in my view it also seems that he is acting correctly, the burden of proof is on the critics. They absolutely have not met that burden, and yet they have very firm positions about the course of action of the government and the army, when it is quite clear that they have no more information than I do.

It is worth mentioning here the finding of the commission of inquiry regarding the submarines and naval vessels affair, according to which: “On the basis of the detailed description above, the warning notice delivered to him stated that Mr. Netanyahu endangered the security of the state and harmed the foreign relations and economic interests of the State of Israel.” I don’t think any sane person would trust such a prime minister even in ordinary decisions, much less in fateful decisions about a war.

Apparently I’m not sane. It is well known that sanity is a unique trait of members of the “Anyone but Bibi” cult, and its purest expression is treating a warning letter from a commission of inquiry that relies on a preliminary review, when the commission has not finished its investigation, as more authoritative than the law-enforcement authorities. Part of that same sanity is to ignore the part of Bogie Ya’alon, who also received a warning letter, which doesn’t stop him from starring in the protests against Bibi. And another especially sane aspect is the comparison itself: even if Bibi committed wrongdoing in the submarines affair, that was because of a clear economic interest. From there to jump to the suspicion that he is acting against the interests of the state, killing our soldiers and Gazan civilians when he has no apparent interest in doing so (on the contrary, his interest is to bring back the hostages)—such exalted sanity is indeed not something I’ve been blessed with.

I don’t identify the substance of the argument behind the sarcasm. I wasn’t dealing with a legal proceeding, nor did I express trust in Bogie Ya’alon; I was referring to the trust you place in the prime minister’s leadership. A person who harmed the security of the state for economic interests is not worthy of trust and is not fit to lead a country from a moral and value-based standpoint, and therefore your sentence, “I have no concern that his interest runs contrary,” is unjustified.

Understood. I really am wasting my time. You’re not making the effort to read and address the arguments. So I’m done here.