Q&A: Is the entire security strategy of the State of Israel based on pure luck?
Is the entire security strategy of the State of Israel based on pure luck?
Question
Have a good week,
This isn’t a Jewish law question, I hope that’s okay —
If tomorrow a missile is fired from Gaza and hits a community center where a performance for kindergarten children is taking place, and a hundred small children die — then there would be a consensus of at least 90% to destroy Hamas, and then they would do “everything” — meaning bomb endlessly from the air, send in soldiers, etc., until conquering the Strip / completely toppling Hamas. This is something they’ve had many opportunities to do and didn’t. For example, during Operation Cast Lead there were already many soldiers inside and they could have brought down Hamas, but Olmert for some reason stopped the operation in the middle, and so on in the operations since then.
So I don’t understand — is the ***entire*** strategy of the State of Israel, with one of the strongest armies in the world and so on and so on, for more than 10 years up to this very second, basically based on pure luck that until now such a thing hasn’t happened? Is the whole strategy dependent on luck (and not really on judgment), so that from one day to the next everything could change?
I really can’t understand this.
What — is the entire “leadership” made up of complete idiots???
Something here is totally unclear to me.
Answer
In my opinion, it’s not correct to say that our strategy depends on luck. It would be more accurate to say that we don’t have a strategy. There is a human tendency to focus on the present, certainly when the present is pressing and complex. All the more so when governments change every few months or years and it’s impossible to really create something for the long term. So each person tries to leave his mark in the years he has.
This is even stranger if you take into account that our elections usually revolve around the diplomatic-security issue, with no real justification for that (because there isn’t much that can be done about it and there is no real difference between the various governments, whereas other problems do require responses and there are genuine disagreements about them). That only sharpens the absurdity of the absence of strategy in the diplomatic-security sphere.
But note that toppling Hamas is not at all a simple matter, even when the soldiers are there. It also doesn’t end the saga, since after you topple them, others will come in their place. You do not live in a vacuum, as every prime minister or minister who makes grand declarations learns once he reaches the chair where he is supposed to act and make decisions. So usually we hear that what you see from there, you don’t see from here.
Your remark about our reactions depending on the outcome is indeed a correct one. It really is a magnificent and ongoing stupidity (of all the governments and all the chiefs of staff), which should not happen even in the absence of strategy.
For the reasons I described above, I’m somewhat hesitant in my criticism of the lack of strategy. Factually, it is clear that we have no strategy. The question is whether I can criticize that. I’m not sure. It may be a derivative of our democratic structure and our internal disputes. It is no wonder that people choose to manage the conflict and put out fires, because they have no other path before them.
And yet, I’m not sure that if someone or some body were to arise here with an orderly strategy, one that offers responses to different scenarios that may arise and explains where it is aiming and how this would be done, he or it would not receive the votes of a majority of the public, which would allow him or it to manage the matter over the long term. Maybe so. But meanwhile, no such person has yet arisen.
And maybe one more thing. You are very mistaken in your assumption about bombing a kindergarten and killing children. Even in such a case, nothing would be done differently from what has been done so far. Another operation and more bombings, and nothing more. The constraints are stronger than all desires for revenge and all gut impulses, and the lack of strategy would continue.
What’s more, the internal consensus, even if it were to occur, is not enough to take such steps. There is also a hostile international environment that does not allow us to do such things. It’s very easy from my private home to tell Bennett or Bibi to ignore them and act according to the will of the Israelis.