Q&A: Continuing the War
Continuing the War
Question
Hello Rabbi
The military and leadership elimination of Hamas was completed about a year ago. What remained of the war’s goals was returning the hostages and changing the regime there. That, clearly, can only happen through a political process. Bibi has avoided that political move, and a year later we launched “Gideon’s Chariots,” which has brought us to… what exactly?
I tend to think Bibi continued the war for political reasons. What is the justification for continuing it? As far as I’m concerned, if they had conquered the entire Strip and restored Gush Katif, fine—but there’s no real feasibility for that, so at the moment there isn’t much justification for continuing the war. Am I missing something?
Answer
First, that is very far from being completed. Hamas has absolutely not been eliminated, neither in terms of leadership nor militarily. It is entirely still there, alive and kicking. In my opinion, the goal of the war should be to eliminate it, exactly as has been said over and over. I very much hope they do not give up and continue until the goal is achieved. I do not have the information and do not know what the constraints are, and I assume you do not have such information either. No political move is possible until we finish the mission, and therefore all the talk about a political move, an agreement, the day after, and so on and so on, is nonsense. We need to win and eliminate them, and then reach a surrender agreement.
Incidentally, continuing the war for “political” reasons is as legitimate as it gets. Just like the ridiculous accusation that keeps coming up again and again—that he is continuing the war because of coalition pressures and to preserve the coalition. That is exactly what he is supposed to do: formulate a position acceptable to the entire coalition and act accordingly. How exactly do people want a coalition to function? That the prime minister should be a dictator and act on his own?
Discussion on Answer
And I claim that this is not a justified demand. A coalition operates according to agreement among its members, and it is completely legitimate for there to be disagreements and for decisions to be made that are not everyone’s view. If there is a colossal mistake, then that is grounds to break up a coalition. I do not see who has information that could determine such a thing, and certainly not determine what Bibi thinks.
Suppose, for the sake of discussion, that Bibi thinks that from this point onward the war is unnecessary. Do you think he should still take Ben-Gvir and Smotrich’s view into account and continue the war even though he thinks otherwise?
As I explained, “unnecessary” is too dichotomous a term. The question is how much value it has and what the expected gains are. There are many possible answers to that, and there is no reason there should not be disagreements about them.
A coalition makes decisions by agreement.
Suppose, for the sake of discussion, that there is disagreement within the coalition about continuing the war. How do you think they—the coalition—should make a decision about whether to continue the war?
I don’t know. Like any other decision. There are no general algorithms. It depends how necessary it seems to some and how unnecessary it seems to others.
I have also heard criticism of Bibi that he caves on the issue of the conscription law in the face of the Haredim for reasons of coalition survival. Do you think that is also legitimate conduct on Bibi’s part?
Of course there too it is just caving in. Did it occur to you that he himself thinks they should be exempted?!
But the cases are not comparable. Their demand is plainly immoral, so yielding to it for coalition reasons is a crime. Different views regarding the war are legitimate. By the same token, he could steal from the public treasury or kill anyone Yair Golan proposes for coalition reasons.
I think that those who claim Bibi is continuing the war for political reasons mean that Bibi himself understands the war is unnecessary, and he is continuing it only so the coalition survives. They would expect him to act according to his conscience, even if that means the coalition falls.