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Israel Will Have to Radically Rethink the Way It Deals with Terrorism

(Tablet) Liel Leibovitz - Israel these days is waking up to the shattering realization that the rosy tales it told itself for decades were false. That there is no such thing as "the peace process with the Palestinians," if only because a) the scattered family-based tribes who dot Judea and Samaria do not coalesce over any one coherent national consciousness, and b) even if they did, coexistence with the Jews next door has never been and will never be on the menu. That America won't always be a perpetually reliable ally. And that the world remains, as it had always been, at best unmoved by our suffering and, at worst, committed to seeing the Jews as pesky outsiders who must be erased. Oct. 7 proved, with haunting clarity, just how much Israelis will now have to rethink. To gain real security, Israel can no longer revert back to its strategy of engaging in limited-scale conflicts with Hamas or Hizbullah every few years only to withdraw, attempt something akin to containment, and face increasingly fortified foes on their terms. To truly deliver a deadly and effective blow to its enemies, Israel will have not only to target its leaders and their enablers, but also reclaim and keep key territories, including the creation of buffer zones. It will have to dismantle the murderous and corrupt Palestinian Authority, and enforce some solution that gives Palestinians some autonomy in their daily lives but nothing remotely resembling an armed sovereign nation. And it will have to radically rethink the way it deals with terrorism, including eliminating incentives for kidnapping and holding Israeli civilians as bargaining chips. Oct. 7 reminded Israelis, in the most brutal fashion imaginable, that the quasi-normal life they had imagined was now their forever lot was an illusion. Now, they must fight. In recent days, a post from an unnamed reservist in Gaza has been going viral in Israel. "The Philadelphi Corridor is more important than hostages," wrote the reservist. "It's more important than me and my entire battalion, which has been fighting in Gaza since the beginning of the war." Approximately every 100 meters, he explained, a tunnel passes through the fence, openings used for smuggling massive amounts of contraband. Therefore, "leaving Philadelphi for one day means a death sentence for thousands more Israelis....Our blood is no less red than the blood of the hostages, although we are ready to sacrifice our lives for the sake of defeating the enemy."
2024-09-05 00:00:00
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