<\/section>\nWhat makes this course of action feasible today is Israel\u2019s unprecedented international legitimacy. Over the years, Israel has sought to convey to the world the true nature of Hamas. Even when Hamas resorted to strapping suicide belts on women and children, sending them to detonate themselves on buses and in cafes, many around the world remained reluctant to dissociate these acts from the so-called \u201coccupation.\u201d A misguided belief persisted that if Israel simply halted its settlement activities, Hamas would cease its aggression.<\/p>\n
A terrorist, not freedom fighting, organization<\/h3>\n
However, the massacre that occurred on October 7, 2023, changed everything. The world now comprehends the grim reality of what Hamas represents. A group fighting for freedom does not cut open the wombs of pregnant women and leave the fetus hanging from the umbilical cord. They do not murder 40 babies. They do not burn Jews in cars.<\/p>\n<\/section>\nThis has nothing to do with settlements, land or a desire for Palestinian self-determination. It goes beyond that; it taps into a more primal truth, something that the Jewish people have been aware of for millennia \u2013 the unfortunate reality that, as we read during Passover, in every generation, there emerges someone seeking to annihilate us. Today, that adversary is Hamas.<\/p>\n
Consequently, the policies of the past must be set aside. The notion of containment that Israel applied to Gaza, wherein every couple of years there was a cycle of violence \u2013 Hamas striking, Israel responding, but overall, a sense of containment \u2013 is no longer tenable. We once believed that Hamas could be deterred, that our intelligence was superior, and that our defenses were impenetrable. Yet, after the horrors of that Saturday, it\u2019s clear that none of these factors matter when facing this ruthless gang of terrorists.<\/p>\n<\/section>\nTHIS BRUTAL awakening mirrors the shock of another historic moment, exactly half a century ago, when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise invasion of Israel on Yom Kippur in 1973, dispelling the myth of Israel\u2019s invincibility. Hamas was never deterred, and it was never going to remain contained. Economic incentives were never going to dissuade them because their desire to annihilate the Jewish people was always stronger.<\/p>\n<\/section>\nPractically, what this means for Israel is that it now has an opportunity to reset its approach to Gaza. This is no longer about containment, but about achieving a definitive victory and the removal of Hamas. The reason this is possible is because the world, too, understands what happened in the border communities. They have seen the images and realize that what happened there can never be allowed to happen again.<\/p>\n
The lesson from Gaza needs to be applied on Israel\u2019s other fronts as well. While a war with Hezbollah would be hard for Israel due to the sheer number of missiles and rockets in its arsenal, it does not make sense to end this Gaza conflict only to continue to live under a perpetual threat in the North. When Israel ultimately defeats Hamas \u2013 and it will \u2013 what will we do if, in a year or two, Hezbollah invades from Lebanon and commits similar atrocities?<\/p>\n<\/section>\nThis is a new world<\/h3>\n
THE REALIZATION we must embrace today is that the old policies are no longer viable. Israel requires a new policy, one grounded in two fundamental pillars: strength and force. Israel must consistently project strength and make it abundantly clear to its adversaries that no attack, whether it\u2019s a rocket, an infiltration, or an incendiary balloon, will be tolerated. The principle of force refers to the response that will always come after an attack \u2013 one of significant force. Nothing less.<\/p>\n<\/section>\nDoes this mean that Israel should launch an all-out offensive against Hezbollah the next time its guerrilla fighters infiltrate or fire a rocket? I am torn. On one hand, an all-out war would bring considerable pain to Israel, but on the other hand, how can we walk away from Gaza after what has just transpired and still accept the presence of a similar threat on our northern border? It does not make sense.<\/p>\n
Israelis will need to be strong in the weeks to come. The ground offensive in Gaza will exact a toll, and as casualties mount on the Palestinian side, global support may wane. The distressing images of hostages will rip away at our hearts. We also will have to grapple with the politicians and security officials who brought us to this point. The time for that reckoning will come after the war, but they should know now that the public is watching and has not forgotten that they failed to protect this country. They will need to be held accountable.<\/p>\n<\/section>\nWe can still be optimistic. Israelis have come together during this war in a way that just a few weeks ago would have seemed impossible. But here we are, a diverse nation comprising haredim, secular, national-religious, Bedouin, Druze, Muslims and Christians, united under a single classification \u2013 We are \u201cIsraeli.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\nThe writer is a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute and the immediate past editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post.<\/em><\/p>\nFirst published by the Jerusalem Post<\/a><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The notion of containment that Israel applied to Gaza, wherein every couple of years there was a cycle of violence is no longer tenable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11957,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"tags":[380,389],"class_list":["post-12001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-gaza-war","tag-swords-of-iron","topics-swords-of-iron","library-op-ed","library-publications"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12001"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12957,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12001\/revisions\/12957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}