KURT SCHLICHTER (Townhall.com 8-4-24)
Israel is risking losing this war because it is focusing more on avoiding criticism from its enemies than winning. I blame Benjamin Netanyahu in large part, but also our incompetent and loathsome alleged president. Now, I’m not one of those reflexive Bibi haters, and while I certainly don’t think the United States should have a say in who Israel chooses to lead it, I do believe in accountability. The disaster of October 7 happened on his watch, and he should’ve resigned the day after, but that’s not up to me or up to any American. What is up to me as an American is who our president will be next year, and it can’t be Biden again. But the desiccated old zombie aside, Bibi needs to go. He screwed up on October 7, and now he appears to be screwing up this war.
The problem is not that Netanyahu has been too harsh, as our idiot president claims. It’s that Netanyahu has been too gentle (Yes, I understand a war cabinet is leading Israel, but he is still the face of it.). And too slow. Joe Biden has betrayed every ally America has had, from South Vietnam to Afghanistan and Bibi somehow imagined that creep would not sell-out Israel? Speed was of the essence. Why was Rafah not glass months ago? Netanyahu waited, and that gave Biden the time to sell out Israel.
Restraining was a mistake. The fact is that Israel has, to a far too great extent, tried to fight this war on terms that would satisfy its leftist enemies in the United States and other anti-Semites around the world. That was an error from the beginning. Israel’s strategy should have focused on victory, not on trying to mollify its critics. They will cry no matter what. Let them cry over defeated terrorists. Do you know what mollifies critics most effectively? Winning. Israel should’ve done that, and fast. But it didn’t. Despite the courage and skill of the IDF, who are a credit to their great nation, Israel’s leadership chose to fight this war and is still fighting this war in a manner that allows others who do not have Israel’s best interest at heart to dictate its strategic and tactical prerogatives. That is a grave error. That is putting Israel in danger.
Israel has three main related strategic military objectives at the moment. First, Israel needs to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Second, Israel must eliminate Hezbollah on its northern border. This Jihadi militia is dug in inside Lebanon with enough Iranian-supplied rockets to devastate Israel’s infrastructure, as well as having the ability to launch October 7-style attacks. And third, Israel must destroy Hamas in Gaza. A surviving Hamas can launch more October 7-style attacks and has promised to do so if able.
Now, these strategic objectives are interrelated in the sense that Iran is behind all of them. And there is also the diplomatic issue of maintaining some level of Israeli support throughout the world, particularly within the United States. As long as the fighting continues, diplomatic support will continue to deteriorate. Solving the second and third strategic challenges resolves that diplomatic issue – there’s nothing like victory, and a decisive Israeli win would allow Israel to retake the diplomatic initiative. Dragging out the issues of Hezbollah and Hamas has given Israel’s enemies time to concentrate propaganda power against it. Seeing the war on television every day helps our enemies. But a victory over Hezbollah and Hamas would put Israel in a better position, and that supports the strategic objective of stopping Iran from getting the bomb. Israel losing to Hezbollah and Hamas makes it more likely that Iran will seek to get the bomb.
There are a lot of hard truths here, and somebody must speak them. The first hard truth is those hostages are probably dead. Hamas likely murdered most of them. It’s certainly torturing and raping the survivors. You cannot have a successful strategy that prioritizes hostage lives. You just can’t. The priority has to be defeating the enemy. Defeating the enemy solves all the problems. Ideally,
