From The Jerusalem Post (Aug 20):
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum stressed that the only way to return the 109 hostages is through a negotiated deal.
It is clear that Israel has been impeded from yet securing complete victory over Hamas by the West’s, particularly the United States’, desultory support. Apropos delaying the supply of weapons, and constantly calling for a ceasefire (echoed no louder than by Penny Wong), which would cede victory to Hamas.
I wonder that Hitler and Tojo in early 1945 didn’t call for a ceasefire. Who knows if Biden, Blinken, Chamberlain and Wong had been in charge that they couldn’t have struck a deal. Nah, those pesky Russian realists wouldn’t have played ball.
Imagine a country of fewer than 10 million people occupying a sliver of land surrounded on all sides by populous countries all of which have waged war or, in the case of Lebanon, have rained down rockets on your citizens, in the decades following your establishment in 1948. And all of which would delight in seeing you totally gone – from the Jordan River all the way to the Mediterranean Sea.
Now imagine your allies have appeasement by proxy (that is, on your behalf) coursing through their veins. Insisting you are proportionate in responding to constant attacks and to threats that the attacks will continue until you are annihilated. Not bothering even to understand what proportionate means in wartime. Never insisting on the only legitimate peaceful solution to the Gazan war, which is that the Hamas surrenders and returns all hostages. Never insisting on the starting gate for a solution to the wider Middel Eastern conflict, which is that all surrounding Arab states and the so-called Palestinians and Iran agree to live peacefully and neighbourly with a Jewish state of Israel existing within secure borders. And clinging on to a fantasy that a two-state solution is possible when one side will never give up warring on the other. Talk about being pathologically delusional.
Now also imagine you have inside the country a segment of the population who appear to want peace at any price and who leverage off the return of hostages to call for a negotiated peace. Now, they are not my family members held hostage by barbarians. So, I am not judging what people might do in such circumstances. At the same time, objectively speaking, you can’t win a war if your focus is on recovering hostages or prisoners.
One hundred and nine hostages – either alive or dead- are believed to remain in captivity (Reuters Aug 20). Israel has listed 333 soldiers killed in the Gaza ground offensive since October7. All of those soldiers will have families. Perspective and realism is required to understand that above all else the war must be won.
Finally, you also can’t win a war if you are pressured to do what, in fact, is less than proportionate. To remind ourselves, proportionate means ensuring that any loss of civilian lives or property is not excessive when measured against a legitimate military objective. It does not meaning avoiding the loss of civilian lives and property at any cost. Else, of course, wars, including WWII, could never be won. Evil never defeated.
The mistake was not going in hard in the 1st place .. They (Israel) allowed the whiners to consolidate .. If they’d gone in & smashed ’em (via air) in the 1st week most of the serious fighting would have been over in 10 dayz and they could have spent since then mopping it up, dealing with the tunnels ect & ignoring the squealers .. You can whinge all you like when there’s little left to whinge over ……!
They’ve (Israel) alwayz knew the “hostages were taken as collateral and their chances of survival minimal but they erred on the side of westernized”humanitarian methods rather than the only thing terrroists understand .. outright violence, regardless! .. noble but costly ……. FFS!
Too much attention paid to outsiders with no stake in the result has cost lives both hostages & troops ……..!
I suppose ‘negotiated deal’ means exchanging terrorists in Israeli jails for hostages. I wonder how many terrorists Israel has released in the past to placate these groups that has resulted in the deaths of more Israelis?
Let the arabs nominate who they want back. No more than one for one and return them in the same state as the hostages. If 50 of the 109 are dead, then execute 50 of the terrorists and return them as like for like.
Israel is being pushed to the edge.
I will not blame them when they tell us all to go to Hell, and drop 50 to 100 nukes on the major problem in the Middle East – Iran.
Have you noticed we’re still waiting for Iran — swimming in billions of dollars in ill-gotten gains from the Biden/Harris regime — to retaliate to Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah/Hamas military leaders in Iran and Lebanon?
That’s because it won’t happen: When the righteous call the bluff of cowards swimming in ill-gotten gains from the cowards in Washington DC, the cowards in mad-mullahland confirm their cowardice.
The mullahs in Tehran have no honour or courage. They just finance by remote control .the savagery and barbarism their primitive fake religion demands.
I don’t think Israel will succumb to American, British and Australian demands for appeasement because it knows what would happen next: the terrorist cowards of Gaza are emboldened.
Dealing with terrorists demands resolve and courage, not the appeasement of cowards like Harris, Starmer and Albanese.
I have just got off the phone to a friend who is one of the many critics who think the Israelis are “overreaching” in the loss of civilian life is Gaza. This jaundiced understanding of the realities of this war is due to the lack of resolve to look at the facts – and not a little prejudice against Israelis.
The situation of the families of the hostages is different. Their situation is just untenable and horrific to imagine. But the reality is that Hamas must be incapacitated and indeed, exterminated. The IDF have pursued as surgical an operation as is possible in a small tract of land that has some 500 miles of underground tunnels containing rocket launchers, heavy artillery and booby traps. People like my friend have absolutely no understanding (nor want to!) of the logistic difficulties of protecting civilians in such a situation. Hamas had for years planned and prepared for just such a situation, knowing that the largely ignorant world would be appalled by the civilian casualties.
Peter is right – proportionality will rarely win a war or eliminate the evil that created it.
One wonders – quite seriously – when in history the concept of ‘proportionality’ was first introduced? When was it first fished from domestic criminal law (the proportionality applied when acting in self-defence) and pasted onto organised, armed conflict involving nations?
The labelling of ‘disproportionate’ should, in this context, be ignored, because NOTHING Israel does will soothe or appease the enablers and support network of their enemies. ‘Proportion’ is here being used as a faux claim to moral high ground to switch the world’s attention from the initial animal butchery of the 7th of October. Those who wield it do so because it is a useful tool, but as soon as it is turned around, they will claim it inapplicable.
Though I have no more access to information than any of you, nothing I’m aware of has instilled in me the perception that h@m@s is negotiating in good faith. Once h@m@s hands over the last bodily remains, they lose their bargaining chips. Emboldened no doubt by their non-Muslim international support, h@m@s has been very smart in playing this; they will NEVER hand over all of the hostages, whether alive or dead.
I commend Israel for their steadfastness in rejecting the ignorant demands of cowardly appeasers. Some years ago, I was uncertain – via ignorance – of the role and actions of Israel (in regards, mostly, to the various settlements on ‘Palestinian’ land), but I am now 100% behind this nation in their existential struggle, and remain gobsmacked at the malevolence (it cannot be ignorance) of so many international players I expected better from.
Serious question: How is ‘winning’ defined?
Does each participant define this outcome – winning – differently?
If, according to the international community, h@m@s is permitted to seek their definition of ‘winning’ … why is Israel not permitted the same?
What makes one definition of winning legitimate, and the other illegitimate?
1949.
In response to Dresden, Hiroshima & Nagasaki and, belatedly, the advent of “total war” in the 19th C (e.g. Sherman’s march to the sea).
Essentially all member states of the UN, including the US & Israel, in part or on whole.
Which explains why Israel has done its utmost to minimise civilian casualties in the current operation in Gaza. In short, unlike the majority of Gazans who subscribe to Hamas’s murderous agenda, the Israelis are not barbarians.
The evidence is to the contrary. There’s the continued military aid it provided before the war. It then allowed access to US stockpiles of munitions, whether shells, bombs, or MG rounds. There is also the ISR the US provides daily, the assets it has deployed to the region, lately considerable given events with Iran (recall also the 1.5B needed to defend Israel from the Iranian response in April in concert with other Western and Arab states). Last but not least the parts and maintainance necessary to keep their air fleet flying round the clock.
Again, the evidence is to the contrary however. The US has implacably defended and deferred every and all incidents that I’m aware of to investigations by the Israelis themselves (just listen to any State Department briefing). Always calling for the full release of the hostages (as above, or Blinken or Sullivan speaking). Working towards surrounding states to live peacefully and neighbourly with Israel (from Camp David Accords and earlier to Abraham Accords). As for a two state solution, the US probably learned from the assassination of Rabin by an Israeli that a two-state solution was going to be a bridge too far in most circumstances. It’s now used as a place holder in talks.
If Israel had straight up firebombed all of Gaza they would have had the exact same number of people complaining.
Why they bother placating Western leftists is beyond me.
“One wonders – quite seriously – when in history the concept of ‘proportionality’ was first introduced?”
“Proportionality” only makes sense PRIOR to a declaration of and commencement of war. As a way to avoid war, it has some value.
As a part of war, it is ONLY ever uttered by those who know they cannot and will not win, and as a way to avoid total destruction.
As it is in the ME.
Israel should ignore it and do what it must to secure its existence.
Israel’s view should be “We didn’t start it and never have, but we WILL finish it!”
It is looking more and more likely that Israel is going to lose this war. The population is fleeing to Russia and the US ( I think 25% of Israelis hold Russian citizenship). Hamas is still looking strong after 10 months of bombardment that has killed many of the civilian population. Hezbollah has driven the Israeli population away from the border with Lebanon and Syria. The Israel economy is collapsing. I cannot see how Israel can survive. BTW, “Jihad” translated into Aussie, means stand up and cop it on the chin till the blood runs down your face, just don’t give up.
Bruce
Nearly all of Gaza is basically in ruins. It doesn’t look to me that Israel is losing, unless winning and losing means something else. There’s possibly another 9 months to go before it’s over.
Wrong Fred