Thursday, September 19, 2024

The Only Way to Win the Peace is to Win the War

  A new phase of the war  says Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (TOI)
I had to laugh when I heard a former CIA official say that war never solves anything. That diplomacy is what is needed. That comment is so stupid that it makes me wonder how this guy ever became a high official in such a vital office. Of course he is not alone. The US State Department very existence is based on that philosophy.

The problem with this philosophy is that it has been tried many times in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians - and it hasn’t worked. Diplomacy relies heavily on compromise. 

The best example of why that doesn’t work can be traced to back to the deal made with Hitler. Neville Chamberlain, the prime minister of the UK at the time used diplomacy to avoid a world war. The compromise was that he let Hitler have Czechoslovakia in exchange for Hitler’s signed promise not to go to war. Declaring upon his return to the UK that he achieved ‘peace for our time’! 

We all know how well that worked out. What did however bring peace was the allied invasion at Normandy that eventually resulted in the allies winning the war. There has been peace with Germany ever since. And Japan is now one of our closest allies.

What brings peace during a war is not diplomacy. Winning the war brings peace.

The above-mentioned official seems to be completely ignorant of that fact. He was asked if he thought what Israel did over the last 2 days would help Israel’s cause . He said that even if it did, he added that war never brings peace. Only diplomacy will work.

Really? As though  Nasrallah, Hezbollah leader, is ever going to give up his goal of ridding the region of the Jews - and replacing the Jewish nation with an Islamic regime., The only difference between Hitler and Nasrallah is the latter’s religious fervor. The only way Israel can ever achieve peace wiht Hezbollah is by defeating them in a military victory. Which can only happen if Iran is completely neutered. Which is why the current US policy toward Iran is so terribly flawed. This is why the most important foreign policy decision of the Trump administration was in restoring sanctions on Iran that were so severe that it caused an unprecedented financial disaster to their economy. 

It appears that Israel has just prepared in a very clever way for a war with Hezbollah. They have virtually destroyed their command structure by sabotaging their ability of to communicate with each other.  A very important tactic of war.Not to mention killing some of their top military commanders who were the ones that carried the devices Israel detonated

The sheer genius of what Israeli intelligence community accomplished cannot be understated. Prime minster Netanyahu is to be congratulated for authorizing his intelligence community to design it and execute it.

It also appears that I was not that far off from saying that the war in Gaza was for all intents and purposes over. At east in terms of IDF focus. Hamas has apparently been left incapable of doing anything remotely near what it did last October.

The IDF is moving its major operations northward towards Israel’s border with Lebanon. It appears to be a move to restore the hundreds of thousands refugees that fled their homes there because of the  rocket attacks fired at them indiscriminately by Hezbollah daily since October.

My fear of a widening  war has given way to confidence that Israel knows what its doing. And that their military/intelligence apparatus is doing just fine. That  one mistake last October (which was indeed huge) does not define them. That was proven over the last couple of days.

In the meantime, what about the hostages? They are certainly of paramount importance.

I don’t have an answer to that question. At the same time, I think Israel has to defend their people the best way they know how. They must think of their future. And I think that by proceeding along this route - they are.