"So what's your plan, huh?"
If what you're doing isn't working, maybe it's a good time to just stop -- even if your entire plan is just that, just stop.
Whenever I share my pain and reservations about what we, Israel, are doing in Gaza right now, there is always someone pushing back with "Well, what else are we supposed to do???" As if to say, you know, we have no choice. This is the only way. "What's your PLAN, Elana???? Don't just kvetch! We need a PLAN!"
I keep hearing that, so I want to respond to that properly.
First, for the record, this is one of the milder objections that I've been getting. Other objections I've gotten recently have been:
"Who are you? Are you even Israeli?" (Read this if you’re curious)
"Do you have ANY idea what happened on Oct 7?" (Here is what I was doing on Oct 7)
"Are you okay? I'm very worried about you" (as if anyone who says these things has lost their mind)
"Stick to your grandmother duties!" (like, I must be feeble-minded, as all grandmothers apparently are)
"Typical feminist, doesn't care about anyone but herself" (!!)
"Do you even know that babies have been killed in Gaza? Hamas lies about everything." (We’ve all seen the photos and videos and reports and this has been confirmed by organizations around the world….. )
"Anyway, if Palestinian babies die in Gaza, it's the Palestinians’ own fault." (I keep trying to point out that most babies are too young to be recruited by Hamas, and that we are the ones dropping but that argument falls on deaf ears)
I don’t have the bandwidth to respond to everything all the time. (Although I have some bubbling thoughts about the guy who read my last post about taking care of miluimnik wives and commented on LinkedIn calling me a typical selfish feminist…. Maybe I’ll write a real respond to that one day, too.)
Right now, though, I want to respond in particular to the, "What else are we supposed to do?????" line because I feel like the people saying this are coming from a more genuine place of caring helplessness. Like, "I DO care about lives but feel helpless in the face of what happened on Oct 7." Which is a legitimate feeling and deserves a response.
*****
In general, in life, I don't believe in "I have no choice." We always ALWAYS always have choices. The situation in Gaza is certainly no exception.
If we can't think of anything else to do, it's because either we're not being creative enough, or we haven't been exposed to any other ideas. Maybe one idea is the only one open to us. Perhaps being rammed down our throats.....
What we're doing now is, of course, the exact same thing we've been doing for 20 years. The only strategy we've ever tried. Respond to violence with even more violence. We have never tried anything else. So there's that.
And it's worth pointing out that during those 20 years of trying this same strategy of bombardment every two years or so, Hamas has emerged stronger every single time. It's a straight upward graph. We go in, bombard like hell, and they come out with more volunteers, more cash, more rockets....
It is a failing strategy. Yet we keep doing it.
Moreover, "We can't think of anything else to do" is absolutely the WORST justification for killing lots of innocent people (what the army calls "people uninvolved"). Just pointing that out. Just because we can't think of a better solution (or our leaders don't want us considering one), that doesn't give us the moral justification to do what we are currently doing in Gaza.
In fact, I disagree with the entire premise of the objection. That I don't have to have some grand alternative plan in order to advocate for STOPPING WHAT WE ARE DOING RIGHT NOW. We can absolutely stop what we’re doing if what we’re doing is unjustifiable, damaging, and morally problematic. If we know it’s a failure and costs so much loss of life, we absolutely can and should stop. Right now.
****
So what am I saying here? What might be an alternative?
The most obvious alternative is this. We can just stop. We can get the hell out of Gaza right now.
We've done quite a lot of damage already, one would think. Some tunnels are destroyed, tens of thousands of people have been injured or killed, hundreds of buildings have been destroyed including entire neighborhoods, some Hamas leaders have been killed. Some funding has been stopped. Sinwar's house is gone, his escape tunnels are gone..... We can pick up and go right now having achieved quite a bit of destruction.
And if the army says, "We haven't done enough, there's more to do" -- as they have been saying, each time extending the projected length of this war from months to years to indefinitely to taking over Gaza to razing the entire place -- if their line is that we have barely touched the surface of our goals, I say, if after 3 months we have not achieved "much", then what the hell are we doing????? After 3 months of all this death and destruction, and "not much" has been achieved, then we should just stop right now and find a completely different way. If after ALL THIS, the army can't even point to real gains, then we are DOING SOMETHING VERY WRONG.
So yes, a very, very real and attractive option is to just get the hell out of dodge right now. They have lost enough. We have lost enough. Everyone has lost enough. We do not need to keep going indefinitely on this awful, bloody path. We can stop.
******
I realize that the right-wing war hawks running this war like to argue the opposite. They like to say that we haven’t done enough!! That we never went ALL THE WAY. In the past, we held back. People like Ben Gvir, a racist maniac who was considered too violent and scary to even serve in the army, is currently leading that call to, you know, raze Gaza. Don’t leave until we “finish the job”, whatever that even means.
Because also, here's the painful truth: Even if we continue for months or years, we will never be any closer to protecting Israel from terrorism. And in fact, the longer we stay on this path, the more we put Israel in danger for a long time.
Bibi and his government are driving home this grandiose line line that "It's not over until we have COMPLETELY DESTROYED HAMAS", this macho fantasy bullshit that is aimed at keeping his base excited. Like "WHOO HOO WE ARE GOING ALL THE WAY BABY!!!"
As if destroying Hamas is a real thing. As if destroying Hamas entirely is possible. It is not! Hamas is an idea, not rooted in any particular person. So we may kill terrorists, but we cannot kill the idea.
The fact is, this war is strengthening Hamas on the ground. Every poll shows that -- and we should understand why. It's very simple: For every massive bombing that destroys an entire neighborhood in order to kill off a few terrorists, hundreds of survivors of that bombing lean in to Hamas. Hate Israel more. Have nothing to lose anymore so why not become a martyr. Why not? "Look at what Israel did to us...." The devastation we are causing is fuel for creating more terrorists. So this whole "destroy Hamas" via this massive destruction of Gaza is a complete and utter fantasy that does not understand the most basic aspects of human behavior.
It is also strengthening Hamas support around the world. It has now become legitimate to speak out loud in support of violence and terrorism aimed at Israel. The phrase "From the river to the sea" is now a popular rallying cry all around the world -- a phrase that most people chanting it had never heard before all this. They may not even know what it means, but they know for sure that Israel is evil -- they all see pictures from Gaza and hear the stories. So every time we do our thing, people around the world have more “evidence” for why they hate us and we Jews/Israelis all deserve to die.
Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting that this war created antisemitism. Or that antisemitism is Israel’s fault. Antisemitism has existed since way before the current state of Israel existed, and is a long-standing, irrational evil. But what I’m saying is that as this war goes on, those wishing to see the end of the Jewish state and possibly all Jews are amassing more supporters and more legitimacy and more “material” to support their claims that we are violent bullies. The war is actively feeding that machine. We cannot deny that. It is putting Jews in danger all around the world.
The war is also reawakening support around the Arab world for Hamas. It is threatening every single alliance Israel has built in the Arab world, every peace agreement and accord is under threat of disappearing. The war has significantly eroded support for Israel around the world, and the US may be Israel's only friend left. The longer we keep going, the worse this will all get.
And now, suddenly, we are apparently in the midst of a seven-front war. So that, alone, is a clear indication that we are much worse off than we were before Oct 7. We have woken the sleeping bear. Many, many sleeping bears.
We cannot keep doing this and think that we will come out better, safer, or whatever. There is no scenario here where we are stronger because we are bombing the hell out of civilian populations. This article in Foreign Affairs (h/t Elad Nehorai) by experts on the subject explains in very convincing detail why a strategy of collective punishment against civilian will never achieve its goals — it never has, not in WWII, not in Vietnam, not in Korea, not in Iraq. Never. It is a failed, immoral strategy.
If we spend a year or two years or whatever in Gaza, by the time we are done, whatever population was there will be either dead or injured or sick or homeless or in mourning -- or a combination thereof. They will have lost their homes and their infrastructure, but Hamas will still be alive. Whoever is left in Gaza will be fully behind the Hamas ideology that Israel is evil and that Israelis and Jews deserve to rot in hell. And they will have people around the world saying that they are right. And we will be powerless to stop that. There are not enough bombs or talking points in the world to get the world to unsee what the IDF is doing in Gaza.
So this whole idea that the war is about "destroying Hamas" -- it's doing exactly the opposite. Every single day we are in there, people are dying, Hamas infrastructure is losing some ground (some -- ) -- but overall, Hamas is coming out ahead. And will rebuild. They have done it before. They will have an endless supply of volunteers in Gaza and around the world.
And meanwhile, Israel is not getting stronger but weaker. Much weaker. Israelis face daily losses of our reservists -- our spouses, our children, our siblings, our friends. People's businesses are struggling while they are in reserve duty. Students have their lives cut short -- what exactly is going to happen to the reservists who miss six months or a year or two years of class?? And the reservists' spouses and kids are struggling. I wrote about this last week, as did many other people. The long-term emotional toll here is incalculable.
The entire country is on hold for -- how long? Bibi won't say. Gallant says years. By then, there may not be many people left standing in Gaza or in Israel. But we'll keep going, you know, until Hamas is destroyed which will be never.
I also keep hearing that we have to stay because if we leave then Hamas will just rearm. But here’s the painful truth: No matter when we leave — now or next year or in five years — Hamas is going to rearm. If not Hamas, some other group. And it will be worse. Because with each passing day that we are engaged in this war, we are giving 2 million people reasons to rise up against us in violence. Whenever we leave, it will be bad.
*****
And by the way, what is this endless fighting doing for the hostages? Absolutely nothing.
In the three months of warfare, not one thing that the army has done has helped get the hostages back. In fact, it has led to the death of hostages -- how many? we don't know for sure, but we keep getting bodies of hostages who "died" in the tunnels, we don't know how. We may never know how many hostages were killed as a result of IDF actions..... The war is not about saving hostages, and it never has been. At all. So there's also that....
So this whole "We have no choice" rhetoric is just Bibi-supporting jingoist macho fantasy. It's the language that Bibi and his people keep feeding us so that we don't ask too many questions. So that we fully support WHATEVER the army does. No matter how many lives are destroyed. No matter how many negative consequences come along with it. No matter who ends up "sacrificing" whatever it is that Bibi wants sacrificed when he talks about "sacrifice". No matter if it ends up achieving the EXACT OPPOSITE of what the government says it is trying to do. The exact opposite -- strengthening Hamas and weakening Israel....
*****
Bibi has gotten the entire country to ignore the facts and get behind this kamikaze mission of "We will stay in Gaza forever" thing as if we have no choice. We have lots of choices, but we are not supposed to look.
People who dare to talk about this stuff can end up in detention, or barred from work, or under investigation. Knesset members from Arab parties have been detained. They have been banned from holding party meetings. Journalists have been detained. This week, a principal of a school in Tel Aviv had mass protests against her and now an investigation against her b/c she dared say that we should think about the people in Gaza. The Education Ministry isn't even remotely apologetic.
This is where we are. In an Orwellian novel trapped in groupthink.
*****
But it doesn't have to be this way. We have a choice. Right now. The most basic choice is this:
We can just stop and pull out. Right now. We can negotiate a cease fire -- pull out, give Hamas whoever they want from jail, get all our hostages back, and then start on a new plan. All of that is better than where we are right now. And definitely better than where we are headed if we continue on this path
First new leadership. Then new thinking and a new plan.A new vision. That's what we can do. Right now. Right NOW.
###
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Roar to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.