American friends of Israel tend to admire policies of the Jewish state as heroic and blame foreign governments, especially their own, when Jerusalem makes errors vis-à-vis the Palestinians, notably 1993's Oslo Accords, 2005's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, the catastrophe on Oct. 7, and the Israeli military's eight-month failure to defeat Hamas.
I beg to differ. Without defending Washington's actions, Israelis make their full share of mistakes. In particular, their government and security establishment tend to be overly reliant on technology, prone to short-term fixes, and too conciliatory.
On that last point: although Israel enjoys a huge economic and military edge over its Palestinian enemy, Israel's leaders have, with few exceptions, sought to conciliate it rather than defeat it. The Jewish state tactically deploys violence but strategically seeks to end the conflict through a curious combination of enriching and placating Palestinians. This approach accounts for its current predicament.
 British V for Victory cigarettes symbolized the ubiquity of victory as World War II's paramount goal for the Allies. |
As a historian, I understand that conflicts usually end when one side gives up: think the U.S. Civil War, World War II, and the Vietnam War. Applying this universal insight to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict opens up an exciting possibility to resolve the past century's most intractable and emotive clash: Palestinians lose, fighting ends.
To which comes the inevitable retort: "Given the many internal and external restraints on Israel, how could it possibly impose a sense of defeat on West Bankers and Gazans?"
My reply, as explained in detail in a just-published book, Israel Victory: How Zionists Win Acceptance and Palestinians Get Liberated (Wicked Son), focuses on the Palestinian center of gravity, meaning (as defined by theorist of war Carl von Clausewitz) "the essential source of ideological and moral strength, which, if broken, makes it impossible to continue the war."
In this case, that center of gravity lies not in the leadership, the militia, the economy, the land, or in religious sanctities, but in hope: the hope to destroy Israel and replace it with Palestine. Accordingly, Israel's goal must be to extinguish that hope and replace it with hopelessness.
 The PA and Hamas both explicitly call for the destruction of Israel and its replacement with Palestine. |
Achieving this requires two elements, one destructive, one constructive.
Destructive: Israelis and Palestinians jointly revile the ruling Palestinian institutions, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA), but before Oct. 7, neither challenged them. Israel preferred the devils it knew, Palestinian publics lacked the strength to defy them.
Oct. 7 changed the calculus. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and many other of the country's political, military, and intellectual leaders have insistently called for the destruction of Hamas; and that should be the IDF's precise goal, unconstrained by the hostages held by Hamas. The PA, which confirmed its moral bankruptcy by endorsing Oct. 7, can be collapsed by Jerusalem simply starving it of funds.
Constructive: Ridded of the foul Hamas and PA, Israel can then rebuild by working with the growing body of Palestinians ready to come to terms with the fact of Israel's existence and seeking to benefit from it. This means, first, constructing administrations in Gaza and the West Bank by working directly with moderate Palestinians, something Jerusalem has almost never tried. Together, these long-time enemies can build a decent polity, comparable to what is found in Egypt or Jordan.
Second, it means supporting the voices of moderates and amplifying in Arabic the message of Palestinians calling for an end to a century of futile anti-Zionist negativity. Appreciating Israel's elections, rule of law, freedom of speech and religion, minority rights, orderly political structures, and other benefits, they want to end the futile rejectionism in favor of building something positive.
Experiencing the bitter crucible of defeat, ironically, will benefit Palestinians even more than Israelis, allowing them finally to emerge from a long miasma of nihilism. Finally they can develop the polity, economy, society, and culture worthy of a skilled, dignified, and ambitious people. Think of them as a miniature version of Germans and Japanese in 1945.
But this will only happen if Jerusalem breaks with its tradition of conciliation and instead seeks victory. Americans should urge this shift, but Israelis must ultimately take the fateful step that breaks with over a century of Zionist history.
Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum and author of Israel Victory. © 2024 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.
