Amb (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Israel Hayom”
The war on terrorism cannot be won by defensive – but only by offensive – means, notwithstanding the impressive performance of the Iron Dome missile defense system.
The Background
More than10,000 Gaza-based missiles have been launched, systematically and deliberately, at Israeli cities, kibbutzim and villages since Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in September 2005 (1,700 annually), compared with 700 missiles launched from 2001 to September 2005 (140 annually). In addition, over 5,000 mortar shells have been launched at Israeli civilians since the disengagement.
250 Israelis were murdered by Palestinian terrorists between 1978 and the 1993 Oslo Accords, compared with 2,000 Israelis murdered by Palestinian terrorists since the conclusion of the Oslo Accords.
Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, Israel has transformed its policy of no-Palestinian state-solution to a two-state solution, highlighted by the importation of some 60,000 Palestinian terrorists into Gaza, Judea and Samaria from Yemen, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Lebanon and Syria. The two-state solution has been replete with systematic groundbreaking Israeli gestures, concessions and ideological and territorial retreats. It has yielded unprecedented Palestinian hate-education and terrorism; Palestinian smuggling and manufacturing of tens of thousands of missiles; multi-billion dollar cost of Israeli homeland security measures; severe erosion of Israeli confidence in Israel’s own cause and capability to confront its enemies; and significantly undermined the Israeli posture of deterrence, which is a prerequisite for security and peace. The two-state state of mind has ushered in the assumption that the solution to terrorism is not military but diplomacy.
In 1993, the architects of the two-state solution dismissed the warning that such a solution would doom Israeli cities to a barrage of Palestinian missiles. In 2012, one million Israelis, in Beer Sheba, Ashdod, Ashqelon, Kiryat-Gat and scores of kibbutzim and villages in southern Israel, have been held hostage by Gaza-based Palestinian terrorism as a result of the 2005 Disengagement. Irregularity and missile alert sirens have dominated their daily lives at work, in kindergartens, schools and at leisure.
The PLO (Palestinian Authority) was the ally of the USSR and the Communist Bloc, of Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden. The PLO and Hamas are the allies of Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, the trans-national Muslim Brotherhood terrorists, the emerging Islamic leaders in Libya and Tunisia and the ruling Islamic party of Turkey.
The Solution
The Israeli government is tested – by its citizens, enemies and allies – by its ability to ensure personal and national security, rather than submitting its citizens to periodic terrorism.
Personal and national security will not be advanced by the conclusion of another ceasefire with Palestinian terrorists, but by the destruction of the ideological, educational, political, financial, logistical and operational infrastructures of Palestinian fire.
Israel’s security will not be enhanced by deterring Palestinians from launching missiles at Israel, but by denying them the capability to launch missiles.
Israel’s security will not be bolstered by the power to retaliate against Palestinian missiles, but by the power to preempt and to prevent the launching of – and to eliminate – Palestinian missiles.
An effective offensive against Palestinian terrorist capabilities should not be surgical and limited in scope and time, but comprehensive, decisive, sustained and disproportionate, aiming to devastate all terrorist infrastructures and capabilities, bringing the enemy to submission.
A limited response to terrorism, and the pursuit of ceasefires, constitutes a prescription for a war of attrition – the dream of terrorists and the nightmare of democracies.
An effective offensive should not strive for engagement and coexistence with – or the suspension of – terrorism, but for uprooting terrorism.
Since Oslo 1993, Israel’s battle against terrorism has been subordinated to the two-state solution state of mind, entrenching moral and operational ambiguity rather than clarity. Therefore, it has been addicted to defense, the belief that “restraint is strength,” the assumption that there is no military solution to terrorism and the subordination of war on terrorism to the pursuit of peace, international pressure and international public opinion.
However, the nineteen post-Oslo years of unprecedented Palestinian hate-education, terrorism and non- compliance have documented that there is no political or diplomatic solution to Palestinian terrorism. Ignoring the lessons of the post-Oslo years, by refraining from a resolute, preemptive, preventive decisive and disproportionate offensive on Palestinian and Hezbollah terrorist infrastructures, will subject Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa to a terrorist assault that will dwarf the current predicament in southern Israel.
Israel battle against terrorism should reclaim its pre-two-state solution posture, highlighting roots and vision, determination, defiance of odds, the can-do and risk-taking mentality and gumption. It as that spirit which transformed the Jewish State from the remnants of the Holocaust into the most stable, predictable, reliable, capable, democratic and unconditional ally of the USA.
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I agree with the solution of disproportionate, unrestrained, unlimited and conclusive war, however: I can’t help wondering if Israel, PLO and hamas want to maintain the current status quo. Perhaps its all a dog and pony show for the various interested constituents and foreigners. Hamas gets a scapegoat, a red herring to focus its population on while maintaining power, PLO gets to postpone elections that hamas would win and maintains its power, Israel gets to avoid a peace deal that would give up jewish land, Abbas avoids a peace deal and gets to remain alive. There are no gaza west bank links. Perhaps its a win win for all.
Ettinger is right on target. The best defense is an overwhelmingly effective offense to prevent in reality rather than cure on paper, while you still can and before things get worse.If the real dangers were eliminated then maybe we could start to seek peace, not the other way around. Peace “without” risk. By the way, not that anybody reading on this site needs to be told this, but why doesn’t Obama say anything about the rocket fire from Gaza- it must be because we’re building in Jerusalem. If he can’t bring himself to do even that, or at least I haven’t heard him do so yet, how the heck can anybody expect him to have Israel’s back. I also don’t understand how it is relevant to point out that Ettinger is a secularist. If Sherlock Holmes was religious or secular wouldn’t matter if he could solve the case.
Report: Egyptian-brokered ceasefire ends Gaza fire
Neither Israel nor Hamas will confirm that an agreement has been reached
It is really good to know that an important Israeli, Mr. Ettinger understands and recommends that a total offensive is the only way to secure a full and lasting peace time with the Arabs in Gaza. Enough is enough and now is the best time to institute to destruction of the terrorist infrastructure, including Hamas and all of the other named organizations. This must not be done because of our relations with the US, but in spite of the US. The American Left, including especially the US State Department would have Israel lay down her arms and quietly disappear. Lock and load.
It is depressing to read the views of even the best of Israeli leaders that are always self-defeating. The Israeli government is incapable of implementing the advice of Ambassador Ettinger because all of them, including Ettinger, are secularists. They all fear Obama, the U.N. and public opinion among the nations. They do not fear G-d. They are oblivious to the Torah. If they could just read Deuteronomy chapter 28 they would have the simple instructions for victory. The Torah warns that to be safe and secure Jews must obey the Law. If not the Jews will be abandoned by G-d and will suffer greatly. We Jews are cursed by having corrupt leaders who betray us to our enemies in their arrogance in believing they they are wise. Alas, our leaders are incapable of learning and so we Jews will continue to suffer until and unless the Jewish public arises and replaces them with true Jews.