Rabbi Pruzansky's Blog

(First published at Israel365.com and Israelnationalnews.com)

Donald Trump’s interview with Time magazine made headlines for all the wrong reasons. The media typically focused on his criticism of Prime Minister Netanyahu (“I had a bad experience with him”) and his legal woes – and missed the sea change in his thinking on Israel and the Middle East that, if maintained, will reshape the region, its politics and diplomacy, long after his litigation is behind him.

Asked whether he thought the outcome of the war in Gaza “should be a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians,” Trump responded: “Most people thought it was going to be a two-state solution. I’m not sure a two-state solution anymore is gonna work… There was a time when I thought two states could work. Now I think two states is going to be very, very tough. I think it’s going to be much tougher to get. I also think you have fewer people that liked the idea. You had a lot of people that liked the idea four years ago. Today, you have far fewer people that like that idea…Because children grow up and they’re taught to hate Jewish people at a level that nobody thought was possible.”

Lest Trump’s words be obscured behind his trademark awkward syntax, the presumed Republican nominee has demonstrated once again that his instincts in many areas are far more often on target than those of the State Department, world diplomats, and the tendentious journalists who have clung to the two-state illusion for more than two decades. In the process, they have weakened Israel, harmed American interests, and destabilized the region.

Interestingly, Trump’s conclusion – rooted in pragmatism – confirms the policy of the Republican Party that was first adopted in July 2016. Before the convention that nominated Trump, the Republican Party approved a platform that rejected the establishment of a Palestinian state and gave Israel the freedom to negotiate a deal with the Palestinians on its own terms without external pressures. “We oppose any measures intended to impose an agreement or to dictate borders or other terms, and call for the immediate termination of all U.S. funding of any entity that attempts to do so. Our party is proud to stand with Israel now and always.” Of course, defunding any entity that supports the two-state delusion would require the defunding of the State Department and the Biden administration, but such is the purpose of elections.

This is not to shill for either Trump or the Republicans. Almost all Jews would prefer bipartisan support for Israel in the United States. And although many Jews maintain that support for Israel remains bipartisan, the current difference between the parties could not be more glaring.

The Republican Party’s support for Israel is unequivocal and its repudiation of the two-state illusion aligns with the overwhelming majority of Israelis today, chastened and sobered as we were by the Hamas massacre of October 7. Those who persist in talking about two states living side by side are not only rewarding the Arab invaders, marauders, rapists, decapitators, and kidnappers of that awful day; they are also romanticizing a particularly vicious enemy and laying the foundation for future massacres.

By contrast, the Democratic Party has two wings. The radical left supports one state – a state of Palestine that would be built on the ruins of Israel and the extermination of its Jewish population. That is the clear implication of “freedom from the river to the sea” – still another Arab Muslim state in the Middle East and the destruction of the only Jewish one in the entire world. The moderate wing of the Democrats is comprised of those people who continue to support the two-state illusion, which poses an existential threat to the viability of the State of Israel. This support has become standard among Democrats, despite the lack of even a scintilla of evidence that the Arab entity would not seek to destroy Israel or that another partition of the land of Israel is even sustainable. Included in this wing, unfortunately, are many Jewish Democrats.

We can pretend that the parties’ positions are identical or similar. Jews, and liberal Jewish organizations especially, have been doing this for years. But they are not, and on the issue of partitioning the land of Israel into two states, the differences are profound politically, and nothing less than life and death for Israelis. Certainly, this divergence was apparent in 2012, when the Democrat establishment fudged a voice vote to make it seem as if a majority of its delegates supported a plank that called for recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. (The clause had been summarily removed from the Democratic platform.) It fooled those open to being fooled.

On the issue of two states, the discrepancy between Republicans and Democrats could not be more pronounced. This presents a discomfiting challenge for Jews who instinctively vote for the Democrats or an opportunity for them to reconnect to their heritage and their people’s destiny. Evangelical Christians have no such schizophrenia, similar to faithful Jews who believe in the divine promises of the Bible and the prophetic return to the Holy Land. They aim to keep G-d’s land (Keepgodsland.com) the heritage of the Jewish people.

It would be encouraging if Democratic voices emerged that also disavowed the fantasies of “two states for two people.” Donald Trump is nothing if not mercurial but his instincts here are precisely calibrated. Jews should be praising him as this revolutionary shift in his thinking transforms the debate and will reverberate across the region – where even most Arab countries oppose and only pay lip service to a Palestinian state. Ruling out what won’t work, which has been a crutch for the political class for far too long, will engender a rational discussion of what might work – and help preserve the Jewish state in our biblical land.

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

The mischievous machinations of the American government engender some obvious questions: why doesn’t Joe Biden want Israel to win the war with Hamas? Why does Joe Biden want Hamas to survive to rape, torture, rocket, and murder another day? Conversely, why does Joe Biden express unambiguous support for Israel under attack from Iran and even lend American resources to the effort? After all, how can a rational thinker distinguish between Iran, a terrorist nation, and Hezbollah and Hamas, who are the terrorist proxies of Iran, the terrorist nation?

Biden’s conduct towards Israel is best understood as equivocal. His words – especially in the wake of the October 7 Hamas massacre – were encouraging and his ongoing provision of armaments to Israel is significant and welcome. Biden’s assistance was first accompanied by advice, which has now mutated into diktats as if Israel is an American vassal. No other American ally has received such treatment. The aid has become the equivalent of golden shackles, restraining Israel from pursuing our interests and securing our land and people. That Biden has now essentially embedded the American military with Israel’s in the conflict with Iran – at least in the realm of planning – should also be perceived as a mixed blessing. Biden has been most unhelpful while condemning Israel’s military tactics and the conduct of the war with Hamas. This latter indictment is deeply troubling, even offensive, because Biden offers no alternative strategy (except defeat), does not acknowledge the extreme measures that Israel has taken to protect not-so-innocent civilian life (at the price of our own soldiers’ lives and well-being), and completely discounts the far greater loss of civilian life wrought by the United States military in its recent wars, including on Biden’s own watch.

The United States incinerated (there is no better word) hundreds of thousands of Japanese and German civilians during World War II. As the esteemed Senator Tom Cotton pointed out last week, the United States also refused to provide humanitarian aid to Japanese and German civilians during World War II. The horrors! Not helping your enemy during wartime! And yet Biden expects this from Israel. Why?

Some will conclude that Joe Biden is just another run-of-the-mill Jew hater but I find that explanation facile, superficial, and unprovable. We never know what lurks in a person’s heart but it is just too convenient, although it is entirely plausible that he has Jew haters on his staff who are influencing him. Nevertheless, I think the answer lies elsewhere, perhaps in a more subtle form of bigotry.

I thought of this while reading Dara Horn’s memoir, provocatively titled “People Love Dead Jews” (2021). The Holocaust provoked in many circles, although of course not universal, sympathy for Jews, soul-searching about the depth of evil to which human beings can sink, and anguished cries of “never again,” all of which in retrospect had little effect on the existence of Jew hatred and Jew haters. But the world soon lost interest in dead Jews and only encountered the Holocaust or other predations with one objective in mind. She laments: “Dead Jews are supposed to teach us about the beauty of the world and the wonders of redemption – otherwise, what was the point of killing them in the first place?” Even Holocaust novels are supposed to be uplifting.

In other words, dead Jews provide a “service” to mankind. There is something pure and untainted about mourning the victims of the Arab massacre of October 7. Those victims died a “perfect” death, victims of unadulterated evil, of the bestial element of the human form. To this way of thinking, their pristine death is marred by the messiness and unpleasantness of self-defense, of armies and infantries, of bombing and destruction. Certainly, Jews have the right of self-defense, as long as it is not used too forcefully, seriously, and aggressively, and as long as that right does not cause collateral damage or unnecessary casualties.

It goes without saying that this approach to self-defense or even waging war against genocidal enemies is only applied to Jews and the Jewish state. No other country in the world, today and throughout history, is expected to refrain from defeating an enemy who invades its territory, murders, and abuses its citizens, and still holds scores of them hostage. No other country in the world would even entertain returning to the aggressor the territory from which it unleashes its repeated aggressions – and to do it repeatedly. Israel is not only expected to return Gaza to its enemy – again – but will be considered by the world the aggressor if it – wisely – refuses to do so this time.

There was something immaculate about Biden’s initial response to the massacre – the quick visit, the sympathy, the outrage, the determination to fight evil. And then Israel ruined that idyllic scene by going to war and inflicting tremendous harm on its enemy, with the war still in progress. In other words, the “live Jews” in their intemperate desire to remain alive spoiled the good feelings much of the world had in grieving over the dead Jews.

Yet even that answer seems too trite to explain Biden’s hostility towards Israel’s government, its prime minister and even its people. After all, Hamas, Iran, and radical Islam are enemies of America as they are of Israel. Certainly, there is some truth to the political calculus and Biden’s pandering for Arab votes. (It should be humiliating to American Jews that Biden, now openly hostile to Israel, nevertheless takes their votes for granted. That might be both his soft contempt for liberal American Jews as well as an accurate assessment of where are their hearts, heads, wallets, and ballots.) But I think the answer is deeper and simpler than just this election.

In January 1987, then Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger filed a sentencing memorandum with the federal court that would shortly sentence Jonathan Pollard to life in prison (in violation of the spirit of the plea bargain which he entered). Weinberger asserted that Pollard had “substantially harmed” the United States and demanded “severe punishment.” How Pollard did that was left a bit vague, and the memorandum released to the public is redacted almost beyond the point of legibility. What does emerge is that the American view of its alliance with Israel is different from what Jews and Israelis ordinarily assume. Weinberger wrote (39-40): “I cannot overemphasize that the United States strives hard to promote peace and stability in the Middle East. In doing so, it is not unusual that Israel and the US find themselves with differing approaches and perspectives.”

To give one example that was not redacted, Pollard provided Israel with information about the location of PLO headquarters in Tunisia that facilitated an Israeli Air Force strike on October 1, 1985. That raid destroyed the base and eliminated dozens of terrorists. Weinberger deemed that attack to be contrary to US interests because Tunisia had graciously given a home to the PLO after that murderous terrorist group was banished from Lebanon. As such, Weinberger perceived Tunisia as “a power friendly to the United States” and the attack on the PLO headquarters therefore “to the detriment of the United States (32-33). Lost on Weinberger, apparently, was that the “humanitarian assistance” provided by Tunisia was to a terrorist group sworn to destroy Israel and attack any Jew across the world. How can this be? Why would the United States want the PLO to survive?

Here we come to the crux of the problem, and we feel its repercussions today with the Biden about-face regarding Israel. For sure, the United States sees Israel as an ally that can serve American interests in the region. Thus, the United States wants an Israel that is strong – but not too strong. An Israel that is “too strong” is less susceptible to American pressure. An Israel that is “too strong” – e.g., an Israel that has defeated Hamas, driven it from Gaza, and remains in control of the Gaza Strip – is not an Israel that can be bullied into indulging the two-state delusion. From this perspective, an Israel that is too strong, that completely liquidates its enemy, which puts the fear of G-d into any future potential foe, and that deters any foe from attacking – that Israel is too powerful for America’s perception of its interests in the Middle East.

As such, an Israel in possession of Judea and Samaria is construed by the United States as “too strong” and also too reluctant to surrender it to its enemy. That is why Biden will wax indignant over the non-existent “settler violence” and not condemn the murder of Jews who live there, as we have just experienced again, and for many years already. To Biden, Jews have no right to live in Judea (of all places) and thus are fair targets. Jews in Judea and Samaria strengthen Israel too much from an American perspective; whatever can be done to weaken Israel’s presence there, to this way of thinking, strengthens the United States

Now we are privy to the flip side of that equation. Ironically, the US wants Hamas, Iran’s proxy, to survive, while simultaneously the US supports Israeli actions against Iran. Without a strong Israel to counterbalance Iran, Israel would cease to be a useful American ally, would never be able to align itself with neighboring Arab countries, and would even less inclined to subjugate itself to American interests.

Those American interests depend on Israel being pliable, dependent, deferential, and accommodating. The United States that saw value in the PLO’s survival despite the PLO’s murder and kidnapping of American citizens now sees value in Hamas’ survival despite Hamas’ murder and kidnapping of American citizens. From this perspective, a victorious Israel does not serve American interests, either in promoting the two-state delusion or in getting rid of the reviled Netanyahu. For a victorious Israel will emerge from the catastrophe of October 7 stronger, wiser, finally freed of the Oslo and Gaza Expulsion illusions, and more confident in our future.

Accordingly, Biden has embarked on a campaign to delay, dissuade, and then preclude any further invasion of Gaza and any complete victory, accompanied by persistent threats of the dire consequences that will befall Israel if it does not heed these American warnings. At the same time, Biden has committed to helping Israel defend itself against Iran (result: Israel’s viability) while ruling out any American participation in “offensive” actions against Iran (result: no victory and continued proxy conflict). If true, there is at least a certain strained coherence to this policy, which nevertheless should not bind Israel at all.

We should ignore those warnings, certainly for our own welfare, political interests, and survivability in this turbulent region but for another reason as well. Golda Meir once said that “no people in the world knows collective eulogies as well as the Jews do. But we have no intention of going down in order that some should speak well of us.” To be sure, there is a public relations benefit in being victims of Iranian aggression (as there are benefits in the US, the British, the French, and others being perceived by Iran as allied with Israel, since Israel is then not seen as isolated and abandoned) but those benefits are specious and short-lived. The days should be long gone in which the Jewish people bask in the sympathy of the world as we bury Jewish victims of wanton evil. We too love “dead Jews” but we love living ones as well, Jews of faith, commitment, tenacity, and pride. We should pay less attention to those who grieve with us than to those who want to strengthen us so that we do not have to continue grieving.

Pesach celebrates our birth as a nation under G-d, the G-d who liberated us from the suffocating bondage of Egypt, gave us His Torah as our constitution, and His land of Israel as our homeland. Those who do not yet realize that will do so in the near future. When? Perhaps shortly after all of Israel recognizes these truths and lives accordingly. Happy Pesach to all!

(My “Road to Redemption” – all about Pesach – is available at fine stores and from Kodesh Press. Enjoy!)

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

For most of history, nations went to war, frequently and usually at the caprice of one man, but never without a strategy for victory. It was clear what victory entailed: conquest of the enemy’s territory and subjugation of its population. In ancient times defeat was often accompanied by the coerced renunciation of gods of the defeated enemy and its embrace of the victor’s culture. In more modern wars, the objective of World War II was the “unconditional surrender” of the Axis forces, Germany, Italy, and Japan. Many Allied soldiers died, and far more enemy civilians were ruthlessly killed, in order to achieve that goal of “unconditional surrender” rather than accept various offers of cease fires that would have left the Nazi regime in place and Japan’s emperor as ultimate authority.

Israel has never enjoyed such victories, firstly because its strategic goals have been more limited – and usually focused on survival. The War of Independence was successful because nascent Israel repelled numerous Arab invaders, retained most of the territory granted it under the UN’s Partition Resolution and even expanded beyond it. The Six Day War was arguably an unambiguous victory as well, given that another Arab invasion was successfully resisted, the biblical homeland of Israel was liberated, the Arab nations that invaded were sufficiently cowed at least for a few years – but mainly because Israel had no designs on Egyptian, Syrian, or Jordanian territory outside the boundaries of Israel. The notion of “unconditional surrender” had no relevance, as Israel was content to allow all Arab countries to exist as long as they allowed us to exist.

Wars that do not have the goal of “unconditional surrender” are almost by definition “limited” wars, and all subsequent conflicts have been such limited wars. Enemies attack, we defend. Enemies encroach on our land and commit acts of terror, we respond. Enemies fire rockets and missiles at our cities and we “mow the lawn,” deflate their military capabilities, and wait for the next round. We play this macabre game and never win.

There is a second reason why victory in any form eludes us. It is because the “international community,” which includes the United States, the United Nations, and most countries across the world, impose cease fires on Israel whenever victory is close – not even the success of “unconditional surrender” but even to save our enemies and allow them to fight another day. This is unprecedented, and uniquely applied to Jews.

Thus, the Yom Kippur War was halted with Israel on the march to Damascus, with a stronghold in Egypt west of the Suez Canal, and with the Egyptian Third Army surrounded in Sinai. Israel, under pressure, withdrew from Egypt and Syria, allowed the Third Army to escape, and wound up retreating from Sinai. Israel abandoned its positions in Egypt, while Egypt was not forced to vacate its captured land in Sinai. This was not just a stunning diplomatic defeat; it also enabled Egypt to claim victory in the war, which otherwise would have abruptly ended in a colossal failure.

Similarly, the various incursions into Lebanon from the 1970’s through 2008, always ended with cease fires that left the PLO intact, Arafat still functioning, terror just moments away from recurring, and Hezbollah ascendant and gloating. The Ehud Barak-led flight from Lebanon in 2000 catapulted Hezbollah to dominance in Lebanon; Barak’s brazenness in remaining in the public eye, aggressively and abusively, his craving to be taken seriously as a commentator and social agitator, are unusually impertinent illustrations of chutzpah. The Olmert-Halutz catastrophic handling of the 2008 Lebanon War – including the unconscionable deaths of Jewish soldiers fighting for territory that would be abandoned the very next day as part of the cease fire – would be disqualifications for either person to be taken seriously but for the utter shamelessness that today pervades public life.

Israel’s historical handling of Gaza has been just as ineffective. For decades, there was never any intention to prevail, to subdue the enemy, and to conquer its territory. All the skirmishes, culminating in the current war, have ended inconclusively, with forced ceasefires. The obvious consequences of this policy are before our eyes: Gaza and Lebanon are powder kegs waiting to explode – and Israel is on the verge of succumbing yet again to a global demand for a cease fire that will yet again save its enemies. 

How does one lose a war? This is how:

• A nation states and restates its military objectives – such as defeat of Hamas and its liquidation as a military and political force – and then gradually abandons them under pressure.
• A nation makes bold pronouncements – “no food or fuel in Gaza until the hostages are release” or “no aid through Ashdod or Erez” – and then under pressure allows food and fuel to resupply our enemies, and then accepts it as its responsibility to resupply its enemy.  
• A nation can lose when on its own accord it halts the battle when it has momentum and then informs its enemy in advance where it is next attacking, which gives the enemy time to regroup, rebuild, replenish, and re-strategize.
• A nation can lose when it suddenly adopts the bizarre notion that the fate of enemy civilians is the “top priority” in war – and especially when such risible ideas emanate from diplomats who care not a whit about Israeli civilians in captivity, Israeli civilians who were brutalized in their homes, and Israeli civilians who have spent months dispossessed of their homes.
• A nation allows another country with similar but not identical interests (like the United States) to micromanage the war in terms of goals, tactics, location, timing, and weaponry.
• A nation worries more about the welfare of enemy civilians than about the lives of its own soldiers.
• A nation, shocked by the appalling invasion, murder, abuse, kidnapping, and humiliation of its citizens, allows its righteous anger to dissipate, and instead begins to listen to intellectuals and novelists about how a cease fire will improve its international image.
• A nation’s media gives prominence to those voices that insist that “total victory” is impossible.
• A nation allows the defeated hostile population to remain, which enables them to prepare an insurgency campaign that will cost the lives of its soldiers and sap the spirit and will of the people.
• A nation allows disgruntled supporters of opposition parties to riot, protest, threaten, and intimidate, which encourages the enemy to believe that Israel’s society is at war with itself, collapsing from within, and cannot possibly prevail in this conflict.

And this is what defeat looks like:

• Six months after the start of the war, there are still enemy rockets and missiles falling on Ashkelon, the communities around Gaza, and in the north.
• Tens of thousands of Israelis cannot return to their homes.
• A “cease fire,” which leaves Hamas in power, a return to the status quo ante, and preparation for the next wave of missile attacks, terrorism, and response.
• The release of terrorist murderers in return for freedom for innocent hostages, which only precipitates the next round of kidnappings – for which the enemy laughs at us and pays no price.
• Israel, despite its efforts to avoid collateral damage to enemy civilians, is becoming a world pariah, whose elected government is reviled and whose internal politics are considered appropriate for world intrusion, intervention, and meddling.
• The enemies who attacked us have the world’s sympathy, and we are the world’s villain.
• The enemy leaders gloat at their successes and are considered worthy interlocutors by diplomats and other hypocrites.

I still remember when Israel was the envy of the world because of our steadfast claim that “Israel never negotiates with terrorists” and surrenders to their blackmail. Wow, that was a long time ago, for now most of what we do diplomatically is surrender to terrorists and their blackmail.

Victory is going to require more than slogans that “together we will win.” The anarchists who have been allowed to take over our streets and highways in the last year in violation of the law, and who have resumed their violent demonstrations, would rather see Israel defeated or stalemated, and certainly if a victory helps the Prime Minister remain in office.

It is time we realize what victory does look like and try to achieve it. The world hates us anyway, will not have greater love for us if a cease fire is imposed tomorrow, and, in any event, has more respect for winners than for losers. It is not too late to achieve victory but our goals must be clear. The cardinal sin was succumbing to the obsession with the welfare of the enemy civilians – yes, those who supported, participated in, and rejoiced over the rapes, murders, and abductions of October 7. Pursuant to (the farce known as) international law, the Gazan civilians had a legal right to “safe passage” out of a war zone. They were denied that right, not only by Egypt but also by the world community that sees Gazans as an indispensable entity for the continued war against Israel.

We should be advocating for that right to free passage – and doing it in every television interview and every diplomatic exchange. We should prioritize the release of our hostages and tie it directly to the provision of humanitarian aid. We should reject with contempt the hypocrisy of nations who wage war, kill civilians, and see no need to apologize for it (see United States, Kabul, August 28, 2021, 10 civilians killed including 7 children, with denials that continued for weeks, and with a Biden apology to the world yet to be offered).

And then we should finish the job. Victory entails full control over the conquered territory which can never again be used as a launching pad for terror against Israel, an enemy population that leaves because it wants to leave, sees no future for itself in that land, or is encouraged to leave because its opposition to the Jewish national idea is implacable.

We need to remind ourselves of the fundamentals of Jewish destiny that should determine our statecraft. We have returned to the land that G-d granted our forefathers after we forfeited it due to our misconduct. Our generation was blessed to be the beneficiaries of the prophecy of ultimate return. For thousands of years until today, we have been accused by our enemies of being “robbers,” stealing other nations’ land (Rashi, Breisheet 1:1). That has not changed, and we should not expect it to change anytime soon; but it also requires us not to internalize that false indictment and pretend there is some way we can persuasively defend against it. That charge is built into the history of the world and of the Jewish people, a ubiquitous reminder that we must be worthy of this land, permeate it with holiness, sanctify it with mitzvot, and defend it for the honor of G-d and two millennia of Jews who could not defend themselves and suffered the predations of the precursors of all our enemies today.

Even in these difficult and perilous times, we should count our blessings, among which are the knowledge we have of how wars are lost – but also how wars are won, and how victory in this conflict will have positive ramifications in many spheres, and for years to come.

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

The relentless effort to topple Binyamin Netanyahu is almost thirty years old and continues unabated. There are politicians who arouse opposition and others who arouse irrational hatred. Netanyahu is in the latter category, to which should be added Donald Trump, whose mere existence also makes people lose their minds and who, like Netanyahu, is the subject of withering but dubious legal assaults from his haters who control prosecutions (but not necessarily convictions).

Each time Netanyahu is elected there are immediate calls for “new elections, now,” public protests and demonstrations, amid demands for his resignation. To his detractors, elections have only one legitimate and acceptable outcome – Netanyahu’s defeat. It seems that 99.5% of the people screaming for his resignation now were screaming for his resignation on October 6. They assume that new elections will spell certain electoral defeat for Israel’s longest serving prime minister. They should learn a little history.

Golda Meir presided over an even worse military debacle fifty years ago when she failed to preempt the Egyptian and Syrian attack on Israel on Yom Kippur 1973. Nevertheless, Golda won re-election less than three months after the war’s outbreak. It is true that she lost seats, with her party garnering 51 mandates (down from 56 in the previous election); but it is also true that no single party since then has won 51 seats in the Knesset. She formed a government with 68 seats in the Knesset, what today would be construed as a landslide. She resigned in April 1974 after the Agranat Commission laid blame at the feet of senior military intelligence officials – but did not reprimand Meir or Defense Minister Moshe Dayan.

Other examples stand out as well. George W. Bush was president only nine months when Arab terrorists attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. Almost 3000 Americans were killed, thousands more in the wars the United States fought for the next 20 years in the Middle East. Only the shrillest Bush haters blamed him for the 9/11 attacks and America’s unpreparedness. The American people did not, and Bush handily won reelection three years later with a larger majority than he won in 2000.

Similarly, Japan launched “an unprovoked and dastardly attack” on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, less than a year after Franklin D. Roosevelt began his third term. The United States was completely unprepared for the attack – and for the war that followed. It took months to build up American manufacturing to provide the weapons of war. FDR, too, was not blamed, although he did immediately fire the commander-in-chief of the US Pacific Fleet, Husband E. Kimmel, replacing him with Chester Nimitz who steered the US to victory over Japan. And almost exactly three years later, in November 1944, FDR was reelected to an unprecedented fourth term.

It is worth noting that the next scheduled parliamentary elections in Israel will not be held until October 2026 – i.e., exactly three years after Hamas’ brutal Shemini Atzeret invasion of Israel.

“Three years” seems like the magic number at which voters can evaluate the level of culpability of their leaders; most often they are not held liable for failures that occur on their watch, especially when they were not informed. We do not know, and will perhaps never know, the extent to which Israel’s intelligence agencies blundered in the months and years before October 7, what information they dismissed, what they reported, and what they concealed, and the extent to which the involvement of certain elements of the security services in anti-Netanyahu protests played a role. Of course, writ large, the Prime Minister is responsible for everything that happens on his watch (although it is understandable why in the era of the mindless sound bite and negative advertising, Netanyahu does not want to be recorded saying he is responsible). In any event, responsibility is different from culpability.

To be sure, there is a difference between parliamentary governments where snap elections can be called at any time and representative democracies like the United States where elections occur at fixed intervals. Yet, in principle, it should not matter. If an American president deemed himself (or others did) guilty of such malpractice that national security was endangered or the US was invaded, he could resign. That it hasn’t happened does not mean that it can’t or even shouldn’t happen. It does mean that the people are often able to ascertain who is and isn’t blameworthy in ways that confound the elites who consider themselves the intellectual superiors of the people. (Of course, Winston Churchill was driven from office just two months after winning World War II for the British people, so you never know.)

The point is that there is no natural way for a parliamentary government to fall which would necessitate new elections unless it disintegrated on its own, and the more unified a government, the less likely that is to happen. Netanyahu’s present government is cohesive although not rock-solid. There is a greater chance that some discontented Likud members would foment internal strife than that the Haredi parties would resign (say, over failure to pass a draft exemption bill) but anything is possible. The biggest variable will be the expected mass demonstrations in the streets by the same people who were demonstrating against Netanyahu before the war, and especially how the media will drive the narrative of a country in disarray, just like the media did before the war which greatly contributed to the timing of Hamas’ attack on Israel.

Personally, I cannot blame Netanyahu for Hamas’ invasion or the IDF’s initially tepid response because it is not known what he knew and when he knew it. His conduct of the war has been focused and determined, has inflicted massive harm on the enemy, and is poised to achieve the war aims, given enough time. He has been remarkably unwavering in resisting most aspects of American pressure, something that he has not always done. That being said, he should be held responsible for a series of mistakes both before and during the war. PM Netanyahu is responsible for the “quiet-for-quiet” policy which proved catastrophic to Israel’s security interests. He is responsible for providing food and fuel to our enemy and its hostile civilian population which has prolonged the war, after boasting immediately after the attack that not one drop of fuel or one morsel of food would enter Gaza until all the hostages are released. And if he caved to American pressure because of our need for the replenishment of armaments, then, yes, he too is responsible for not rescinding Ehud Barak’s egregious decision to stop manufacturing light arms and producing missiles in Israel, which would have rendered Israel more immune to American pressure.

The Prime Minister also steadfastly insisted on distinguishing between Hamas and the civilians of Gaza, playing to a Western narrative that is a convenient fiction. Every poll indicates widespread support for Hamas among the Arabs of the land of Israel. That too was a grave error in the conduct of this war. The Shalit deal, forced on the government by mobs of protesters and their media inciters, was a monumental mistake that has led to the current imbroglio. Undoubtedly, all these decisions seemed reasonable, or at least plausible, at the time they were made, and it is impossible to foresee the consequences of choosing differently. Yet, we must, because these decisions were devastating to Israel’s security.

The continued tap-dancing around Rafiach is another blunder, as it would be extremely unlikely that the remaining four Hamas battalions are just sitting there waiting for our attack, as it is unlikely that the hostages are still there as well. For all we know, one out of every fifty tents in the Rafiach encampment contains a hostage, incarcerated by the same Gaza “civilians” for whom we must be show such great deference. After six months, we have no idea where they are and who is alive. These are all functions of leadership and in that Netanyahu must be perceived as lacking.

The problem is that you can’t beat something with nothing – and who in Israel’s political and military leadership is not guilty of the same mistakes, the same flawed conceptions? Gantz and Gallant, Eisenkot and Saar (who also unleashed on Israel the legal dictatorship of Gali Baharav-Miara, who should have been dismissed years ago), Lapid and Lieberman – who hasn’t proffered the same policies over the last twenty years? Who hasn’t suggested surrendering more of our land to the enemy or indulged the two-state illusion? Deri and Goldknopf – both of whom aspire only to leadership of their small segment of the population but not the nation as a whole? Who else will lead? That is Netanyahu’s greatest strength, despite his failings, and that has contributed in no small measure to his extraordinary political longevity.

Indeed, the two politicians who have been consistently correct in their statecraft have been Smotrich and Ben Gvir, now anathematized to Americans and much of the Israeli public for their resolute commitment to eternal values. They are not always right, but the more right they are, the more their enemies hate them. It was FDR who pleaded: “I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.” They, and Netanyahu, could assert the same sentiment.

The great conservative William F. Buckley once declaimed: “I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the telephone directory than by the Harvard University faculty.” On a similar note, there are moments when I think that I would rather be governed by 120 guys chosen randomly from Golani, or Givati, or Maglan, or Egoz, than the current 120 members of the Knesset. They would represent a very fair cross-section of society, hail from diverse backgrounds and profess different world views – and yet have learned to work together, constructively, productively, efficiently, harmoniously, and successfully, achieving the noblest and most meaningful goals amid sundry challenges and obstacles.

The good news is that the leadership crisis – not only in Israel but across the globe – is part of the Torah’s narrative of the end of days, when we realize that we look in vain to human beings whom we elect for our salvation. Rather, we look to Heaven, and pray for the arrival of His chosen one, the Moshiach, who will usher in an era of endless peace, uphold it through righteousness and justice (Yeshayahu 9:6), who will possess the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Hashem (ibid 11:2).

Let us be worthy of that day and prepare for that era.