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| Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef (VIN) |
In a recent post where I questioned (not demanded – but questioned) whether Israel needs to prolong the war in Gaza – and explained why I asked that question, I received some pretty nasty and insulting comments from him. The gist of which can be summarized by how he concluded the first comment:
Some dude in Chicago saying, "OK, war's over" means nothing. And is frankly insulting and presumptuous.
This commentator is not alone in feeling this way. There are a lot of right wing voters in Israel that feel the same way. They believe Israel must fight to the finish until Hamas is so badly defeated that they can no longer restore their rule over Gaza after the war ends. That is the only way they define winning the war.
Even if I were to concede to that definition of wining, the question remains: at what cost?
That is not a simple question. Because the cost has many aspects to it. Starting with the welfare of the hostages and the soldiers that would be killed or injured in that goal. Does the future of Israel mean putting the hostages on the back burner - possibly even losing them, God forbid? . Prolonging the war surely increases the chances of that tragic consequence.
The next question is how can Israel be assured that Hamas (or some other equally vile and evil terrorist organization) will not survive and retake control of Gaza – restoring their numbers and their terrorist infrastructure? Is Israel to kill every single Palestinian in Gaza and the West Bank? Virtually all of them support Hamas and that is where Hamas recruits their terrorists.
Israel will never do that. It would be immoral. But that is the only way to assure the type of victory that will preclude a terrorist government dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Which will be replaced with a Muslim Caliphate called Palestine - after the war is over.
There is also the ‘little’ problem of Iran’s proxies surrounding Israel, One of which (Hezbollah) makes Hamas look like toy soldiers compared to what they are capable of. Not to mention Iran itself. Can Israel afford to fight a war on multiple fronts that will include Iran? The US will surely be dragged into the conflict if that happens. If anyone thinks they are seeing anti war protests now in the US... you ain't seen nothin yet!
In my admittedly uninformed opinion living miles away from the conflict, it seems to me that Israel is pursuing an elusive goal in what seems like an endless war. Can Israel afford the additional Jewish blood and treasure that prolonging the war will cost?
I don’t think these are unreasonable questions. Nor do I think that they can’t be reasonably answered. Or maybe they can. But that should not prevent me from asking them.
Some may ask, what is the alternative to fighting to the finish if by not doing so Hamas will be able to return to power? Does that not present an existential threat requiring Israel to pursue that goal? Maybe.
On the other hand what about the demands by protesters that Netanyahu make whatever deal it takes to release the hostages? Don't they matter?
The obvious retort constantly cited is the following: Look what happened last time that was tried? Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader that planned and ordered the October 7th massacre was one of the prisoners released in exchange for Gilad Shalit. Should Israel make the same mistake again?
Let me be clear. None of this is Shalit’s fault. I am happy he got out. The last person to be blamed for October 7th is Gilad Shalit. Nor should Israel’s decision to exchange Palestinian prisoners for him be blamed.
Today’s hostages deserve to be released as soon as possible. I do not always agree with Israel’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi, Yitzhak Yosef. Sometimes I disagree vehemently But on this subject, Rav Yosef reflects my view:
The outgoing Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, spoke during his class at the Yazdim synagogue in Jerusalem about his response to a rabbi who wrote a halachic treatise against the proposed deal to release hostages held in Gaza.
Rabbi Yosef began by speaking about the atrocities committed by the Hamas terrorist organization. “We have seen all these things, what terrible cruelty, how barbaric these Hamas people are, we saw how they kill, such terrible things. I didn’t just say that we should release as many as possible in order to get the hostages out.”
He described how the other rabbi came over to him and told him about the opinion he had written opposing a hostage deal. Rabbi Yosef said that he asked the rabbi if he had a son of 17-18 years of age. “If he was kidnapped in Gaza, would you also write like that? Think like it’s your son or your daughter, God forbid.”
“I was exposed to all these things, I saw with my own eyes what was happening there, all the horrors there, that’s why we said this is a matter of immediate life and death,” said Rabbi Yosef.
In July, Rabbi Yosef spoke in favor of an immediate deal to free the remaining hostages, stressing that “They should finish the deal already. There’s nothing else to do – release terrorists with blood on their hands, it breaks the heart, we released [Hamas leader] Yahya Sinwar and we saw what happened, but this is a matter of immediate life and death.”
“If you don’t release them, they will kill the hostages, this is a time-sensitive matter of life and death. It could be that these [terrorists] will later go out and kill, that’s not immediate, the hostages are immediate,” he said.
So who then is to blame for October 7th? Doesn’t October 7th and the release of Sinwar actually make the argument that there should be no deal with Hamas that releases Palestinian prisoners?
No it doesn’t. The fault for October 7th (aside from Hamas itself obviously) lies in Israel’s overconfidence in technology and the poor judgment of their military intelligence hierarchy that ignored the very people they put in place to detect situations like that - who warned them about it. It lies with an IDF hierarchy that did not have enough military personnel in that area to deflect that attack immediately. It lies with a prime minster who is responsible for all that happens under his watch. The buck stops with him. Had they all not all dropped the ball that day, that massacre would not have happened.