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How Can Israel Hold a Real Discussion on Values Promoted by National Security?
Thousands of Jews gather for a mass prayer for the hostages in Gaza at the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, Jan. 10, 2024. Photo: Yaacov Cohen
Protecting a country from threats, or, in the case of Israel, ensuring its survival, is the organic and self-evident essence of national security. It is clear, for example, that the existence of the State of Israel in the Middle East for years to come depends on its ability to eradicate Hamas after the October 7 massacre.
But national security is also a way to promote the values of a state — especially in Israel, which bases its existence on the two values of being both Jewish and democratic. The values that national security promotes are determined by the elected political echelon and are expressed in guidelines (the “directive”) given to the security echelon.
These values, about which there is now much public debate, extend the remit of national security beyond protection from threats. Three cases of such public discussion arising from the Iron Swords War are the struggle over how to return the hostages from Gaza, the movement pushing for the re-establishment of settlements in the Gaza Strip, and the call to take advantage of the eradication of Hamas to advance Israel’s relations in the region and promote peace through the establishment of a Palestinian state.
This is essentially a debate over three values: Israel’s commitment to human life, the importance of a Jewish presence in the entire Biblical land of Israel, and the promotion of peace. These discussions are wrapped in seemingly security-related arguments: “The return of the hostages is a national security need because it confirms Israel’s political commitment to the personal security of its citizens”; “Only settlements in Gaza will ensure the presence of the IDF in a way that promotes Israel’s security”; and “the establishment of a Palestinian state is the key to ensuring Israel’s security over time.”
In practice, these statements express the beliefs of those who hold them, not a deep and professional national security analysis. Therefore, they are not of much use to national decision-makers as to what values to promote within the framework of national security. They express an empty and pointless debate that wraps fundamental beliefs in a non-systemic security argument and are therefore not relevant to the government’s decisions.
So how should we discuss the values national security should promote?
We need to separate the discussion into three levels:
Why? It is critical to clearly identify the value that is being promoted and determine how high it is in the hierarchy of values that the State of Israel, in the eyes of the believer, must promote. For example, belief in the supremacy of the value of human life over all other considerations reflects belief in the assertion that the hostages must be released at any cost. Belief in the connection between the people of Israel and the complete biblical Land of Israel reflects belief in the need to settle all parts of the Land of Israel. The desire to maintain a quiet, comfortable, advanced and Western life and to reduce the bloodshed reflects belief in the pursuit of peace through the establishment of a Palestinian state. It is difficult to hold debates on this level because it is in the domain of belief, not realistic decisions.
What? The various ways these beliefs can be promoted must be defined. For example, the supremacy of the value of human life in the context of the hostages can be expressed in a deal, in bold actions for their release within the framework of the “Entebbe doctrine,” or in avoiding deals that surrender to terrorism in the current round in order to eliminate the logic of the other side holding hostages in the next ones. The belief in a Jewish presence in the entire biblical Land of Israel can be expressed in the establishment of settlements, but also in the military possession of territory, the establishment of “Garinei Nahal” (small settlements populated by soldiers), forestry and agriculture, or the establishment of nature reserves. The pursuit of a peaceful life and the reduction of bloodshed can manifest in the pursuit of regional peace agreements, the establishment of a Palestinian state, a separation and seclusion policy, or the development of economic-civil relations. At this level, a substantive debate on the different alternatives can begin.
How? The practical methods of implementation of the different alternatives must be defined. For instance, a deep commitment to human life can be promoted in a combined form of local swap agreements and military operations. Control over land can be divided between areas where there is a distinct advantage to civilian settlements and areas where it is more logical to establish control in other ways. The pursuit of a peaceful life and the reduction of bloodshed, which requires partners on the other side, can be promoted through various lines of cooperation with them.
The segmentation of belief into the three levels of Why, What, and How is only the first step. The more essential need is to examine the broad considerations and decide if to promote these values in the first place. In this framework, several principles should be maintained:
Analysis of tensions and similarities among variables: The differences between the values, the various ways of realizing them, and the defensive requirements of national security must all be analyzed. To move forward toward a decision, these concepts must be mapped and prioritized. For example, some of the possible components of a hostage deal are in inherent tension with the need for national security to eradicate Hamas and prevent it as much as possible from restoring its military, political and civil power and status. The establishment of settlements in the Gaza Strip stands in tension with a realistic assessment of the severe international opposition there would inevitably be to such a move. The promotion of peace agreements with the Palestinians stands in tension with Israel’s operational need to protect against terrorist threats. But good decisions cannot be made based on partial statements. In order to enable good decisions to be made, these tensions and the connections between them must be mapped.
A realistic assessment of the situation: These tensions and connections must be presented in a way that corresponds with a professional and realistic assessment of the strategic and practical situation. Statements like “We can thwart the senior terrorists we release after the deal is completed”; “The world will accept our view on the establishment of settlements in Gaza if we are determined enough”; or “The Palestinians will lose their desire for terrorism as a result of the dynamics of peace” express not a realistic assessment of the situation but the wishful thinking of the believers. They do not promote real discussion but instead constitute second and third lines of defense to help believers deal with the tensions between their desires and reality.
To make brave decisions and stick to them: Adapting a value and manifesting its expression in national security efforts is an inherent part of national conduct in every country and in Israel even more so. If, after a complex and deep discussion, the What and How of a value are identified and viable efforts are found to protect it, it is logical to accept the decision and stick to its implementation. A vague approach of “both this and that” may be convenient for the postponing of difficult decisions but causes lasting damage to national security. One can decide to resort to ambiguity on certain issues, but that decision must represent a conscious choice, not the avoidance of one.
Promoting values within the framework of national security, if done responsibly, will always create a mixture of policies. There are few cases where the right and realistic choice is to “go all the way.” Even in the case of issues that appear to be clear-cut, not “everything” is done. The State of Israel made a realistic choice not to do “everything” to capture, try, or execute the Nazi criminals, even though it had every moral justification to do so. Decisions on issues of value such as the release of the hostages, the establishment of settlements or the promotion of peace will always be a mixture of elements the decision-makers aim to achieve and elements they do not.
Know how to analyze when the reality has changed and an update is required: A dynamic strategic environment requires renewed examinations of the What and the How along the way. The state may have decided not to make certain moves in a certain situation, but a change in the circumstances might put those moves back on the table. For example, the eradication of Hamas leadership in Gaza and perhaps outside it as well could allow Israel to be more generous in negotiations on the release of the hostages; a change of administration in the US could allow a new discussion on the characteristics of the settlements; and the establishment of a new leadership in the Palestinian Authority after Abu Mazen could change the situation regarding the peace process. Discussions on the way fundamental values are realized within the framework of national security are, therefore, dynamic.
Flexibility and deniability: One of the greatest strategic problems facing the State of Israel is the fact that nearly everything is immediately broadcast openly by the media. Decision-makers must have maximum flexibility to make and implement their decisions. Unnecessary discussions in the media that bare every decision to the public damage deniability, which is an essential tool of national security. Most countries in the world – admittedly in democracies it is more difficult – use deniability to advance their national security. It cannot be that only the State of Israel is to be denied this tool because of the needs of media organizations, journalists and commentators. In the promotion of national values there must always be an element of deniability: tacit consent and turning a blind eye.
Knowing when to stop and change course: Some values will remain unrealizable. The decision makers will continue to hold them but will not be able to implement them. This is a healthy part of the democratic and strategic conduct of a country. Many Israelis, including decision-makers, wanted, for moral and historical reasons, to intervene in Syria a decade ago to stop the regime’s massacre of innocent civilians, including at distances close to the Israeli border. A realistic situational assessment of the meaning of such an intervention and the aid and rescue moves it would have entailed stopped Israel from going down that path except to provide local aid, mainly civilian and medical, for residents of the Golan Heights.
A substantive discussion about which values should be realized within the framework of national security during this war is important for the existence of the state. Rather than becoming a pointless series of skirmishes over beliefs, this discussion must be carried out in a professional and serious manner in accordance with the principles outlined above.
Col. (res.) Shai Shabtai is a senior researcher at the BESA Center and an expert in national security, strategic planning, and strategic communication. He is a strategist in the field of cyber security and a consultant to leading companies in Israel.
A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
The post How Can Israel Hold a Real Discussion on Values Promoted by National Security? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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The Dreaded Moment Is Finally Here
A drone view shows Palestinians and terrorists gathering around Red Cross vehicles on the day Hamas hands over the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas, and her two children Kfir and Ariel Bibas, seized during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack, as part of a ceasefire and hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
JNS.org – The moment we had all been dreading came to pass on Feb. 20, as four coffins draped with Israeli flags traveled from the Gaza Strip to Israel in a convoy led by the Israel Defense Forces. Two of the caskets were markedly smaller, in a heartbreaking confirmation that Ariel and Kfir Bibas, the two little boys abducted to Gaza with their mother, Shiri Bibas, during the Hamas-led pogrom on Oct. 7, 2013, did not survive their ordeal.
As I was writing these words, I received a video from my youngest son, who is studying in Israel, of two rainbows etched high in the sky above Tel Aviv’s Florentin district. As I choked back tears, I wanted to believe that this spectacle—God’s tribute to these two complete innocents—was a sign of hope for the rest of us.
But then I remembered that once again, Jews are on the defensive even as we grieve for these children, whose smiling faces became emblematic of the plight of the Israeli and foreign hostages seized on that terrible day. For it is impossible to grieve peacefully without remembering the sight of posters bearing the photos of Ariel and Kfir, as well as Shiri and their father, Yarden Bibas, being violently ripped from walls and lampposts by the antisemitic Hamas cheerleaders who have poisoned our lives. It is impossible to grieve peacefully without recalling the cruel barbs about the “weaponization” of the hostages issued by insidious pundits like Mehdi Hasan, the British-born Islamist antisemite who, shockingly and inexplicably, was granted US citizenship in 2020.
Most of all, it is impossible to grieve peacefully with the memory of the grotesque ceremony staged by Hamas before the coffins carrying the four bodies set off still fresh in our minds. Jaunty Arabic music blared through loudspeakers, and children posed with the guns carried by Hamas terrorists as their parents grinned and leered for the cameras.
Many hours later, an even more shocking development was reported. Ariel and Kfir were not killed in an airstrike, as falsely claimed by Hamas, but were brutally murdered in November 2023, as was the fourth hostage, 84-year-old Oded Lifshitz, according to the autopsies on the bodies undertaken in Israel. Forensic analysis also revealed that Hamas lied about Shiri being returned since the body in the coffin was not hers. The agony persists, and we continue to cry out, “Where is Shiri Bibas?”
The giant screen at the ceremony mocked Shiri and her children even in death—their images dwarfed by a vile, crude caricature of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a vampire, his fangs dripping with blood. Don’t be fooled by the apologists who will tell you that this representation of Netanyahu is merely trenchant criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza—a war that only erupted because of the monstrous atrocities of Oct. 7. It is better understood as a symbol of the sickness enveloping Palestinian society, which regards Jews as subhuman, and which liberally borrows from 2,000 years of anti-Jewish iconography to make that point.
The depiction of Netanyahu as a vampire is no accident, just as images of him dressed in a Nazi uniform are no accident. The Palestinians and their admirers are expert at selecting images that recycle the worst canards about Jews: that they have eagerly adopted the methods and ideology of their worst persecutors and that their collective goal is to suck out the lifeblood of non-Jews without mercy—to the point of sacrificing their own people should that turn out to be necessary, with the Bibas family on display as Exhibit “A.”
The association of Jews with blood dates back at least to the Roman era, spawning anti-Jewish “Blood Libel” riots from Norwich in England (one of the earliest examples) to Damascus in Syria (one of the more recent.) It has been embraced by both Christian and Islamic theologians, as well as by the more secular antisemites who asserted their hatred of Jews in the language of science rather than religion. In the literature and journals of the 19th and 20th centuries, the fictitious figure of the vampire emerged with unmistakable Jewish associations.
“It’s impossible to have this discussion without bringing up the blood libel, the unsubstantiated claim that Jews murdered gentile children to use their blood in rituals,” wrote Isabella Reish in a recent essay on the 1922 film Nosferatu. “Thus, European vampires of old are intrinsically linked to Jewishness.” In my view, that linkage is as true of Hamas now as it is of a Berlin salon in the dark years that ushered in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.
We cannot live with this hatred, which has seeped from the Palestinians into the wider world, especially among Muslim communities in North America, Europe and Australia—nor should we be expected to. Combating it effectively means that we must be honest about the sources of the problem.
The main source is the Palestinians themselves. All the current discussions about the reconstruction of Gaza and the possible relocation of its civilian population miss the bigger issue. If Palestinians are to live successful, productive lives, then their society must be thoroughly deradicalized, foremost by challenging the antisemitic hatred that has consumed them. The United States, in particular, must prioritize the complete transformation of the Palestinian school system, installing and supervising a curriculum that will educate Palestinian children about Jewish history and religion, about the abiding, uninterrupted Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, and about the cynical manner their own plight has been exploited by Arab leaders happy to project internal unrest onto an external, “colonialist” enemy.
The second source is harder to pin down and cannot be dealt with in a school environment. I’m talking about the fans of the Scottish soccer club Glasgow Celtic, who waved banners urging “Show Zionism the Red Card” at a match in, of all places, the German city of Munich; about the Muslim and far-left vigilantes who last week descended on one of America’s most Jewish neighborhood, Borough Park in Brooklyn, N.Y., where they were gratifyingly confronted by local resistance; about the cowardly arsonists burning down synagogues and Jewish day-care centers in Canada and Australia. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies need to do more than just respond to each outrage. What’s required is a comprehensive global strategy aimed at rooting out these organizations, their communications networks and their propaganda outlets. No measures, including deportation and loss of naturalized citizenship, should be off the table, and no country—looking at you two, Qatar and Iran—should escape scrutiny for fueling these fires.
For decades, our elected leaders have cynically used Holocaust commemoration and education as evidence of their commitment to fighting post-Hitler antisemitism. That hasn’t worked very well, and as the black-and-white images of the Holocaust fade into history’s depths, replaced by decontextualized social-media video bursts of Gazans fleeing Israeli bombing, it’ll work even less so. If the soul-crushing pictures of the coffins bearing the Bibas children don’t result in a fundamental strategic pivot, then perhaps nothing will.
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Is Religion Rational?
Moses Breaking the Tables of the Law (1659), by Rembrandt. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
JNS.org – When it comes to religion, how much is belief, and how much is rational? Is Judaism a rational religion? Does being religious require a leap of faith?
Perhaps other faiths do. I mean, I respect everyone’s right to choose the religion they subscribe to and want to practice, but some religions do require extraordinary leaps of faith from their followers.
Judaism, on the other hand, is based not on any incredulous leaps of faith, but on the shared firsthand experience of an entire nation.
With other faiths, the starting point is a supposed revelation reported to have been experienced by the founder of that faith. You either believe it or you don’t believe it. Your choice.
But Judaism was founded at Mount Sinai where millions of Israelites, fresh out of Egypt, experienced the Revelation at Sinai. Each and every Israelite, personally, heard the Ten Commandments from the voice of God, not Moses! And it wasn’t virtual, it was personal. They were all there, and it was an in-body experience.
That’s not faith. That is fact. Not only Moses and his disciples but the entire nation of men, women and children—a few million in all—were eyewitnesses to that revelation. And this was handed down by father to son, mother to daughter, throughout the generations wherever Jews lived. European Jews and Yemenite Jews have the very same tradition, the very same Torah. Yes, there are differences in custom and variations on a theme, but the basic traditions are identical.
How? Because they all came from the very same source—Almighty God at Mount Sinai!
This week, we read Mishpatim, a Torah portion that deals with civil and social laws that are very logical. Everyone understands and accepts that society needs a code of law and justice to be able to function.
So, if your ox gores your friend’s ox, you will be liable for damages. If you’re making a barbecue and your negligence causes the fire to spread to your neighbor’s property and it burns down his house, you will be liable. And if you’re going on vacation and deposit your pet poodle at the Lords & Ladies Poodle Parlor for safe keeping and when you come back, they tell you they lost your poodle, then they will be responsible for paying you for your poodle. And so on.
But even the logical mitzvot have much more to them than meets the eye. There are layers and layers of depth, meaning, symbolism and profound spirituality behind every single mitzvah, rational or not.
There are only a handful of chukim, statutory decrees that we were not given an explanation of and for which we must take on faith, like kashrut or shatnez, the law of not mixing wool and linen garments together.
But the truth is that every mitzvah needs faith.
Why? Because without faith, we do something only humans are capable of. Do you know what that is? Rationalization.
Everyone understands that you’re not supposed to steal. And yet, studies have shown that no less than 59% of hotel guests steal from their hotel rooms. Now, I don’t think the hotel really minds if you take the shampoo. I imagine if you asked them, they would say it’s fine.
But no hotel will let you take the towels or the robes. And no hotel will let you take the TV. I was shocked to read that some guests even took home a mattress! (Apparently, in the middle of the night, they snuck it into the elevator, went down to the basement garage and stuffed it into the trunk of their car.)
If you ask these people, they will likely give you all kinds of reasons why their actions are justified. The hotel overcharged me. It calculates shrinkage into their price, so I actually paid for it. If I wear the hotel’s towel on the beach, I am advertising for them, so they should pay me.
This is classic rationalization.
So we do need faith after all, even for logical commandments like not stealing. Otherwise, we fail. Badly.
Interestingly, the very same Torah reading of Mishpatim, with its logical, civil laws also has the famous phrase, Na’aseh V’Nishma. These were the words of the Jewish people when asked if they would accept God’s Torah. They replied Na’aseh, “we will do” and only thereafter Nishmah, “we will listen” and understand. It is the core of simple, pure, absolute faith, beyond any logic or understanding.
And this explains why the Ten Commandments, which we read last week, begin with Anochi, “I am God,” the lofty, abstract mitzvah to believe in God. To have faith.
And then the other commandments go on to tell us the most basic laws that every low life knows he should keep. Not to murder, commit adultery, steal, lie or be jealous.
How did we get from the highest, metaphysical commandment of belief to the grossest of the gross in a few short sentences?
Because without faith, a human being is capable of justifying anything.
The accursed Nazis justified the Holocaust. REAL genocide, not make-believe South African genocide. How did they justify it? By saying Jews are scum, sub-human. We are doing the world a service by eliminating them. The world will be a better place for it. Rationalization.
Without the first commandment of faith in God, there can be no adherence to any of the other commandments.
Logic gets you pretty far but not far enough. As logical as Judaism may be, we still need the foundation of faith to do what we must do and avoid that which is tempting but wrong.
May we all embrace Judaism with knowledge and reason and by understanding its philosophy, without losing that pure and simple faith that every one of us possesses.
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Israeli Security Control of Gaza Is an Existential Necessity
Orthodox Jewish men stand near a tank, ahead of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, as seen from the Israeli side of the border with Gaza, Jan. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
JNS.org – Thursday was a national day of mourning, as the bodies of hostage Shiri Bibas’s children Ariel and Kfir, along with that of Oded Lipshitz, returned to Israel. Hamas also handed over a fourth coffin, falsely saying it held Shiri Bibas‘s remains, but it was subsequently determined that it contained the corpse of an unidentified non-Israeli woman.
Their dire fate, along with that of some 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, stand as an unbearable reminder of the consequences of allowing a genocidal, jihadist army to entrench itself on Israel’s border.
The sorrow that grips all Israelis, reinforced by months of war, adds up to a clear national imperative: Israel can never again allow Gaza to be a staging ground for an Iranian-backed terrorist army. Once Israel has exhausted all efforts to secure the release of its hostages, Hamas must be eliminated from the face of the Earth as a terror army. No one on Israel’s borders can be allowed to build an ability to send death squads and invasion brigades over the border in an organized manner.
Ensuring Israeli security control over Gaza is the only way to achieve this. This work cannot be outsourced to anyone; the idea that a foreign force or paid mercenaries would have the ability to deal with Hamas is absurd. Israeli security control of Gaza is not just a military necessity to prevent future Hamas barbarity, it is an existential imperative.
The ongoing professional inquiries by the IDF into the events of Oct. 7 aim to provide answers to the public, the bereaved families and affected communities about the multiple system failures of that darkest of days.
But these investigations are not just about accountability—they are about learning from history in real time. As one IDF official put it this week, Israel must “carry out the lessons learned during the war, not afterward, and prepare for future conflicts.”
The scope of the IDF’s inquiries is broad, covering four main areas: Israel’s long-term strategy regarding Gaza, intelligence failures leading up to the war, the decision-making process between Oct. 6 and 7, and the first 72 hours of defensive operations.
But even before their conclusions are published, likely in the coming days, it is possible to draw some key conclusions.
Not deterred, not a rational actor, not seeking prosperity
Before the attack, every day that Israel did not act to prevent Hamas from building its capabilities, and every day that Israel gave up on the idea of achieving security control over Gaza, was an opportunity for Hamas to develop further its murderous plans and prepare for the massacre.
The Western-oriented idea that Israel could afford to refrain from continuous security operations in Gaza, and that the IDF could stay back behind the border, was fueled by deluded concepts of Hamas being deterred, that it was a rational actor, and that it sought economic prosperity.
These delusions stem from a catastrophic inability to grasp the jihadist mindset of a fundamentalist Islamic death cult, and from the tendency that was rampant in the defense establishment and the political echelon before Oct. 7 to project Western thinking onto our enemies. This allowed Hamas the space and the time to prepare its attack. Those who wish to indefinitely delay Israeli operations to prevent Hamas from rebuilding these capabilities have returned to the pre-Oct. 7 misconceptions. The “day after” is today.
During the Oct. 7 attacks, Hamas behaved like an army intent on genocide. It seized land, executing civilians in the most brutal manner imaginable, and taking hostages to act as insurance policies for the survival of its leadership. It was only able to do these things because it controlled its own territory, giving it the ability to develop an arms industry, smuggle in weapons and develop its intentions with minimal interference.
Meanwhile, the chief of the IDF General Staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, who is due to step down on March 6, has spent recent days in the United States discussing strategic and operational issues with top American military officials.
Halevi visited the Pentagon to meet with Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with staff officers, and with Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, the commander of CENTCOM (responsible for the Middle East), to discuss Lebanon and Iran, and ways to strengthen U.S.-Israeli cooperation.
But Gaza trumped the other arenas. Halevi expedited his return to Israel due to the agreement to return the bodies of the hostages.
No international diplomacy or security guarantees can obviate the necessity of full Israeli freedom of operation in Gaza for the foreseeable future. Failure to recognize this would invite, once again, catastrophe, and Israel cannot afford to repeat its mistakes.
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