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Reconstruction of Gaza Is the Way to Regain Initiative in War on Hamas

An UNRWA aid truck at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Photo: Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

Israel’s wars, according to Israel’s traditional defense strategy, are aimed at thwarting and removing military threats, not at politically shaping the region. Hence our familiar focus on the military dimension. But the goal of the war in Gaza is more ambitious: the destruction of the Hamas regime.

Accordingly, its realization depends on additional dimensions. A slow reconstruction of parts of Gaza based on military achievements can regain the initiative, transfer the pressure back to Hamas, and serve as a lever for a hostage deal. This is also a one-time opportunity for Israel to physically shape the ruined Strip according to its interests. Once we finally get out of the strategic corner we’ve fallen into, we would be wise to return to the more modest Israeli approach to war. We will focus on the effective removal of threats and leave the business of political engineering to the powers.

A total war of attrition

Since the War of Independence, the State of Israel has not known such a long and comprehensive war as the current war in Gaza. The 1970-1971 War of Attrition lasted about a year and a half, but it did not have the scope of forces or continuity of the current war. The First Lebanon War officially lasted only three months.

Elsewhere, I have called the current war Israel’s first total war. I don’t mean “total war” in the sense with which the phrase is applied to the two world wars of the 20th century. Those wars were total in terms of general mobilization, the use of all means of war, including unconventional weapons, and the intentional targeting of civilian populations. The situation in Gaza is the opposite.

It is difficult to recall any other war in which one side fought while making sure to deliver supplies and humanitarian assistance to the enemy population. By the term “total war” I mean to highlight the contrast between this war and its goals from the limited war approach that has always characterized the State of Israel.

Contrary to our original defense strategy, in this war we set as a goal not only the destruction of the Hamas army, but also the destruction of the Hamas regime.

The historical precedents are misleading. In the First Lebanon War (1982), we expelled the PLO from Lebanon and tried to stabilize Maronite rule. The PLO, as we know, was a foreign entity in Lebanon, hated by most Lebanese. The Maronites were a strong local faction and the historical rulers of Lebanon.

The Sinai operation (1956) was indeed intended to damage and overthrow the Nasser regime, but the State of Israel was only a junior partner in the Anglo-French scheme.

Both these affairs are far from the ambition of the current war, which is to remove a neighboring regime that has a strong grip on Gaza. Both those wars are also remembered as total failures.

The historical failures highlight the logic of Israel’s modest approach to wars. Our strategy recognized Israel’s power limitations. No matter how victorious it is on the battlefield, Israel cannot forcefully influence the hatred and hostile intentions on the other side, much less engineer its politics. The core concept of this strategy — decisive defeat on the battlefield — was always reserved for the military dimension alone. Eliminating the immediate military threat was intended to restore security and allow Israel to avoid a prolonged war of attrition that would inevitably serve the other side.

That is exactly what Hamas was aiming for when it invaded Israel on October 7. Sinwar’s strategy was to drag Israel into an attritional war that would eventually exhaust the IDF in general and the reserve forces in particular, empty the munitions stockpile, and turn the international community against Israel.

Rehab program

The goals of the current war, therefore, must by necessity extend beyond Israel’s comfort zone and the healthy understanding that characterized us in the past. Under the circumstances of October 2023, there was no better alternative.

In the article “Sustainable Strategy,” I analyzed the process in which we deviated from the correct basic assumptions of Israeli strategy. Wrong assumptions, primarily the assumption that the State of Israel had become a regional power, maneuvered us into corner where we remain stuck today. I further argued that the flawed theory according to which we can influence the intentions of the enemies in order to “deter them” without paying attention to their combat capabilities is what allowed the building up of the terrorist armies that delivered the blow of October. We now cling to the opposite error.

Much has been written about the Israeli refusal to deal with the “day after” issue. In the absence of a civilian alternative, Hamas has not only returned to control and restored its power in the neighborhoods from which the IDF withdraws, but it does not even feel threatened. There is, therefore, no time constraint from Hamas’s point of view, even in the context of a hostage deal.

If “total victory” means a complete and lasting removal of Hamas, it should only be understood as a long-term strategy that includes not only the military defeat of Hamas and the collapse of its government but also the stabilization and pacification of the Strip. Israel will be required to take care of the stabilization of the Strip through civil, security, and economic control mechanisms.

Clear strategic thinking, not politicization of the war, is required. The analogy of the Second World War, which was used to establish the idea of ​​”absolute victory,” indicates what is required here. De-radicalization of Germany and Japan was possible not only thanks to their unconditional surrender but also to some civil-economic measures that were taken.

In an attempt to correct the mistake of three decades of appeasement and deterrence strategy, Israel is now making the opposite mistake. We set a clear political war goal — removing the rule of Hamas — but continue to refuse to carry out any non-military war planning.

In principle, I do not believe a war for regime change is the right idea for the State of Israel. But in a practical sense, we have attached ourselves to that aim by allowing the build-up of terrorist armies on our borders. This war should be considered a painful but one-time weaning process. If we have committed to this, it is necessary to see the constraint as an opportunity as well.

Resume initiative by dictating the terms of restoration

The truth must be told. The war is stuck.

The pressure on all fronts — a hostage deal, international hostility, the economy, the northern front, the internal front, even the combat stockpiles — is all on Israel. The military raids returning to the Strip and the operation that started in Rafah, as important as they are, will not restore Israel’s strategic initiative. It is also absolutely clear from Hamas’ demands in the negotiations that the war has moved to the stage where the parties are competing for the future political order in Gaza.

The rehabilitation of Gaza should be transformed from a Hamas demand in the negotiations, which the State of Israel is presented as refusing, to a strategic lever that will return the initiative to Israel and the pressure to Hamas.

Meanwhile, the desired end state for Israel must be discussed again. The current strategic vision according to which the Gaza Strip will become a “lawn mowing” space is correct but not satisfactory. Although it is too early and too painful at the moment, we must seize the crisis in Gaza as an opportunity for a redesign of the Palestinian arena.

Instead of repeatedly occupying the same neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip, Israel should take advantage of the reoccupation to create safe spaces for rehabilitation. These spaces can be secured by IDF activity around them and managed by an Arab-American-Palestinian coalition. All the actors mentioned desire such an initiative and are ready for it. Initiating this move would allow Israel to influence the way secured neighborhoods are restored, such as through the registration of citizens; prevention of the entry of Hamas operatives; kicking out Hamas-supporting UNRWA people; introducing alternative education and welfare systems, including an extensive de-radicalization program; and more. Humanitarian and economic support mechanisms can make these supervised rehabilitation areas attractive. The threat to Hamas rule would intensify as the areas of rehabilitation are stabilized and expanded.

As the reconstruction expands to more neighborhoods, Israel will also be able to participate in the urban re-planning of the Gaza Strip. Roads and transportation, employment centers, and other infrastructures will be rebuilt with Israeli interests in mind, like an open buffer zone and other security needs. As the economic planning of the Strip expands, Israel will be able to better build its financial oversight mechanisms, which have been neglected under the fault strategy. Replacing the terror-finance-based economy with a productive one for the people of Gaza should also contribute to de-radicalization.

Focusing and concentrating efforts on specific neighborhoods for rehabilitation will increase the chances of success and build the capacity for gradual expansion. Successful reconstruction areas will not only undermine Hamas’s self-confidence. It is possible that local prosperity, conditional on systematic de-radicalization, could also influence the West Bank as a pressure lever on the corrupt and terror-supporting Palestinian regime there.

Take politics out of the equation

The issue of “the day after” is stuck on the political level. The right wing in the coalition refuses to discuss it since its vision is not Palestinian self-government but settlement of the Strip. But the Israeli strategy should not relate to the political vision. As long as no one assumes the two million residents of the Gaza Strip will disappear, the discussion about restoring their lives stands on its own. Since the Six Day War, the State of Israel has preferred civilian control mechanisms that are as independent as possible for the Palestinian population. Even before the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, mayors were local and civil mechanisms functioned. The great 2002 anti-terror offensive in the West Bank was only possible because the IDF made sure the PA’s civil mechanism would continue to function. Today, the stabilization of the Gaza Strip as a safe and functioning civilian space is a condition for any political vision, settlement or disengagement, which includes the safe return of Israeli citizens to the Western Negev region.

The percolation of the concept of “decisive defeat” from the military level into the political culture has created a devastating paralysis. This paralysis played a role in the crisis that brought us to war and continues to play a destructive role.

It was absurd to think for years that we had the power to change the intentions of our enemies without overwhelming their military power. We are paying for this deterrence-based strategy today. It is essential that we do not now adhere to the mirror image of this error — a strategy of political defeat while stubbornly focusing on military means alone.

The rehabilitation of Gaza, as painful as the phrase may be to Israeli ears after the October attack, can and should be Israel’s ultimate weapon against Hamas. It is customary in wartime that the first stage of the campaign is intended to prepare the conditions for the next. In the current war, the ground maneuver did not cleanse the Gaza underground or eradicate the Hamas regime, but it created and can continue to create the conditions for the next stage. That stage should be dedicated to the stabilization and slow rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip.

Step by step, the IDF will secure limited locations and the reconstruction coalition will create a more attractive alternative in those areas. Time will turn against Hamas, the pressure will shift to it, and Israel will stop being seen as conducting a vengeful war and will start serving its own long-term interests. Above all, a quick hostage deal will return to the status of an existential interest of Hamas.

Brig. Gen. (res.) Eran Ortal recently retired from military service as commander of the Dado Center for Multidisciplinary Military Thinking. He is a well-known military thinker both in Israel and abroad. His works have been published in The Military Review, War on the Rocks, Small Wars Journal at the Hoover Institution, at Stanford, and elsewhere. His book The Battle Before the War (MOD 2022, in Hebrew) dealt with the IDF’s need to change, innovate and renew a decisive war approach. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.

The post Reconstruction of Gaza Is the Way to Regain Initiative in War on Hamas first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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I Graduated UCLA in May; But My Fight for Israel On and Off Campus Has Just Begun

Law enforcement officers clear out a pro-Hamas protest encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Los Angeles, California, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/David Swanson

It has been six months since I graduated from UCLA, and my life looks a lot different now than it did as a Bruin.

The shift from being a student — a title that brought me immense pride and purpose — to navigating the uncertainty of a post-grad life has been both freeing and disorienting. This period of uncertainty, paired with the endless opportunities it presents, looms over me daily as I navigate the “figuring-it-out” chapter of my young twenties.

Yet amid the consistent changes and challenges of this transition, I’ve noticed glimpses of an unfamiliar sense of calm. At first, I couldn’t identify its source — it wasn’t as though life after graduation had suddenly become easier. But on the anniversary of October 7 — a day meant solely for grief, honor, and respect — the feeling made sense.

UCLA administrators continue not to enforce the changes they said they’ve made — such as time, place, and manner policies or a Four-Point Plan for a “safer and stronger” community — to conduct on campus, thereby allowing disruptive anti-Israel protests to continue.

However, reading about the Students for Justice in Palestine protest in the news felt starkly different than experiencing it on campus. For the first time in a year, there was a degree of separation between my heartbreak over what my community continues to endure, and the false narratives and blatant antisemitism perpetuated on college campuses.

The chants of “365 days of genocide” and “Israel is a terrorist state” felt no less painful this year, but I wasn’t forced to face them in person.

This distance did not make the commemoration of October 7 any less excruciating, nor does it make the image of 100 hostages continuing to be tortured underground any less vivid. It does not lessen the frustration of watching a preparatory emergency exit video at my temple during the High Holidays, or the anger that political leaders continue to advocate for ceasefires and two-state solutions while Hamas militants are embedded within UNRWA’s school systems.

But not having to worry about being blocked from the library or hearing “From the River to the Sea” echo across campus minutes before taking a final exam has made every day since graduation feel a little bit lighter. I’ve also noticed something else — or, more accurately, the absence of something. What happened to the flurry of social media posts my peers once shared about the campus protests and the ongoing war?

Unfortunately, their silence isn’t due to newfound understanding or engagement with Jewish perspectives; it’s because they no longer feel the pressure of social capital or the need to perform activism for an audience. Since they are no longer students and therefore the issue no longer directly affects them, they no longer need to utilize social media as a way to gain validation in the echo chamber of university life. While it’s been a relief to no longer see these posts, the fact that such harmful narratives were so casually spread and normalized remains deeply troubling.

Just because I am no longer facing anti-Jewish behavior on campus head-on — or seeing my peers’ constant posts — doesn’t indicate in the slightest that the fight is over. For Jews around the world, “Never Forget” means that we must always remember our people’s darkest moments on their darkest days. Our right to defend ourselves is a matter of life and death, not a symbolic gesture to project morality.

The tradition of Hanukkah shows us that it is indeed possible to remain hopeful and resilient, especially when it seems impossible. As the story goes, there was only enough oil to keep the Temple’s menorah burning for one day, but the flame miraculously stayed alight for eight. It is imperative to keep the memory of that miracle alive not only as an ode to our history, but also as a reminder that miracles can happen when we remain committed to being unapologetically Jewish.

Hanukkah means “dedication.” Judah the Maccabee’s fight against the Greek occupation of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem allowed for its rededication, ensuring that Jewish faith and culture would endure. Though I am no longer a college student, I am committed to rededicating my passion for Jewish advocacy.

Whether through writing, my pursuit of a legal education, or engaging with my community, I will continue to use my voice to challenge antisemitism and ensure that the flame of our history and hope burns brighter than ever.

Emily Samuels is a recent graduate of UCLA.

The post I Graduated UCLA in May; But My Fight for Israel On and Off Campus Has Just Begun first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Social Studies 2024: Phobe Maltz Bovy’s year in nine big vibe-shifts

What happened in the past 12 months? Rather a lot! So to pare it down, I’m limiting this end-of-year recap to things that kept popping up on my own finite radar, with an emphasis on those with relevance to Jewish Canadians. I will not ask whether I missed anything; assume that I have missed—or skipped over—a ton. These are just a handful of the stories about our society I see as relevant going into 2025 and beyond.

Campus protest culture camps out

The encampment trend that took hold at Columbia University and wound up all over the place—including at numerous Canadian schools—became the big story of 2024 for Jewish media and points beyond, the bold, in-your-face sign that the next generation of cultural elites had made Palestine their cause. Or a sign of something else? Not all the student protesters were students; some were professors, others unaffiliated. And the students not on board with the goings-on were very possibly more likely to demonstrate this by going to class than by organizing a counter-demonstration, although the Jewish professor at least temporarily banned by Columbia showed up at the University of Toronto.

Literary world is purging ‘Zionists’

First, a small magazine called Guernica had a meltdown when an Israeli writer, Joanna Chen, wrote an arguably pro-Palestinian essay, but did so while being, you know, Israeli. Chen had refused to serve in the IDF, but she was still too Zionistic for the pages in question. Next up, author Joshua Leifer tried to do a book event for his Tablets Shattered, but a Brooklyn bookstore employee cancelled it just as it was about to start.

Why was this critical-of-Israel book a problem? The interlocutor was going to be a liberal Zionist and one can’t be having that. The books-and-essays world, once a place where Jewish authors once felt reasonably comfortable in North America, now had spreadsheets identifying authors based on indicators of their relationship to Israel.

Searching for signals of antizionism

Look, Diaspora Jews have gone off Israel! No, wait, they’re all-in on Israel, and that’s why they’re buying guns and going to vote for Donald Trump! But then we learned that Jewish Canadians—like our American counterparts—arevirtually unanimous in the belief that Israel should exist as a Jewish state.

(And in similarly shouldn’t-be-surprising news, American Jewish voters overwhelmingly preferred Kamala Harris.)

Tradwives are totally taking over

The concept went from a niche online subculture to mainstream news and just incessant critical coverage. Tradwife this, tradwife that, all to the bafflement of actual traditionalist brides, Jewish and otherwise, if they were even online enough to notice, that is. A tradwife, for the uninitiated, is a social media influencer who posts content wherein she performs being a gender-role-conforming old-school housewife. She’s in something low-cut and she serves her man, but to own the libs, not (allegedly) to titillate straight men of any which politics.

Challah baking has become political

Some baked it to connect with fellow Jews througn established community channels, while others took, shall we say, a different tack.

Yes, 2024 was the year Chatelaine, a Canadian general-interest women’s magazine, published, then quasi-unpublished, an article about baking challah to free Palestine. In an awkward twist, the personal essayist wore an inverted red triangle in the accompanying author photo. This—combined with the content of the essay in question, an essay that didn’t merely criticize Israel’s response to Oct. 7 (which, fair) but erase the fact that Oct. 7 even happened—suggested that maybe it was one of those red triangles. One gesturing at, perhaps, a spot of friendliness towards Hamas.

War of the sexes (cont’d.)

The latest discourse began with the revelation that young men world over are veering to the right, young women to the left. Had women all gone off men? No. But a bunch gestured at plans to do so once Trump won a second go at the U.S. presidency.

And as someone who recently finished writing a book about straight women (to be published by Signal, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada), I have been kept plenty busy.

Reviving the concept of ‘shiksa’

Yes, the Netflix series Nobody Wants This offered a heartwarming rom-com treatment of the extremely adorable scenario of a Jewish man finally being spared the ghastliness that is Jewish women when a bubbly blonde comes his way. Can an ambiguously-Reform rabbi date a woman played by Kirsten Bell? In 2024, anything was possible.

The new death of wokeness

Left-wing illiberalism of the sort that brought us cancel culture is officially passé according to enough big thinkers out there.

Wokeness ain’t actually over yet

There’s also enough evidence to suggest ‘woke’ didn’t go anywhere, but rather transformed and migrated. The transformed bit goes like this: In lieu of a series of current things—individual social-justice concerns that were suddenly the only thing that mattered, only to be displaced by a different one five minutes later—there’s now the omnicause. You can plaster your backpack or coffee shop window or social media bio with a potentially endless set of concerns, as long as they all align, omnicausally speaking.

The migrated one: In a sense, there may have been some geographic migration. Maybe you can’t be cancel-cultured in the States as much as was once the case, but in Canada there are still good old-fashioned campaigns to shut down literary magazines for purity-politics reasons. But when I speak of migration, I mean primarily virtual. Twitter begat X, which in turn begat Bluesky. In layman’s terms, a social media platform that had once been the preferred gathering space of journalists, academics, and sui generis social-media pundits ceased serving that function once Elon Musk took over in October 2022, not all at once but in stages. X, what Twitter is now called, because nigh unusable, a pay-to-play scheme wherein right-wing rage-bait rules the day.

So a bunch of old-Twitter’s so-called power users (dubious honour) migrated, no, fled to a Twitter clone called Bluesky. I wrote a less than rave review of it in the Globe and Mail, which caused the Good folks who love love love Bluesky to anoint me main character. I was even parodied by Canada’s persistent cousin to The Onion with the assumption that the readership understood who they were referring to.

Shortly thereafter, everyone mad at me forgot about this, as actually prominent people arrived on Bluesky and became the source of fury that made what I elicited look like small potatoes (or perhaps I mean smol beans).

The CJN’s opinion editor Phoebe Maltz Bovy can be reached at pbovy@thecjn.ca, not to mention @phoebebovy on Bluesky, and @bovymaltz on X. She is also on The CJN’s weekly podcast Bonjour Chai. For more opinions about Jewish culture wars, subscribe to the free Bonjour Chai newsletter on Substack.

The post Social Studies 2024: Phobe Maltz Bovy’s year in nine big vibe-shifts appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.

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Letter from Jasper: This hanukkiah miraculously survived Alberta’s summer wildfire

Warren Waxer has lived in Jasper, Alta., since 1980. His home, along with 358 others, was destroyed in the wildfire that roared through the town from July 22-24, 2024. Very little survived the intense flames—even his car keys were found melted in the rubble, he told The CJN. But as professional crews scoured the razed house, he writes, they uncovered one treasured object.

Three weeks after the wildfire that swept through Jasper National Park and the townsite, Team Rubicon arrived and got to work. Team Rubicon is a humanitarian group, led by military veterans, that helps clean up after disasters. Wearing hazmat suits and breathing masks, this group safely sifts through the ash and debris—the remains of people’s homes and businesses.

Other than the charred hulks of the furnace, fridge and stove, we couldn’t see much that could be salvaged, and we weren’t far wrong. When you see a couple of shiny metal parallel stripes on the grass where your aluminum ladder once was, you can’t be too hopeful.

The Jasper wildfire of July 2024 destroyed everything in its path, including Warren Waxer’s home.

Each item or partial item that the team recovered would be scrubbed of possible contaminants and was then presented us, the homeowners. We were handed a 35mm camera with the glass lens dripping out the front, shattered bits of marble sculpture, singed bits of pottery, and… wait, what’s that?

Our Hanukkah menorah!

A little worse for wear, listing backwards, missing a couple of nights and the shamash holder, but there it was, proud and defiant. From a fire that destroyed anything made of soft metal, somehow, this menorah lived to celebrate another Hanukkah. 

It had been a bad month realizing that treasured memorabilia and family keepsakes were most likely gone. Looking at the basement that was now filled knee-deep with ash and the charred remains of a two-storey house, it was hard to be optimistic. The fact that the menorah survived has boosted our spirits considerably. It has also boosted the status of this menorah from perfectly serviceable (albeit unremarkable) to treasured family heirloom. Not bad for a small-town menorah.

The menorah that survived the wildfire in Jasper, Alta. (Credit: Warren Waxer)

The post Letter from Jasper: This hanukkiah miraculously survived Alberta’s summer wildfire appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.

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