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As the war against Hamas in Gaza drags into its second year and international hostility toward the Jewish state continues to intensify, Israel must face an unavoidable truth: For decades, it has voluntarily limited its existential war against Palestinian attempts to wipe it out by self-imposed moral constraints. These constraints—designed to win favor with the global community and maintain a sense of ethical superiority—have not yielded strategic dividends. Instead, they have led to painful losses, squandered leverage and emboldened its enemies.
Israel must adopt a new strategic doctrine—one grounded in realism and not performance, in deterrence and not self-congratulation.
For decades, Israel has operated under a self-imposed doctrine of restraint. It has aimed to be “more moral” than its enemies—avoiding civilian casualties at the cost of its soldiers, releasing mass murderers in lopsided prisoner swaps, refraining from annexing land even when militarily victorious and granting privileges to terrorists in prison. The goal: to prove its ethical superiority to a world that never asked it to.
This military doctrine is entirely self-generated because Israelis want to prove that “we are not like them.” Being liked might have a necessary strategy to Jewish survival when it depended on non-Jewish largesse, but it is a bad strategy for an independent, self-respecting and increasingly self-reliant state.
Being morally superior has not brought peace. It has not earned goodwill. It has not prevented charges of war crimes. Instead, it has made Israel look weak, hesitant and unsure of its own legitimacy. Hatred of Israel has only increased.
Even worse, this moral posturing has not only been outward-facing. It has become a psychological affliction within Israel itself. Among many Israelis, there is a pervasive self-image of moral superiority—a compulsive need to believe that Israel occupies the high ground. This internal virtue-signaling, while comforting to the Israeli soul, is dangerously corrosive to national security.
Would any Israeli parent willingly sacrifice their child in order to spare a Palestinian civilian? The answer is self-evident. And yet, doing so is part of Israel’s military doctrine when soldiers are sent to clear buildings that could be better cleared by bombs or when terrorists are not hit because of the possibility of collateral “civilian” damage. War is not about moral symbolism; it is about victory.
Israel’s goal should not be to be seen as “good guys.” It should be seen as too expensive and painful to attack.
Killing terrorists is necessary, but it is not sufficient. The strategic elimination of enemy combatants has rarely deterred the next generation from taking up arms. In fact, martyrdom has often fueled the ranks of jihadist movements.
What does work? Humiliation and permanent loss.
Terrorists must be made to understand that their actions will not only fail but also result in personal disgrace and irreversible consequences for their communities.
Public humiliation upon capture and denial of burial rights designed to open the gates of heaven might do more to shatter recruitment than a thousand targeted strikes.
There must also be consequences for the communities that support terrorism. Attacks against Israeli civilians should result in the loss of territory. Not temporary checkpoints. Not administrative detentions. Permanent annexation. If a terrorist kills an Israeli, his entire village should be evacuated and absorbed into Israel. The residents must be expelled—not as a punishment but as a declaration of the principle that those who harbor terror lose land.
This approach is long overdue in Gaza. For years, Israelis have heard the threat, “One rocket from Gaza, and we’ll take it back.” But that threat was never enforced. Instead, Gaza became an autonomous Palestinian terror state, armed to the teeth with Iranian rockets, tunneling under Israeli homes and indoctrinating genocidal incitement in its youth. Israel has had the military capability to retake and resettle Gaza for years. It has simply not wanted to be “occupiers.”
That must change. Israel must reclaim Gaza—militarily, administratively and demographically. The idea that Israel owes water, electricity and food to an entity that seeks its destruction is both absurd and suicidal. Israel must annex what was once Jewish land and make clear that this territory will never again be used as a launchpad for terror. When you attack Israel, you lose land. Simple.
The same logic applies in Judea and Samaria. Areas A and B must be placed under strict construction oversight. Area C must be secured for Jewish development. All foreign-funded Arab construction projects designed to create facts on the ground should be halted. NGOs, including Jewish ones, that function as hostile actors mapping Jewish homes, lobbying international bodies and spreading libels must be shut down. These are not civil society groups; they are battlefield agents of the enemy.
Bien pensant Israelis will gag on this. Thousands of Israelis regularly demonstrate against the moral costs of “occupation” without admitting that the alternative is the destruction of Israel. These people are preening and performing for approval. They must grow up.
International backlash is also inevitable. But the backlash is already here. The International Criminal Court is already preparing arrest warrants for Israeli leaders. European countries and Canada, along with the United Nations, are already moving toward unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. Western universities are already filled with chants of intifada. Israeli restraint has not worked.
Israel must get tough, not out of cruelty, but out of clarity. Not to match the barbarism of its enemies, but to defeat it.
The wars against Palestinian exterminationism and for public opinion will not be won with press conferences, interfaith dialogue and hasbara. They will be won when the enemies of Israel believe that the cost of attacking the Jewish state is too high to bear.
It is long past time for Israel to stop playing by the rules of the Marquis of Queensbury when its enemies are playing by those of the Marquis de Sade.
Joshua Katzen is the publisher of Jewish News Syndicate. The views expressed are his own and not of the organization.
