By Yochai Guiski
In his article ‘Some Democracies Can Withdraw. Israel is Not One of Them,’ Benjamin Anthony, Co-Founder & CEO of the MirYam Institute, offers a scathing indictment of the Gaza disengagement and the subsequent inconclusive use of force in that arena, which he also sees as degrading the social fabric of Israeli society.
I would like to respectfully offer a different approach:
1. The disengagement from Gaza has indeed proven to be a failure. It has created a hotbed of terror and misery, while the international community still places the blame on Israel for its perceived control and security measures. But hindsight is always 20/20. If we are to harshly judge the leaders who decided on the disengagement, we should also see the threats and the benefits they saw coming.
2. “Mowing the lawn” is meant to describe continuous and high tempo operational activity which seeks to put constant pressure on the enemy and deny it the ability to regenerate and establish new terror cells or other threats. The issue with Gaza is that the IDF did not “mow the lawn” effectively following the withdrawal and ceased almost completely after “Operation Cast Lead” (2009). It moved to a model of deterrence that is similar to the one used against Lebanese Hezbollah. Had we continued to pressure Hamas at every corner, our current situation might have been significantly better.
3. The criticism should be leveled at the right target. It is not the IDF that decides how it should be employed; it is Israel’s elected officials. Blaming the IDF for not being utilized properly seems unfair.
4. Israel’s social contract does seem unfair: In the south, people are subjected to attacks at the whim of terrorists, while other parts of Israel are not. However, this has been the reality for Israelis since the days of the British Mandate – border communities were always at the forefront, be it from Palestinian terrorism from Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, and Lebanon, until the 1980s (including rocket fire, artillery, infiltration, IEDs), to be replaced with attacks from Lebanon by Shia groups, and Palestinian terrorism all over Israel during the 1990s and 2000s. Each time it was a different Israeli group that bore the brunt of the attacks.
5. It is not surprising therefore that Israel’s defense doctrine from Ben-Gurion to Jabotinsky has emphasized the need to accept the fact that our enemies would not relent. It dictates that we are always to be vigilant and defeat them in a cycle that will end only when they accept Israel and learn to live with it peacefully.
6. It is a Sisyphean task, and currently Gaza is at the epicenter. However, to this day, we have not cracked under the pressure; we endured, we persevered, and we prospered, while our enemies remain in squalor, backwardness, and poverty.
We are stronger than we seem, and we have the endurance to outlast our enemies. But in order to last for generations and centuries to come, we need to have the leadership and foresight to make tough, necessary, and prudent decisions.
The withdrawal from Gaza was not one our best moments, and possibly neither was the policy that followed, but this must not stop us from having the courage to make tough and sometimes risky decisions. Let us hope, pray, and vote for leaders who can make those decisions, and then follow through and make them work.
LT. Col. Yochai Guiski is a 23 year veteran of the IDF. He retired in 2020 as a Lieutenant Colonel after serving in the Israeli Military Intelligence. Yochai served in various roles including: Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (C.O.G.A.T.), Strategic Planning Division and the Ministry of Defense (politico-military directorate). Read full bio here.