Life in Israel is an emotional roller coaster. Not long ago I wrote that, aside from the hostages and their immediate families, we should feel not joy but relief at their liberation, and be mindful of the price paid in the lives of our soldiers who pressured Hamas to this point, as well as the lives of our soldiers lost capturing the terrorists who are now being freed. Our emotions range from relief to rage. Nevertheless, those enraged at the sight of coffins of Jewish victims now being returned alongside the jubilation seen in the Arab world at the release of their murderers should internalize that this is what “at any price” look like. What did we expect? This is their plan.

As if to add to our degradation, Hamas is so unbowed and undeterred that it has resumed blowing up our buses. Of course, only fools would release thousands of Arab Nazi genocidal terrorists from prison and not expect a resumption of terror. How did we lose our way? How did defeat take the place of victory – and so suddenly?

Abba Eban famously said that Arabs “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” That is no longer true. Arabs exploit every opportunity they get – to weaken us, terrorize us, murder us, and demoralize us. They know how to manipulate our society, they know that we will pay any price to liberate the hostages, and they know that this winning strategy can and will be repeatedly employed in the future to achieve whatever aims they want. We have rendered ourselves incapable of victory. For all the blather about learning from and not repeating the mistakes of the past, that is precisely what Netanyahu seems to be doing.

Do you know who “never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity”? We Israelis, who time and again, especially recently, have been given opportunities to deal decisive blows to our enemies, and do not.

Hamas was on the brink of destruction and we saved them. In truth, the war was lost when Israel began providing humanitarian aid to our enemies and adopted the fiction that Gazans are innocent civilians, not an integral part of the Hamas terror network. The war was lost when we began (again) the lopsided terrorist for hostages deals in November 2023, validating that strategy. The war was lost when Hamas was so on the verge of extinction in January 2023 that it was willing to barter hostages for cans of oil until Netanyahu succumbed to more Biden pressure and provided fuel in exchange for literally nothing. The war was lost when Netanyahu first rejected the notion of freedom for our hostages “at any price,” and then began paying that price.

With Donald Trump’s return to office, new opportunities present themselves that we are again disregarding. Trump recently said that “all the hostages must be released or else,” but Netanyahu, listening to the voices calling for hostage deals, failed to capitalize on that free hand, preferring the release of a few hostages here, some coffins there, and a plethora of freed terrorists. Trump is giving Netanyahu carte blanche to eradicate Iran’s nuclear program, which has been met so far with our silence and inaction. At this point it is more likely that Iran will develop a nuclear weapon than that Israel will demolish its capability (I do hope I am wrong).

The problem seems deeper than the recurrent accusations that Netanyahu talks tough and rarely acts. For sure, he is the finest communicator we have ever had as prime minister, and no Israeli politician has ever been unfairly vilified to the extent that he has. It is something else entirely.

All the evidence to date suggests that PM Netanyahu perceives himself (perhaps unconsciously) as a “conflict manager,” not as a “conflict solver.” He seems to recoil from solutions, preferring to nibble at the margins of a conflict rather than ending or resolving it.

Recall that Netanyahu was first elected in 1996 running against the implementation of the disastrous Oslo Accords. Yet, as soon as he was elected, he did not renounce this catastrophic agreement but implemented it, albeit more slowly, but implementing it nonetheless, even withdrawing from the holy city of Hevron. He boasted that “if they give, they get; if they don’t give, they don’t get,” but what they were “giving” was ephemeral and what they were “getting” endangered our lives. Instead of ending Oslo, he tried to manage it, and was voted out of office. Similarly, his vacillations on the calamitous Gaza expulsion – he was for it before he was against it – are part of the same pattern – management, not resolution.

Fast forward to Netanyahu’s tenure of almost 15 years and we see, unfortunately, not much has changed. The PM has been warning about Iran for decades but Iran is closer than ever to nuclear capability. His threats have been eloquent and ominous but nothing much has changed. To be sure, there have been attacks around the margins – delaying the program through the untimely deaths of Iranian nuclear scientists and detonation of some of its facilities – but these resolved nothing, The Mossad operation in 2018 that pilfered Iran’s nuclear archives was extraordinary, but long-term, accomplished what, exactly? Trump in his first term then withdrew from the Iran deal (which he had promised to do anyway) but Biden returned to it, so what was the long-term effect? Proving to the world that Iran has a nuclear program? Everyone knew that already but most nations don’t care. That is management, not resolution.

The Shalit deal was an example of conflict management, not resolution, emboldening the enemy that terror pays. The various Gaza skirmishes throughout the Netanyahu tenure – the “mowing the lawn” operations – are examples of conflict management, not resolution. Netanyahu seems to lack a killer instinct, never goes for the jugular, never strikes a deathblow against our enemies. That he is mocked today in Gaza, not feared, should be worrisome for all of us.

Hezbollah was near destruction, and most of south Lebanon was under Israeli control, until Netanyahu again decided to abandon territory won in a defensive war and again allow Hezbollah to rearm, rebuild, and return. The beeper caper was stupendous, but not a game changer. We let Hezbollah survive. It will bide its time. We will absorb its attacks without fully responding because that is what we do. That is management, not resolution.

Hamas was near destruction, and most of Gaza under Israeli control, until again Netanyahu decided to resuscitate them, and withdraw from territory saturated with Jewish blood, all to fight another day. That is management, not resolution. Our soldiers are killed, and nothing changes.

Most recently, President Trump proposed that Gazans be relocated to a place where they can live in peace (that is conflict resolution, not management), and what has been our response? To laud the proposal as bold – and then send caravans and building materials to Gaza. Why would caravans and housing materials be sent to Gaza if resolution entails resettlement? It is because we have a leader who manages conflicts but cannot end them, who repeatedly caves under pressure (Clinton, Obama, Biden, and to a lesser extent, Trump), and never accepts any responsibility for failure.

Hamas is solely to blame for kidnapping and murdering our hostages – but we should not need to be reminded of the pathological evil of our enemies. We need to know what our leaders are doing about it. The answer seems to be, again, declaring victory and pulling out, surrendering and calling it a “strategic retreat,” and kicking the can down the road. On October 7, we ran out of road, and still, spin and more spin, the old and failed ways have returned, we grieve and the enemy rejoices, nothing changes, and we are again promised that “just wait, victory is around the corner.”

Count me a skeptic. If Hamas’ goals were to murder Jews and free their terrorists from our prisons, it has already won. And it is truly inexplicable why Israel has not yet enacted the death penalty for terrorists; at the very least, it would preclude the wild scenes of euphoria among the “innocent” Arab civilians who dwell in the land of Israel.

For better or worse, Trump is a conflict solver, not a manager. His Gaza logic – “why would you keep doing the same thing over and over, when it does not work?” – is impeccable, but such logic has always evaded our leaders. Rightly or wrongly, he has tired of Zelensky who has no realistic vision of an end to his conflict, and probably justifiably so, and he will soon tire of Netanyahu as well and his indecisiveness, his irresoluteness, and his failure of leadership and vision. Trump is a problem solver and if he determines that a problem cannot be solved he will walk away. He is almost daring Netanyahu to act, boldly, without inhibitions, against Iran, Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen. Yet, as if preternaturally, Netanyahu cannot or will not act. There is always some enigmatic reason for him to remain passive and let the problems fester.

A conflict manager allows unfettered illegal Arab construction in Jerusalem – in Israel’s own capital city – as well as in Area C of Judea and Samaria. A conflict manager allows foreign consulates in Jerusalem to host events in praise of terror and view themselves as embassies and ambassadors in Palestine. No self-respecting country would indulge such effrontery. A conflict manager talks of judicial reform and does little about it. A conflict manager wins elections not by presenting resolutions but by depicting every opponent as far worse, people who will “divide Jerusalem!” or “establish a Palestinian state!” or “expel settlers from their homes!” A conflict manager talks and talks and talks about annexing the Jordan Valley, or annexing Judea and Samaria, but does nothing about it.

A leader with vision would accept the Trump proposal for Gaza with a smothering, enthusiastic embrace. Such a leader would not be furnishing homes and allowing the Gaza ruins to be rebuilt but would maintain it as a demolition site to encourage emigration and as an eternal deterrence to our enemies. He would settle Jews in areas conquered from our enemy. He would actively work to implement the Trump plan for Gaza and then apply it to any Arab in Judea and Samaria from the river to the sea who rejects Jewish sovereignty.

If past is prologue, today’s pain and rage will dissipate, we will bind our wounds, find joy in our personal lives, and revert to supporting our political teams even if that demands a suspension of reason and a continuation of the failed policies of many decades. Our glib leaders will persist in exclaiming that “together we will win!” even if they are bereft of any plan for victory. The irony is that our most rabid enemies today are the enemies of most of the Arab countries in the Middle East, and so decisively defeating these enemies – ending that part of the conflict – will promote peace generally. And yet we do not.

Is failed leadership our inescapable reality before the coming of Messiah? Perhaps, but we need not make it more difficult on ourselves by acting irrationally and repeating awful mistakes. But for G-d’s grace, we would be utterly lost, and we thus pray for His compassionate hand that consoles us in our time of distress. May He send our leaders with strength, and integrity, leaders who rise to the challenges of this fateful moment in the history of our eternal people.

Photo credit: Terrorism by Nick Youngson, with CC BY-SA 3.0 license on Picpedia