It seems to me that for 75 years, we've been operating around a “philosophy” which ponders: “How to survive the ongoing attacks from Muslim enemies while we build a thriving economy and live like any other successful Western country?”
Such a philosophy might have given us a decent standard of living until now and kept our enemies from overrunning us, but the cost – in terms of loss of life, disability, internal socio/political divisiveness, military insecurity and political/economic isolation from the rest of the world has been devastating. We Jews are great at uniting to fight an immediate attack, but we are lousy at agreeing upon a “national vision” for ourselves which will lead to true security, prosperity and peace.
I propose that a blueprint for a national vision does exist. It’s in the Torah, which was given by G-d. In previous posts, I suggested various elements of such a vision – but I’m not going to repeat them here. Instead I call upon Israel’s religious conservatives: leaders and influencers like Yishai Fleisher, Ben G’vir and yes, Bibi too. His experience is valuable even if his actions have not always been effective. A Torah-based vision for Israel’s security, economy and social issues must be studied and implemented in a way that sets firm national standards but does not trample on the freedom to do what we want in our own homes and other private spaces.
I’m afraid that without such a national vision, we are doomed to remain a vassal state of the US; fooling ourselves that we are doing okay. If the nations of the world ever decide to welcome us it will be as a truly independent country, doing what G-d wants us to do: be a light unto the Nations. Yes, even to our enemies.
There's philosophy and then there's dogma: a lot of the high tech border defenses, which led Israel to reduce the number of soldiers on the border, were breached by Hamas. For example, the surveillance cameras were disabled by accurate sniper fire before they breached the fence, blinding the system.
The dogma was in believing these defenses were adequate without making a concerted test, like setting up a test defense inside Israel and a competition among army units to try to breach it. In software "white hat" hackers constantly try to break through cyber defenses and use the lessons learned to improve them.
A much more rigorous approach to developing defenses is needed, one that will try every conceivable way of breaking them without regard for the self-esteem of the designers. Replace dogma with hard facts, lessons learned and constant improvement.
Philosophy should be based on realistic assumtions: it's in the nature of a scorpion to sting, so it will sting. Hamas is a totalitarian organisation, which means it lacks the capability of reflection - it is bound to repeat its mistakes again and again.
The terrorgroup succeeded however in creating a novelty.
Its use of their own subjects as a shield weaponized International Law against Israel.
Probably only temporarely: International Law seeks a balance between humanitarian rights and military purpose ; Hamas obviously cheated the scales of justice.
The debate you present hardly qualifies for philosophy. I suspect Netanyahu might want to retire after the war with Hizbollah is over. The politicians currently opposing him are a nest of vipers, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir excepted, but Smotrich's party barely passes the electoral threshold in the polls. Such are the crazy vagaries of Israeli politics and Jewish political behaviour since the Exodus. The Israeli public should take a good long hard look in the mirror. So should Jews.
Again, Israel is a sovereign nation that should never allow the "international community" to dictate how it fights. Israel cannot be "forced" into fighting with both hands behind its back unless Israel chooses to allow global opinion to dictate its behavior. The only thing that should influence the decisions of the state of Israel is what is best for its own people.
"After all, if you are Netanyahu, why enter into a foray with Hezbollah if the “international community” is going to force you to fight with two hands behind your back, precisely like they have done with the IDF in Gaza?"
October 7 gave Israel the legitimacy to go to war against hamas, but that hasn't stopped the international community from condemning it anyway. Likewise, having "international legitimacy" to take out hezbollah won't stop the "international community" from slamming Israel for bombing hezbollah targets inside Lebanon. Anyway, Israel should start acting like a sovereign nation. Sovereign nations don't look for international approval to act in their own self-interests which Israel will NEVER receive anyway.
I agree with you that no matter what Israel does will never be enough for the West, and when the US continued to scold Israel and dictate to Netanyahu how to fight the war, he placated them. Another miscalculation and here we are 9 months later. There is no international approval and it doesn't look like it's forthcoming, so Israel should proceed and do what it needs to do to keep the country safe for the people now and for the memory of those who worked so hard to build it.
Thank you. This video and audio video within it may be of interest? It could have been from this morning. Or any day in the last several decades. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkIxr4_8_8g
It seems to me that for 75 years, we've been operating around a “philosophy” which ponders: “How to survive the ongoing attacks from Muslim enemies while we build a thriving economy and live like any other successful Western country?”
Such a philosophy might have given us a decent standard of living until now and kept our enemies from overrunning us, but the cost – in terms of loss of life, disability, internal socio/political divisiveness, military insecurity and political/economic isolation from the rest of the world has been devastating. We Jews are great at uniting to fight an immediate attack, but we are lousy at agreeing upon a “national vision” for ourselves which will lead to true security, prosperity and peace.
I propose that a blueprint for a national vision does exist. It’s in the Torah, which was given by G-d. In previous posts, I suggested various elements of such a vision – but I’m not going to repeat them here. Instead I call upon Israel’s religious conservatives: leaders and influencers like Yishai Fleisher, Ben G’vir and yes, Bibi too. His experience is valuable even if his actions have not always been effective. A Torah-based vision for Israel’s security, economy and social issues must be studied and implemented in a way that sets firm national standards but does not trample on the freedom to do what we want in our own homes and other private spaces.
I’m afraid that without such a national vision, we are doomed to remain a vassal state of the US; fooling ourselves that we are doing okay. If the nations of the world ever decide to welcome us it will be as a truly independent country, doing what G-d wants us to do: be a light unto the Nations. Yes, even to our enemies.
There's philosophy and then there's dogma: a lot of the high tech border defenses, which led Israel to reduce the number of soldiers on the border, were breached by Hamas. For example, the surveillance cameras were disabled by accurate sniper fire before they breached the fence, blinding the system.
The dogma was in believing these defenses were adequate without making a concerted test, like setting up a test defense inside Israel and a competition among army units to try to breach it. In software "white hat" hackers constantly try to break through cyber defenses and use the lessons learned to improve them.
A much more rigorous approach to developing defenses is needed, one that will try every conceivable way of breaking them without regard for the self-esteem of the designers. Replace dogma with hard facts, lessons learned and constant improvement.
Philosophy should be based on realistic assumtions: it's in the nature of a scorpion to sting, so it will sting. Hamas is a totalitarian organisation, which means it lacks the capability of reflection - it is bound to repeat its mistakes again and again.
The terrorgroup succeeded however in creating a novelty.
Its use of their own subjects as a shield weaponized International Law against Israel.
Probably only temporarely: International Law seeks a balance between humanitarian rights and military purpose ; Hamas obviously cheated the scales of justice.
And arsonists tend to forfeit their rights.
The debate you present hardly qualifies for philosophy. I suspect Netanyahu might want to retire after the war with Hizbollah is over. The politicians currently opposing him are a nest of vipers, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir excepted, but Smotrich's party barely passes the electoral threshold in the polls. Such are the crazy vagaries of Israeli politics and Jewish political behaviour since the Exodus. The Israeli public should take a good long hard look in the mirror. So should Jews.
Again, Israel is a sovereign nation that should never allow the "international community" to dictate how it fights. Israel cannot be "forced" into fighting with both hands behind its back unless Israel chooses to allow global opinion to dictate its behavior. The only thing that should influence the decisions of the state of Israel is what is best for its own people.
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"After all, if you are Netanyahu, why enter into a foray with Hezbollah if the “international community” is going to force you to fight with two hands behind your back, precisely like they have done with the IDF in Gaza?"
October 7 gave Israel the legitimacy to go to war against hamas, but that hasn't stopped the international community from condemning it anyway. Likewise, having "international legitimacy" to take out hezbollah won't stop the "international community" from slamming Israel for bombing hezbollah targets inside Lebanon. Anyway, Israel should start acting like a sovereign nation. Sovereign nations don't look for international approval to act in their own self-interests which Israel will NEVER receive anyway.
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"Israel is now in a position whereby it has international legitimacy to conduct a preemptive campaign to degrade another Iranian octopus tentacle —"
I agree with you that no matter what Israel does will never be enough for the West, and when the US continued to scold Israel and dictate to Netanyahu how to fight the war, he placated them. Another miscalculation and here we are 9 months later. There is no international approval and it doesn't look like it's forthcoming, so Israel should proceed and do what it needs to do to keep the country safe for the people now and for the memory of those who worked so hard to build it.
Thank you. This video and audio video within it may be of interest? It could have been from this morning. Or any day in the last several decades. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkIxr4_8_8g