Bibi Should Take The Deal
Israel Isn't Ready--Yet--to Fight All of Iran's Proxies
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to Washington on Wednesday with a familiar layout. Despite a somewhat frosty relationship with President Donald Trump, his base of support remains conservative-leaning Jews. Republicans are his natural base of support, especially among evangelical Christians. During the Republican National Convention, American hostage families spoke, and the crowd chanted, “Bring Them Home,” a sign that I saw repeatedly throughout my recent week-long trip to Israel.
Conversely, Bibi is not exactly President Joe Biden’s favorite ally. Bibi is persona non grata with large swaths of the progressive Left. Further, he’s not exactly the favorite of the vast majority of American Jews, who still tilt overwhelmingly to the Democratic Party. However, many American Jews have awoken to an unpleasant fact: anti-Semitism is alive and well throughout America and all of the world. France’s senior Rabbi told French Jews to leave the country.
Heading into this week’s visit, Bibi likely felt confident that Trump would win. Thus, he could stall President Biden, Bibi’s favorite tactic, to gain even more leverage for a preferred ceasefire deal. While Bibi’s war cabinet defections thrust politics back into the forefront in Israel, he remains somewhat popular in his governing coalition.
That’s not because Bibi is well-liked. It’s because he’s nearly decimated Hamas. As I predicted a few months ago, the IDF is methodically dismantling the Hamas terror army. Last week, the IDF killed one Hamas battalion commander and likely killed Muhammad Deif, Hamas’ Military Commander and architect of 7 October. Analysts I spoke with at the Alman Research and Education Center in northern Israel felt confident about the progress on the Gaza battlefield. I heard the same sentiment in conversations with retired IDF general officers and commandos alike: we’re destroying them.
These battlefield successes have improved Bibi’s position against Hamas. For the first time, I feel there is a window of opportunity for a temporary cease-fire agreement. And Bibi should take it. In conversations with Israeli therapists and academics, I heard another story from a country that is reeling from trauma. After nearly ten months of fighting, Israel is exhausted. I heard from scholars and practitioners alike that the Ministry of Defense is simply not prepared to deal with cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, moral injury, and the other horrors of war. In short, Israeli society is not ready to support a multi-year war–at least not yet.
That’s because the Israeli Army is mighty but small. With only 165,000 active personnel, the IDF relies on its 465,000 reserve forces during the war. When everybody serves, then all of society is affected. This is something that Americans do not understand. They’re used to having less than 1% of the population fight their wars for them. That’s why America can withstand “forever wars” - nobody has any skin in the game.
That’s not true for Israel. Everyone has skin in the game. On my drive from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, I saw the Israelis marching on the interstate, chanting for Bibi to “Bring Them Home.” When I toured the Nova Musical Festival site, I heard the wails from young Jewish mothers grieving over the death of their daughters. I saw fathers mourning the deaths of their sons. And I saw new IDF recruits touring the killing fields, too. New recruits also visit Yad Vashem, Israel’s extraordinary holocaust museum. October 7th is now rival to the Shoah. That should underscore the meaning of 7 October for the Jewish people. It is part of their story.
Bibi’s people could use a breather. A tired army needs to rest before the next round. The IDF has not been designed to fight for years, giving Biden an opportunity.
Now that Biden no longer has to worry about re-election, he can focus on obtaining a temporary ceasefire agreement. Biden will need to demonstrate that he can push Hezbollah beyond the Litani River so that Israelis can return to their homes in northern Israel. Should he do that, which is a herculean feat, then Bibi should move forward with a temporary ceasefire. It would give both clear victories: a deal would boost Biden’s legacy and strengthen Bibi for future political battles.
That doesn’t mean that the war with Hamas will come to an end. Bibi’s recent battlefield successes have earned him that wiggle room, but bringing all the hostages home, giving your military a rest, and preparing for the next round with Hezbollah would be a prudent move.
Bibi and Biden have a chance to work something out. But Bibi, a master politician, may punt again if he thinks Trump will give him more. That’s also part of the equation. Who knows what Trump has in store for him when he visits this Thursday? But Bibi should tread lightly less he destroy any vestige of support among the Democratic Party. There are not many John Fetterman’s inside the new Democratic Party. More importantly, he should study how President Trump deals with his supposed allies. I suggest he read the Doha Agreement and ask some Afghans what they think of Trump’s administration promises.
Instead, Bibi should take the deal, shore up his support inside the Democratic base, and prepare for the next round of fighting with Hezbollah. The IDF might win a fight with Hezbollah this year, but at what price?
I’m someone way too ignorant on the issue at hand so I’ll offer my point in effort for educational discussion… but my observation is that Israel isn’t at war with Palestinians but rather they are at war with Iran through multiple proxies on multiple fronts. At some point Israel has to pivot their “main effort” from Gaza to another front. Where that line of advance exists in time, space, and geopolitical conditions I believe are up to the Israelis, but this opportunity to achieve the cease fire in Gaza with the sitting American President without a political path to a second term might be that appropriate “line of advance.” I believe they have some negotiating momentum now that they might not in the future.
I was a fan of Bibi until recent years. I dismissed his well-known moral failings in the belief that he was Israel's Churchill. I am a fan no longer. Not because he's killing too many Palestinians--those deaths are on Hamas--but because he's killing a lot of Palestinians with no satisfactory end game in sight. To have killed 40-50,000 Palestinians without eliminating Hamas will be a terrible failure, but it looks like that is what he's going to end up accomplishing. Bibi's second major failure is making support for Israel a partisan issue in the U.S. Third, he seems to be doing what Trump is seeking to do, avoid prison by being in political power. What good he's capable of doing, I think, he has already done. There's not much upside for Israel if he remains in office. All the upside is for him.