https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2025-05-07/ty-article-opinion/.premium/israels-crazed-minority-government-is-waging-a-duplicitous-war/00000196-ac1f-d9bf-a1b6-edbfe8650000?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_content=author-alert&utm_campaign=Uri+Misgav&utm_term=20250507-23:32Israel's Crazed Minority Government Is Waging a Duplicitous War
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Uri Misgav May 7, 2025
Like a bus whose driver has fallen asleep at the wheel, Israel is slowly but surely sliding to the bottom of the abyss. Led by a cruel government that knowingly decided to kill the hostages who have somehow managed to survive until now; to sacrifice more soldiers and commanders who will die in booby-trapped shafts, bomb sites, by sniper fire and operational accidents; killing hundreds and thousands more Gazans in wild air-raids and rolling walls of fire. All this as part of a "renewal of intensive fighting" and "defeating Hamas" – whitewashed titles for a reoccupation of Gaza and permanent Israeli presence there.
Only one segment in Israeli society is wholeheartedly for this madness, and it is the one currently dictating policy. Its representative in the cabinet and in the Ministry of Defense, Bezalel Smotrich, a politician who is barely scraping the electoral threshold, formulated the goal: "Within a few months, we can declare victory. Gaza will be in ruins, its inhabitants concentrated south of the Morag Route, from where they will take off in large numbers to third-party countries." In another statement, he stressed that newly occupied territories will not be vacated, not even in return for the release of hostages.
Renowned strategist Hanan Amiur elucidated "the coming trend" in the Makor Rishon newspaper, expanding the theater of operations: "In Gaza as in Lebanon and Syria: emptying the grounds from enemy subjects, aggressive maneuvering, occupation and indefinite possession." There you have it: extermination, expulsion, transfer and settlement. Including the creation of a "living space." This is where we are heading.
The Israeli military already realizes the truth. Low spirits prevailed this week at the Hostages Forum building at Bnei Brak, under the command of Maj. Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon. Reserve brigades struggled to slowly achieve at least 75 percent of the already reduced call-up goals, due to a reduction in unit personnel (a platoon going into Gaza numbered 30 soldiers at the beginning of the war; it now numbers 15).
Reserve soldiers who informed their commanders in advance that they would not show up for the current round have not been issued with any induction notices, in order to hide the crisis of confidence, motivation and the tremendous burnout among sane Israelis.
Conscript soldiers have less room for maneuver, which is why, ever since the cease-fire was breached, they are, for the most part, the ones who have been sent into Gaza. Among them are Golani and paratrooper soldiers still in basic training, sent to secure the Morag Route after spending just four months in uniform.
One mother of a female soldier wrote to me this week: "My daughter is serving as a combat soldier in the Artillery Corps. She is only just starting out. They have been informed that they were being sent down to Gaza. She turned to me and said: 'Our commanders, from the chief of staff to the company commander, have briefed us that our activity in Gaza will put hostages at risk, to the point of clear and present danger to life and limb. If I find out that hostages may have been killed or wounded by my gunfire, I will not be able to live with that knowledge."
Nobody is supposed to live with that. Not a young soldier nor a senior commander. Nor our glorious pilots, who one day strike terrorist targets at the Sanaa harbor, then destroy a hospital the next day because a Hamas financial official was hospitalized there, or bring down buildings on top of entire families without really knowing whether some hostages are in tunnels nearby.
Not every order should be met with a salute. Not every operation is worthy of showing up for. Not in the army of a democratic country, built on conscript soldiers and reservists.
Where are Amram Mitzna and Eli Geva, who said "Enough is enough" in the first Lebanon War? Where is David Ivry, who, as air force commander in that war, refused the order to level Tyre without being given concrete, justifiable targets? At this point, this is an explicitly duplicitous war by a crazed minority government. We must not sacrifice the hostages, the soldiers and our values in the name of "mutual responsibility." On the contrary.
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