Don't Let Fake Ceasefires Replace Fake Peace

In 1956, the Nahal Oz Kibbutz security officer Roi Rothberg was ambushed and murdered by infiltrators from Gaza. His funeral was attended by Moshe Dayan. The general’s words at the funeral read especially chilling after October 7.

“Beyond the furrow of the border, a sea of hatred and desire for revenge is swelling, awaiting the day when serenity will dull our path, for the day when we will heed the ambassadors of malevolent hypocrisy who call upon us to lay down our arms...

Let us not be deterred from seeing the loathing that is inflaming and filling the lives of the hundreds of thousands of Arabs who live around us. Let us not avert our eyes lest our arms weaken. This is the fate of our generation. This is our life’s choice—to be prepared and armed, strong and determined, lest the sword be stricken from our fist and our lives cut down. The young Roi who left Tel Aviv to build his home at the gates of Gaza to be a wall for us was blinded by the light in his heart and he did not see the flash of the sword. The yearning for peace deafened his ears and he did not hear the voice of murder waiting in ambush.”

Many Israelis who were deafened by the “yearning for peace” have regained their hearing since October 7. However, ironically, even as I wrote these lines, a group of deaf-mute Israelis were rescued from Nablus after going there for dinner after an invitation by a deaf-mute Palestinian. No one was hurt, yet it’s hard not to wonder “WTF?”

It is an amazing thing.

Right-wing Israelis attack the people of the Kibbutzim for employing Palestinians from Gaza and giving them access to Israel. They are not wrong. However, as I drive through Judea and Samaria I see that all the shopfronts in the Arab villages are in Hebrew. This does not come from the Arabs’ love of Zion and commitment to multiculturalism but from their love of money.

These Israelis, many of whom are “settlers” are more than happy to shop in Arab villages and hire Arabs for menial labor while badmouthing the people who did the same thing in the Gaza envelope. The only difference is that the people of the Kibbutzim did it to virtue signal. The people who shop in Judea and Samaria are just cheap bastards.

Do they not understand that every shekel they spend in an Arab village goes towards killing Israelis? Even if the guy who just cleaned their car is the nicest guy in the world, maybe his cousin or nephew are with the “resistance?” Maybe his family is peaceful but once in a blue moon, some guys from the “resistance” come over and say, “would you like to make a donation to your fighting brothers?” And he happily obliges because otherwise his store would burn down…

Ironically, the Israeli right is far more ready for peace than the Israeli left. They just don’t like the word “peace.” For the leftist, the Arab is some academic abstraction that signifies the noble savage or whatever, but for the rightist, he’s just a guy selling chicken a little cheaper.

Both end up funding their own destruction. They just wrap it around in different terminology.

The left-wing addiction to “peace” is being replaced by a right-wing addiction to “ceasefires.” Instead of “we’re talking with them while they kill us” we have “we’re lowkey bombing them while they kill us.”

Frankly, I’m not sure which is worse.

The ceasefires in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran are a façade. In reality, it’s just war with rules neither side fully understands. Sort of like blind boxing where one glove is covered in cotton candy and the referee is quite drunk.

Every few weeks, we’re informed about a “painful blow” to the enemy, usually in the form of assassinating some guy with a big beard and crazy eyes, a rare commodity indeed in the Muslim world.

Here’s the thing about these “painful blows.” They look nice on camera but Israelis are still getting killed every week. A reality in which people get killed every week to achieve nothing is just as insane as the left’s “sacrifices for peace” when they allowed thousands to be murdered and mutilated in the name of a peace process that led nowhere.

Can’t you guys take a hint?

The enemy doesn’t want peace. The enemy doesn’t want a ceasefire either. The enemy wants to destroy Israel. He will not settle for anything less.

Meanwhile, it seems we’ll settle for anything that ends a war. I guess that’s why they call us settlers.

Worse, while many people console themselves with the story that this is degrading the quality of the enemy, I’m not at all sure this is true at this point.

The resources of the enemy are vast.

The military aid Lebanon and Gaza receive are far less conditional than the aid Israel receives. I don’t see Russia and Iran withholding any weapons due to the need to investigate human rights abuses. As you read these lines, Lebanon is getting new shipments of drones, Gaza is digging new tunnels, and Iran is rebuilding.

In practice, what we’re doing with this lowkey fighting is providing training for the enemy. Sure, they lose dozens of people every week but their human resources are practically unlimited and they ascribe zero value to human life. “We love death more than you love life,” as they like to say on every occasion.

They’re losing land, which really hurts them. However, they’re still sure that soon the West will pressure Israel to retreat from these lands and then their rich cousins from the Gulf states will build them even nicer homes than the ones they’ve lost. This was always the case until now. Why would it be different this time?

As long as they have this hope, their spirit will not be broken.

Meanwhile, they get to test new weapons, see what works and what doesn’t work, learn our modus operandi, find new holes in our protection, and exhaust the best Israelis with endless rounds of miluim. It’s a great deal on their part, better than an actual ceasefire.

As to assassinating their leaders, almost 80% of 3rd-century Roman emperors died violently and Rome did just fine. Any violent prick can rule a bunch of other violent pricks. Each death sows momentary discord and weakens the enemy but if you don’t follow it through with something more substantial, it’s generally as meaningless as a ‘90s “peace process.”

We paid dearly for getting addicted to a fake peace process that cost us more blood than most wars. Please, let’s not repeat the same mistake by getting addicted to fake ceasefires and “painful blows” that make us feel good but achieve very little on the ground.

At the end of the day, when drones are dropping on your head and barbarian hordes are spilling through your borders, it doesn’t matter if it’s a leftwing or a rightwing screw-up.

It only matters that it sucks.

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