What Would Ariel Sharon Say about Israel Today?

Last Sunday was the anniversary of Ariel Sharon’s death. Elliott Abrams reflects on what the general and statesman would say were he alive today:

He would surely express no surprise at the deadlock in negotiations with the PLO. Getting out of Gaza was, most of his closest collaborators believe, step one in setting Israel’s borders. Step two might have been a pullback of settlers (but not the IDF) to the security fence that Sharon built to stop terrorism. Sharon had no faith in the “peace process” and believed Israel should act when that process failed to move forward. If peace came, in ten or 20 or 50 years, that would be fine; meanwhile, Israel would have semi-permanent and defensible borders. . . .

What he would have done about Iran’s nuclear program cannot fairly be guessed. But it is fair to say that he would have taken immense satisfaction that his “tiny small country,” as he once described it to me, now emerges as the only really strong state and reliable American ally in the entire region.

Read more at Weekly Standard

More about: Ariel Sharon, Gaza expulsion, Israeli politics, Peace Process, West Bank

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF