Yet again, most Israelis are upholding the covenant uniting wartime democracies. Citizens must be loyal, today supporting this necessary war against Iran’s nuclear-hungry, ballistic-missile-toting, genocidal jihadis – and their Lebanese lapdog Hezbollah.
The government should reward this hyper-patriotism by being hyper-responsible: declaring war reflects the profound decision to risk soldiers’ and civilians’ lives to save the country. With soldiers deployed, the government must try to do no harm domestically, avoiding blustering war-talk, divisive demagoguery, or controversial moves that scar the nation’s soul.
Most Israeli citizens are behaving magnificently, supporting our troops while uncomplainingly absorbing multiple sirens and bombing raids. By contrast, Israel’s government violated this sacred trust by adding NIS 800 million to the ultra-Orthodox extortion racket – I mean institutions – then passing a sloppy law decreeing an express death penalty for Palestinian terrorists in the territories, which would exclude Israeli terrorists.
Laws regarding such a sensitive subject must never be treated as cheap set-ups guaranteed to be overturned, so judicial reformers can unfairly tar Supreme Court Justices as “pro-terrorist.”
First, the good news. Israel’s home front is impressively resilient and surprisingly mature politically. Most Israelis realize this war isn’t political, it’s existential. Israelis can count the number of proxies Iran has sicced against them – at least seven; the 700-plus ballistic missiles Iran’s regime launched to kill them; and the 11 nuclear bombs Iran could make with its 450 kg. of uranium enriched to 60% purity.
Israelis instinctively understand The Wall Street Journal’s editorial “The North Korea lesson for Iran,” which noted: “Diplomacy failed to stop Pyongyang from getting the bomb. Trump didn’t make the same mistake” with Tehran. Most would laugh knowingly, reading The Spectator’s Roger Kimball quote Benjamin Jowett, the 19th-century translator of Thucydides: “Precautions are always blamed, because when they are successful, they are said to have been unnecessary.”
Israelis’ overwhelming support for the war hasn’t changed the electoral math. The war is a referendum on Iran and Hezbollah. Suspending partisanship, most Israelis are voting against our enemies while voting for Israel’s safety, with 90% of Israeli Jews trusting the IDF.
Sadly, in America, the war is a referendum on US President Donald Trump.
Beyond the battlefield: domestic strains and governance
True, frustrations are growing. The strain on our holy troops and reservists, on stressed-out kids and their parents, on businesses, on marriages, is incalculable. Beyond risking losing life and limbs, soldiers risk losing their friends, their hearing from artillery, their bearings from all they’ve experienced.
That’s why the more Israelis read about American Jews criticizing this war, the more betrayed many of us feel: Every sortie that weakens Iran protects Israel, America, and the world.
Feeling fragile while compelled to show toughness, Israelis need a government leading us as effectively as it cooperates with the Americans to demolish the ayatollahs’ land-based death star.
The devastated North and limping businesses need generous funding. The army must stop demoralizing reservists with call-ups falling suspiciously short of the 60-day benefit-boosting mark. And the government – or, let’s really dream, the ultra-Orthodox – should repatriate some of the NIS 5.17 billion funding too many draft-dodgers to benefit Israeli patriots.
Similarly, this wasn’t the time to pass a flawed death penalty bill targeting Palestinian terrorism in the territories, which excludes “Israeli citizens.” True, that omission includes Israeli-Arab citizens. And, after freeing over 2,000 terrorists to save our hostages, and absorbing 7,338 Palestinian terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria since October 7, 2023, Israel needs a substantive debate – post-war! – on enacting a death penalty, after essentially banning it in 1954, except for genocidal Nazis.
But first, the authorities should arrest those 350 to 500 Jewish settlers who keep stalking Palestinians. The way their thuggery drains army resources betrays Zionism, Israel, and this hallowed war effort.
Moreover – if a consensus approves – carefully drafted death penalty legislation should require special tribunals and speedy, fair appeals, while punishing the crime, regardless of the criminal’s nationality or address. The FBI defines terrorism as “Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals.” Murderous terrorists should be punished harshly for being politically motivated to terrify innocents, no matter their cause.
Conservatives demanding that American law be “status-blind,” including colorblind, should explain the dangers of focusing on status not conduct. True, intent affects punishment: premeditated murder is worse than mistaken manslaughter. But intent, like conduct, concerns the deed, not the doer’s origins.
I worry less about Israel’s reputational damage abroad than the spiritual damage at home. I tell non-Israeli audiences that I need Israel’s army – and Israel – to be as moral as possible, “not to make you comfortable, but to make my kids proud of themselves and of their comrades-in-arms-and-in-life.”
Similarly, Haaretz’s claim “that the death penalty may actually encourage terror acts,” echoes ridiculous criticisms that attacking Iran will harden its totalitarian leaders’ hearts. Most Palestinian terrorists are ready to die to slaughter innocents.
One wonders how much more extreme Iran’s regime can be – when it craves nukes, stockpiles missiles, and mass murders its own people? What la-la-land do these people live in?
Successful wars save the nation and define its people. Israel mustn’t become Super-Sparta, featuring muscle-bound warriors with coarsened souls, and paralyzed consciences. In Psalm 122, King David, that courageous yet flawed leader, imagined Zion – Yerushalayim Habnuyah, a built-up, redeemed Jerusalem “bonded together,” enjoying “Peace within its walls.”
Jewish tradition and Zionist history teach that, while fighting often produces peace, true success requires a united, idealistic citizenry, striving to be as good as we can be, having vanquished our evil enemies.
The writer is an American presidential historian and Zionist activist born in Queens, living in Jerusalem. Last year, he published To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream and The Essential Guide to October 7th and its Aftermath. His latest E-book, The Essential Guide to Zionism, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, and Jew-hatred was recently published and can be downloaded on the Jewish People Policy Institute’s website.