If the choice is between life and any other alternative, the answer should be clear. Even for a hefty price, we must never give up what makes us who we are. We are a people who rose from the ashes to found our own nation state. We always have and always will choose life.
Insiders in Likud say that the prime minister's efforts to compare the deaths from terrorism following the 1993 Oslo Accords to the Gaza war were insensitive.
Thousands of people may lose their positions if the Democrats lose the 2024 elections. This political game creates increasing pressure on Israel – to provide a date for the cessation of the fighting against Hamas in Gaza and to find a solution to the humanitarian crisis in the Strip.
The unfortunate truth is that Hamas enjoys broad political support from the population of the Strip, which elected it in the past and may do so again. In the parliamentary elections in 2006 – the last held in the Strip – Hamas won 76 out of 132 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council. Out of the 24 seats in the five districts in Gaza, Hamas won 15.
While there is no talk on forcible transfer and no official plan has been discussed, there appear to be two camps over how Israel should address this question, in view that refugees in a war zone should be allowed to travel to host countries if they want to.
The mission has yet to be accomplished. The elimination of Hamas is neither only a military matter nor only a political one; it is a moral imperative. This touches on the roots of our existence both as a nation and as the state of the Jewish people and transcends present-day political or diplomatic considerations.
The IDF can expect to encounter a Hamas with high operational readiness and strengthened morale. It might be appropriate to adopt a more aggressive approach so as to reduce the risks to our forces, even if it runs against the wishes expressed by the White House.
The young lives that were saved teach this nation a lesson in modesty and proportions: Israeli society needs the gaze of its children to examine itself.
The fact that he has been hiding since the beginning of the war shows that he is seeking to survive, but it can also be reversed, and the moment he sees an opportunity to come out to get another image of victory, he may do so. Palestinian sources have described him as a “control freak."
The emerging formula is based on the two-state solution stipulated in the Arab Initiative from 2002, with a demilitarized Palestinian state under international and Arab supervision.
