1.
As I drove my daughter Darya to school this morning, I shared with her the historic events unfolding in Syria. The brutal Assad regime, father and son, had suddenly collapsed. I told her about the 19 years during which Syria controlled the Golan Heights, firing upon Israeli kibbutzim in the valley and fishermen on the Sea of Galilee. I spoke of our fighters' valor during the Six-Day War, and the military legacy we inherited within the Golani Brigade, especially for the fierce battle of Tel Faher. Today, our soldiers stand atop Mount Hermon – formerly known as "Syrian Hermon" – now a summit from which Israel watches over the fragmenting region. "Look up, my daughter, at the mountain / The mountain that was once a monster / There are still cannons on the mountain, my child / But now they threaten Damascus," as Yovav Katz wrote.
Israel's flag flies over Mount Hermon and southern Lebanon, above the ruins of Hezbollah's terror strongholds that planned mass killings; it flies over the ruins of the new Nazis in Gaza who massacred us and kidnapped our children and parents. Hamas faces complete elimination, Hezbollah is dismantled with its leadership and command already writhing in hell; Iran has been stripped of its air defenses and its military proxies in Lebanon and Gaza. Russia and Iran have abandoned Assad's regime to the wolves of the region, their support proving hollow, and now Syria has collapsed and the IDF has wiped out the Syrian army and its strategic weapons in two days. And Israel? It's prevailing and orchestrating these developments or creating them in a chain reaction. You'll tell your grandchildren, my daughter, that you witnessed history changing before our eyes, on the path to absolute victory.
2.
I was a doctoral student when Ehud Barak's government pushed for an agreement with Syria at the beginning of this Millennium. The media outlets were advocating full steam ahead to hand over the Golan Heights to the butcher of Damascus in exchange for "peace." The Arabs knew how to trade with naive Jews using goods they never possessed. They would offer paper agreements and empty promises (newspapers would print headlines in blue about "true peace" and hummus in Damascus), while we would offer land in exchange for a peace agreement that would amount to little more than non-belligerence – a condition that already exists as long as we remain strong, and which would be violated the moment our neighbors sense weakness. Fortunately, the butcher of Damascus demanded too much.
In the 1930s, Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin wrote about the fascist aestheticization of politics, designed to blind the masses from war's heavy toll. Benjamin didn't live to see the other side of the coin: the same aestheticization that served fascism was applied to peace through various peace festivals. Under the aesthetic dream of dubious peace, all manner of wrongs were justified and terror victims were rationalized as "sacrifices for peace." Most egregiously, fundamental discussion about the moral and social price of the "peace process" – note: process alone, not peace – was silenced. The Orwellian "newspeak" in our region spoke of a painful, tormenting process, full of innocent victims, which would end, as in religious belief, with the messiah of peace. This intellectual tower, too, is collapsing before our eyes.
3.
And what about intelligence? It didn't foresee Syria's collapse. We've grown accustomed to this. Neither did the renowned commentators in our media, who since Oct. 7, 2023, have been instilling in us a spirit of defeat, surrender, and submission, simply because their despised Benjamin Netanyahu is leading the campaign and insisting on fighting until our enemies are vanquished. Reread these self-proclaimed sages, and learn not to blindly trust those who flaunt their ranks while their historical vision doesn't extend beyond yesterday and fails to grasp tomorrow.
4.
After Hamas' invasion of our communities and Hezbollah's similar plan for the Galilee, we understand more deeply why we need territory. The new Nazis who swore to destroy us are being removed from northern Gaza to protect our residents, we hold the entire Hermon and beyond, and we should not move from southern Lebanon, certainly not from the villages along the contact line. The old concept left the IDF passive, waiting for the enemy at the fence. In the revised concept, the IDF needs to capture more territory and secure strategic depth. This is the region's ancient rule: those who sanctify war against us will lose their land. If we remain consistent this time, there's a chance our enemies will think twice before attacking again. And now, Iran.
