Capturing most of the escaped prisoners doesn't change the strategic choice facing Israel. In prisons, in Jenin, in Gaza, against militant elements among Arab-Israelis, against criminals inside the country, against the Uman fraudsters returning from Ukraine, and against the anti-vaxxers – it's still a choice between "fanning the flames" in order to calm the situation or passively reconciling with terrorism. "Fanning the flames in order to calm the situation" may sound like a contradiction, but it's not. There's no contradiction between the strategic pursuit of calm and the widespread, intensive and intelligent use of violent methods in order, over time, to guarantee tranquility.
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Paradoxically, there is no calm without a genuine threat of violence and without occasionally taking belligerent steps, in a way that confirms one's credibility. The well-known Latin adage, "If you want peace, prepare for war" can be complemented with: "and if your preparations for a war to deter your enemy aren't sufficient - break their power, in order to guarantee peace through deterrence."
In this way, everyone "lives by the sword." Crime is prevented because of the criminals' fear of police force and of legal punishment, like in Singapore and Switzerland. But it is prevented far less in Israel, because of the wretchedness of the police and the weakness of the legal system. In Brazil it is completely unrestrained because of the rottenness of the enforcement system. The Europeans, who are proud of rejecting this equation in the strategic sphere, essentially live by the American sword.
In Israel, fanning the flames isn't desirable, but calm over time requires endangering oneself in a controlled way against those who threaten the country from within and without. The primitive and reckless culture of the permit forgers, quarantine cheaters and vaccine refusers is responsible for murder and mass suffering, despite the fact that one cannot point to a specific victim, and even though its wanton followers kill and cause suffering mostly to themselves and members of their own households.
Forcing basic human solidarity upon them will indeed fan Breslav violence and will "fan" the social media of the crazies, but in avoiding stiff, painful and deterring punishment due to a fear of "fanning the flames," the law becomes a partner in the abandonment of its own citizens.
Harsh incarceration for terrorists and the breaking of their spirits is not easy for the Israel Prison Service (IPS), and will initially lead to a "fanning of the flames" in the prisons, but surrendering routinely to the prisoners encourages and increases terror. The illusory "arrangement" in Gaza practically supports the unruly behavior of the barbarians who rule there, as a useful tool in their ongoing quest to gain strength over Israel.
The time has come for Israel to take the initiative and "to fan the flames of the conflict" in order to deter them for a number of years, when there will be a need "to fan" the flames again, as a booster shot against the expected mutation of the violent virus that has characterized Gaza for generations.
Israel and other democracies have taken this step again and again. Britain "fanned the flames" of the Second World War instead of accepting the occupation of Poland, as it had accepted the Anschluss with Austria and the takeover of the Sudetenland. Even Chamberlain understood that it was better to start a war rather than have it break out unavoidably following Hitler's takeover of continental Europe. Israel initiated a war in 1956 out of fear of Egypt becoming stronger, achieving a decade of relative calm; this allowed Israel to build up its strength, guaranteeing its victories in the 1960s and 1970s, until the Camp David Accords.
In 1967, Israel fanned the flames of the Six-Day War. In March 2002, Israel fanned the flames in the territories and broke the spirit of Palestinian society, which had supported the terror of the Second Intifada, in a way that has deterred residents of the West Bank from all-out conflict until today.
In 2006, by initiating the Second World War, Israel succeeded (here we must differentiate from the failures during the war itself) in deterring Hezbollah from conflict for more than 15 years. The lessons from failing to deter an enemy from becoming stronger should now be learned in Gaza. For five years, Israel has already taken a risk in not "fanning the flames" of a very dangerous conflict with Iran in order to prevent an all-out war under unbearable conditions.
It's not correct, of course, to "fan the flames" in every situation, at every time and at any price. But sometimes there is no choice. In his poem 'Platoon Song' Natan Alterman described the relationship between state-building and building peace, and the necessity to defend them with acts of violence: "The peace of the plow your young men had once carried. Today they salute thee with rifles aslant."
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