Rabbi Pruzansky's Blog

President Obama has belatedly come around to the necessity of confronting the murderers of ISIS before they threaten the American homeland directly, but better late than never. His goal – to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the so-called Islamic State – is admirable if open-ended. His chosen measures to accomplish this objective are somewhat wanting, as if he just wants to be seen as doing something more than actually doing something, but perhaps he has begun to accept one basic truth: sometimes you can’t choose your enemies; your enemies choose you.

And if his declaration that there is nothing “Islamic” about Islamic State is a tad overdrawn – the killing of infidels is a perennial and sacred obligation – something has awakened his displeasure, certainly the murder of innocents and the future threat to the United States … but also his plummeting poll numbers.

For sure, Obama is a reluctant warrior, and we wish him (and us) well in the coming campaign. Before commencing the hostilities, though, he should become more acquainted with the modern rules of warfare to which he subscribes but will soon find encumber his success. They are as follows:

• Never use disproportionate force. ISIS does not have an air force. As such, bombing their strongholds from the air would be overkill, not to mention unfair. Their favorite weapons are machetes and knives, and so, if the US Air Force is not going to drop sharp implements on the enemy from the air, we must at least ensure that the Arab forces that will constitute the boots on the ground will be so equipped. The use of disproportionate force is immoral and probably a war crime, even if it once was the key to victory.
• Never injure or kill a civilian. ISIS forces routinely hide among civilians, do not always dress in military garb and are not always easily identifiable as fighters. Even when they are identifiable, if their military convoys are ensconced within civilian traffic, they are by definition off limits. If their homes and headquarters are located among civilian facilities or in residential neighborhoods, they are untouchable. If they wage their battles in civilian neighborhoods, it is critical to desist from any type of military activity that might harm a single innocent civilian, even at the cost of mission failure.
• Ensure that casualties on both sides are equal. It is unacceptable that one side in a conflict should suffer many more casualties than the other side. That per se is proof beyond a reasonable doubt of the use of disproportionate force. Thus, Obama’s coalition must mandate that the casualties of the allies must equal – to a man – the casualties of ISIS. If not, well, the specter of being tried for war crimes will hang over the head of every combatant, general, president or prime minister who has a hand in this confrontation.
• Have lawyers and ethicists vet every potential target before striking. Human life is too precious to allow such decisions to be made only by generals and commanders whose only interest is victory. Objective third-parties – perhaps even United Nations Human Rights commissioners – should be able to review battle plans before every mission and even artillery coordinates before shells are launched. Although this also might jeopardize the mission, we must be able to maintain our moral standards and especially in the face of an immoral enemy. We should not lower ourselves to their level; rather we will impose on ourselves a double, if necessary a triple, standard to guarantee fidelity to our treasured norms.
• Embed American journalists among the ISIS fighters. This serves a double purpose: it ensures that there will be television cameras recording every bomb that explodes (assuming the above-referenced advice on dropping only knives is not heeded) and that every civilian casualty can be noted and mourned for posterity. Of course, having reporters on the ground is the only way that survivors can be interviewed and their stories about the effects of the horrific bombing campaign of the evil Americans can be told. It is also the only way to effectively calculate the number of civilians who are killed. Sad to say, do not be surprised if it turns out that only civilians were killed, and that no ISIS fighters at all were harmed – the very definition of indiscriminate bombing, another war crime.

     It is also very important to get the ISIS side of the story out in the public domain. The bad PR they currently have is undoubtedly due to the rough treatment they have afforded journalists to date, but they will learn to befriend reporters or, at the very least, intimidate some (i.e., by letting them to retain their heads) into underscoring the casualties of every American strike and downplaying their own excesses or malevolence. After all, there are two sides to every story.

• There is no military solution to this problem. Guns and bombs never settled any conflict, and if anything, only serve to prolong it. Violence breeds more violence, hatred engenders more hatred. The cycle of violence must stop. War is so 20^th century, maybe even 19^th Civilized people talk through their issues and settle their disputes through words, not weapons.

     Indeed, the bombing campaign cannot take more than one month. If ISIS is not eliminated within a month, then another way must be found to deal with them as it would be clear that the problem is only going to get worse over time, not better. No one wants another long war (like World War II or Vietnam) and America especially must focus on repairing its battered economy, finding its shrinking work force new, good-paying jobs, and concentrating on redistributing the wealth of the haves to the have-nots. The problems in the Middle East are distant, hazy images on a television screen, and do not really affect Americans in their daily lives. So, if ISIS is not eradicated in a month, negotiate.

• Self-determination is a cherished, Wilsonian goal that is universally applicable. The people of ISIS have declared their independence in territory under their control. They have decided to rid themselves of their prior allegiance to the Iraqi tyranny or the Syrian tyranny by establishing their own, home-grown tyranny. And that is their democratic right. We should not be cultural imperialists imposing our values on other political systems. Who’s to say that the American values of freedom, liberty, democracy and human rights are inherently attractive to all? Perhaps the futility of war will convince all parties of the viability of the two-state solution, the three-state solution, or as many states as ISIS wishes to create. Neither Syria nor Iraq seem to need all the territory they claim for themselves anyway, and there is plenty of land to go around for everyone (unlike, say, in Israel).

These are only some of the hurdles Barack Obama will have to overcome in his war of choice. Undoubtedly he will, and we wish him the greatest success. The future of the free world might depend on it. And if somehow the rules of engagement change and the war is fought to win, with all the appropriate and necessary measures employed when wars were fought to win, perhaps those changes can be applied elsewhere in the Middle East as well…

OJ Simpson, still in prison, is reportedly converting to Islam, and that is just what Muslims need: a veteran beheader to supplement their growing roster of rookie beheaders. Islam’s latest recruit is not unusual – for years, Islam has successfully spread its gospel in America’s jails and attracted thousands of new adherents – but it does underscore the dangers that the US and the civilized world are facing and, led tepidly and hesitantly by President Obama, facing without much success, direction or energy.

Obama’s foreign policy blunders will be the subject of dissertations for decades to come. He has stumbled in every region which he has entered, an unblemished record of failure. The “reset” with Russia now looks amateurish, if not a bad joke; Putin simply does not take Obama seriously, and rightfully so. The only limitation on Putin’s expansionist ambitions is Putin himself. He could have Ukraine tomorrow if he so chooses, and Lithuania the day after. Obama has offended allies as diverse as Israel, Saudi Arabia, Poland and Japan, none of whom have any confidence in his willingness to do anything more than offer canned rhetoric, vacuous clichés and bad advice. Each country therefore pursues its interests on its own, alternately humoring and ignoring Obama as needed.

The “red line” threat issued to Syria and then blithely ignored encouraged Assad and emboldened Putin. No one seriously believes that all of Syria’s chemical weapons are gone, and Assad will likely still be in power long after Obama has written his fourth or fifth autobiography. Obama’s (and Hillary Clinton’s) repeated demands that “Assad must go,” were rightly perceived as risible. Surprise! Their wish is not his command; finally, someone who is immune to Obama’s charms and unimpressed with his words.

China is flexing its muscle in Asia, North Korea continues to taunt and threaten, and even Mexico holds in captivity for months already a former US Marine who mistakenly crossed the border (he, apparently, is the only person on the planet who cannot sneak from Mexico into the United States). An American president who was respected would have solved this crisis long ago, but first he has to take an interest in the fate of this soldier and then be seen as a force with whom other leaders must reckon.

The planned withdrawal from Afghanistan will produce there the same mayhem that the unilateral retreat from Iraq engendered – a grand opening for terrorists, marauders and murderers of all stripes. Obama’s participation – from “behind” of course – in the war on Libya and the demise of Qaddafi has resulted in the birth of a radical Islamic and anti-American regime there, whose thugs just this week captured the US Embassy in Tripoli and cavorted in its swimming pool.

That outcome should offer us a lesson that is instructive today: be careful what (and who) you overthrow.

The labyrinthine web of shifting alliances across the world boggles the mind. Last week’s Wall Street Journal featured a tangled chart of all the convoluted relationships – adversaries that are allied to fight one common enemy while fighting each other on other fronts. For one example, the US is allied with Iran against ISIS, but mindful of Iran’s malevolence in other spheres. Russia is a wild card in many regions. It is enough to make one’s head spin, but a good reminder that, contrary to the common aphorism, sometimes the enemy of your enemy is still your enemy.

Rather than punt, kick the can down the road, admit the absence of strategy years into the existence of the problem, golf, fund-raise, vacation or analyze a situation until it causes policy paralysis, Obama, the US and friendly countries simply have to prioritize. Life is about making choices, and often disagreeable choices, choices not between good and bad but between better and worse. In retrospect, much of the recent anarchy in the Middle East has come about because of the overthrow (or attempted overthrow) of radical dictators – like Qaddafi or Assad – who, for all the violence and turmoil they spawned and innocent people they killed, at least brought some measure of stability to their countries and immediate vicinity.

For sure, neither man deserved (or deserves) to live or remain in power. Both were brutal killers, Jew-haters, and fomenters of terror across the globe. The only virtue in having either remain in power was that the vacuum caused by their downfall (in Assad’s case, of course, his decline) brought to the fore far more radical, anti-American, Jew-hating and violence-loving maniacs. Libya is today controlled by radical Muslims (that phrase is becoming a redundancy) who gleefully murder, maim and terrorize without compunction. As awful as it sounds, wasn’t Libya, the region, or the world a better, more stable place when that murderous nut Qaddafi was in power? The correct answer is yes.

The same can be said for Bashar al-Assad. For sure, this psychopath has played a double game for years (along with his late psychopathic father). For all their rhetoric, Israel’s border with Syria has been its quietest border for 30 years. That is not the case anymore, as the deranged rebels have captured part of the Syrian side of the Golan Heights and shelled Israel. Israelis have already been evacuated from that area to a safer zone more inland on the Golan. Assad has been quite discreet in his direct dealings with Israel, avoiding any confrontation that could induce an Israeli strike on his territory and instead relying on the use of proxies like Hezbollah to slake his thirst for Jewish blood.

Hezbollah remains a problem, although it has been greatly distracted by other wars in the region. But now that ISIS controls large swaths of Syria and Iraq, isn’t it fair to say that the status quo ante (ante ISIS in particular) – a stable Syria ruled by the iron-fisted Assad – was preferable to the bedlam that exists today? The correct answer is yes.

It needs to be said that the same does not apply to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, notwithstanding that he too kept an uneasy peace among the various factions that comprise Iraq. Nevertheless, the world is a better place without him. For sure, with Saddam Hussein in power there never would have been an ISIS. But Hussein – unlike Assad or even Qaddafi in his later years – had pretensions to be more than just a regional power. He was a genocidal lunatic who had already massacred tens of thousands of Kurds with poison gas and hundreds of thousands of others. He harbored ambitions to obtain weapons of mass destruction – several times; once, of course, famously thwarted by Israel – and would surely have obtained them within a few years once the world’s attention shifted elsewhere. Even the level of factional violence in Iraq after Hussein’s demise did not reach the level of violence sustained by Hussein while he was in power, and the US left Iraq a far better place than before. The shame is that the US pulled out precipitously, allowing Iraq to collapse and all sorts of unpleasant actors to seize power.

The primary mistake made in Iraq was made with good intentions but was a mistake nonetheless: it was the notion that an Arab state could sustain a democratic system. It is hard to escape the realization – sad but true – that the Arab world is not ready for and presently incapable of democratization. It is not in their culture or history, and it is not even perceived as a value. We have long deluded ourselves into believing that freedom as we perceive it and the concomitant liberties that democracies safeguard are cherished and universal values. Would that it were so! But it is not. For years, many Americans celebrated (and exaggerated) glimmers of democratic processes anywhere – look! The Saudi local councils allow simple people to petition the rulers, even women! But the truth is that the Saudis, Russians, Chinese and many other people simply do not embrace democracy as a value. Indeed, many people would largely prefer stability and security to freedom and personal responsibility, something that has historically been anathema to Americans.

Democracy has not worked out well in Egypt, Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya and other such entities. It has bred discontent and allowed the creation and sometimes the election of even more radical elements. So, choices have to be made. The civilized world – and even a good part of the uncivilized world – has belatedly recognized that ISIS is the primary threat today, not that it has anything more than light weapons but because its ideology is utterly genocidal. It threatens everybody – even other killers and kooks. If defeating ISIS in the long-term means strengthening Assad in the short term, so be it.

The old world order cannot be restored but far-sighted diplomats such as once existed (but are no longer extant) would be able to use the current disorder to fashion (or impose) a more stable environment. Iraq as it once existed is gone. Rather than forcing it to regain its old form, it should be partitioned. The Kurds in the north have earned and thus deserve their own independent state. Much of the rest of the territory should be divided into separate Sunni and Shiite states, with the oil revenue equitably distributed between them. Western Iraq should be designated for the “Palestinian” refugees and the state that we hear they so desire.

And clever diplomats will be able to structure governments in Shi’a Iraq that look westward for alliances instead of north to Iran. For as America spins its wheels in search of a strategy, the Iran’s centrifuges also continue to spin, and its genocidal sociopaths edge ever closer to their own nuclear bomb.

That might not concern President Obama or even OJ Simpson, but it should concern Jews, Americans and the free world.

One has to give credit to PM Netanyahu for snatching a stalemate from the jaws of potential victory and spinning it as an historic triumph. His rhetorical gifts certainly exceed his strategic vision. But the turning point in the recent conflict – and a sure indication that nothing would change, nothing gained, and dangers would still loom ahead – happened at a very early stage when the Prime Minister fired the Deputy Defense Minister, Dani Danon, for vocally opposing Netanyahu’s acceptance of the first cease fire proposal – even before the IDF had uncovered the tunnels of terror. (Imagine if Hamas had accepted that cease fire, enabling them to carry out their planned Rosh Hashana massacres.)

For that prescience, Danon was fired, which also served as a warning shot across the bow of Avigdor Lieberman and Naphtali Bennett, both consistent critics of the PM’s handling of the war. With the hostilities on temporary hiatus (it is expected that Israel will relax its border controls and allow Hamas to import deadlier missiles and cement and steel to rebuild its tunnels; it’s only fair), Netanyahu ably wrapped himself in the mantle of unity the other night. That is also a neat trick, lauding the unity of the nation during this crisis and subtly implying that unity means following his lead and dissent is an example of disunity. People do fall for that line, but how many do will go a long way to determining Netanyahu’s political future, not just nationally but even in the Likud party itself.

His approach reminds me of the Pruzansky Plan for Jewish Unity, suggested many years ago, which, succinctly summarized, proposed that “everyone should agree with me.” Then there will be unity. It was never implemented, to my chagrin, because it turned out that several million other people had the exact same idea. But the overt criticism of the Cabinet dissenters was more election-positioning than a genuine concern about the united front during battle, especially since Lieberman and Bennett gave Netanyahu cover on the right flank by demanding harsher action against the enemy, usually a staple of wartime.

But when the enemy fires 70 rockets on your civilians on the first day of battle and 184 rockets on the last day of battle, it is a stretch to claim that it has suffered some grievous defeat. In essence, nothing changed, except for the 70 Jews killed and the hundreds more wounded. The enemy is unbowed, unbroken and in some sense even more brazen, farcically so, but nonetheless. It was on the ropes during the second week of the war when a conscious decision was made not to win, with “win” meaning surrender. It certainly was doable under the normal processes of warfare, in which the enemy is the enemy, and is not coddled, fed, nurtured and sustained by the very people they are trying to murder.

At one time this was obvious. Rashi comments on this week’s Torah portion (Devarim 20:1) that there is an enemy in war, and that enemy should be perceived as an enemy, with all that entails. “Have no mercy on them, because they will have no mercy on you.” Or, as George Patton put it, “May G-d have mercy upon my enemies, because I won’t.” Something has changed, in which victory itself has become anathema to modern man – especially citizens of democracies – as if victory over an enemy is repugnant, immoral and undesirable. There is more that will be said about this at another time, but the question before us is: what inhibited Israel from actually inflicting a death blow on a ruthless enemy of inferior resources and infinite malevolence? Why does Israel constantly hold back, and even worse, actually send provisions – food, fuel, electricity, water – to sustain an enemy population that wants to destroy it and that voted overwhelmingly for the thugs who govern them and rejoice in the death of Jews? Why not do, for once, what is necessary to win?

Many will point to the customary inhibitors – Obama or the American left, the Europeans, the UN, the Arab street, etc. There is some merit to that but it is ultimately unsatisfactory and self-defeating. The enemy is strengthened, and wars and terror are fomented, when the Arabs realize that Israel will pull its punches, not fight to win, and will flinch from actually changing the dynamic of the conflict. (For example, laying siege to Gaza – and sticking to it until surrender, regardless of world pressure – could have resulted in that very surrender, benefitting especially the Gazans and the Middle East. The siege is an ancient tactic, and the enemy could have controlled the escape from the siege – surrender. But Israel feared doing what is normal, and it will claim it is because of the “world.”) Is that true? Maybe on some level. But I believe there is another factor at work that serves to weaken Israel in every conflict and in its conduct of war and statecraft.

Israel is hampered by its self-definition – by the “values” that it claims renders it unique. In general, those values are noble, but in wartime they are completely misplaced, and often comical when applied.

So Israel’s concern for the preservation of life deters it from laying siege to the enemy – and engenders such anomalies – now so taken for granted by the “world” that Israel could never abandon these prescriptions without being accused of war crimes – as warning the enemy that an attack is coming, calling on them to leave, rushing to provide them medical care and all the provisions meant to keep them alive and fighting for another decade or ten.

There are reasons why armies – certainly not those of the bad guys, but even not those of the good guys, like the Allies in World War II – have never conducted wars in this fashion. It is because it is stupid, ineffective, and serves to prolong the hostilities thereby producing more casualties. But it feels good! These measures feel good and reinforce a sense of moral superiority, but make no sense and are wholly unrelated – and even antithetical to – the Torah’s ethic of warfare. To many people, feeling good about the conduct of war is more important than actually winning it.

There are other examples as well. Why doesn’t Israel attack cherished religious assets of the Arab population in order to deter or punish terror – such as shutting the Temple Mount or the Cave of the Patriarchs to them, or even dismantling the mosques on the Temple Mount for relocation in Iraq or Saudi Arabia? Because Israel prides itself on the freedom of religion it guarantees to all, even non-citizens, and even to its enemies in wartime.

Why didn’t Israel declare Gaza a closed military zone, banning journalists and photographers from covering the wars and sparing us the sights of the dead women and children, killed because Hamas forced them to be human shields? Because Israel prides itself on protecting freedom of the press and easy access to anywhere on the battlefield. But such generosity of spirit hampers the war effort and makes victory impossible. There is a reason why war zones are often closed to the press – Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, etc., leading to those wars falling out of the headlines and the public consciousness: it is because wars cannot be won when the hyper-sensitivity of third-parties, especially tendentious journalists, riles up public opinion. As it happens, those wars are being waged by evildoers, but the US in Iraq and Afghanistan often closed certain areas to the press, for their own protection, of course.

There is also something beyond bizarre about the need for every military action or response to require the approval of a gaggle of lawyers before being conducted – or frequently nixed by those very lawyers – but Israel prides itself on being a nation that respects laws, even the international laws of warfare that no one else honors, except occasionally by wistful mention of them after the conflict has ended successfully.

Note that none of these are Jewish values, except in the most general and undefined way. The Torah is quite explicit that wars are to be waged to win, and that Jewish life is not to be lost in the quixotic quest to spare the lives of the enemy, whether military or civilian (granted, in the current context, a distinction without a difference). These are all Western values, but in theory not practice, as few countries inhibit their militaries because of these niceties. Hence the staggering loss of civilian life in the United States’ wars in Middle East, which did not produce much hand-wringing anywhere.

For all the phony and hypocritical criticism of Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza and the civilian casualties that resulted (relatively few, compared to every other similar conflict), Israel could write the manual on how to conduct urban warfare and minimize civilian casualties. No other war comes even close. But why would they want to? No army should seek to intentionally inflict casualties on innocent civilians, but nor should any army or government encumber its conduct of war and deprive itself of victory by mistaken notions of morality and by adhering to rules of war that seem to be crafted precisely for Israel, and only for Israel, and precisely to deprive it of even the possibility of victory.

That is ultimately a failure of leadership. That the double standard is obvious does not make it a measure of pride. I have yet to hear the Israeli government speak with vehemence and passion, not about the unfairness of the double standard, but against their eagerness to abide by it and about the unfairness of the mere suggestion that it should. And this plays directly into another execrable dimension of Israeli self-definition – the need to feel like victims, to mourn and lament the deaths, injuries, incessant terror and unending hatred – rather than take the war to the enemy in a way that shocks them by the wrath, might and power of Israel.

There are too many Jews that are uncomfortable with Jewish power. They would never admit it, but they prefer grieving at the funerals of soldiers and terror victims to marching in a victory parade. To be sure, I am not at all implying that this is a motivating factor for Netanyahu, Bogie Yaalon or anyone in particular. Nor is it necessarily conscious, but too many people are wedded to the status quo and will never take steps – no matter the provocation – to change it for the better, to seek even the absolute defeat of a single enemy. They are locked into defensive mode, responding, always responding, and always hesitating to take the initiative in a way that will challenge or force the revision of the aforementioned self-definitions.

The glorification of victimhood has seeped into the Jewish DNA because of the centuries during which our blood was shed with impunity. But is unconscionable, immoral and fallacious, and it has to stop. We need not feel guilty over defeating our enemies, nor over the catastrophes they bring on themselves, nor over our survival, nor over our G-d-given homeland. But how we perceive ourselves today has produced a narrative that makes victory difficult, if not impossible, but is not normal.

That the Prime Minister’s popularity is plummeting, and that there is great discontent over the stalemate that ended the current conflict but which 87% of the people feel will just presage the next (and likely deadlier) one within the next two years, suggest that many Israelis are tired of the game, the lack of strategic vision and the disdain for victory that characterizes current government policy. They are looking to craft a new narrative, in which the Jewish people can access the morality of Torah in order to educate the world as to how to combat our era’s brutal, merciless foe – the non-state terror group that lacks any inhibitions and seeks only victory and the fulfillment of its murderous objectives.

When our self-definition encompasses nothing more than the Torah’s values and our willingness to embrace and actualize G-d’s eternal morality, we will be a “light onto the nations” even in the conduct of war and hasten the day of victory and redemption for all mankind.