Victory is OURS!

The Nation of Israel and Operation Protective Edge
Uri Shachter – Deputy Brigade Commander Nachal (Res.)

After almost a month of fighting in the Gaza Strip, with all the reactions, I find it important to clarify to the Nation of Israel that we won, decisively. Both from a military and civilian point of view, we have been victorious. From a military perspective we can begin the victory parades. Hamas is on the ropes, the most they are able to do is poke their heads out of their hidey-holes for a second to declare victory (until it gets struck by the next missile). They are unable to rearm from Egypt (something they were able to do with a free hand during the reign of the Muslim Brotherhood). For years Hamas has been building tunnels beneath our towns to use to attack them and we have been able to destroy all the tunnels. Every military goal Hamas set for itself has failed, on land, in the air and by sea.

So why are we giving them the idea that they won?!

Every contact with the enemy resulted in our overwhelming victory.

Every town we wanted to conquer, we conquered within a few hours with the help of our air force and artillery. During the Yom Kippur War (1973) we too were on the ropes having lost 2,656 soldiers in battle. We won, but unfortunately it was perceived in the national mind as a failure. In the current war, our warriors and their commanders who lead from the front, unlike Hamas who prefer to command from behind, went out to battle with a level of motivation that is hard to understand. Soldiers who, even after being wounded, refuse to leave the field of battle just so their comrades won’t have to go into battle without them. Our men continue to fight courageously, even after losing dozens of our best and brightest, knowing that we have returned the IDF to what it was meant to do, protect our civilians.

There are those soldiers and commanders who feel that we haven’t finished the mission and they want to keep striking at the terrorists. That is as it should be. If they left feeling satisfied and complete, that would be a problem. I also don’t accept the perception that the IDF is retreating. Keep in mind that there is a broader and more encompassing picture in the hands of the upper echelons and not every pundit who writes a hysterical article understands the big picture.

The army is free to fire on any position they think is necessary and positions itself wherever it needs to. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad are running to Egypt to beg for a ceasefire while we haven’t even sent a representative. It’s not that they haven’t achieved anything in the current fighting, but they have lost a considerable amount. All the residents in Gaza will return to their ruined houses, destroyed for no gain or reason on their part.

It’s no less important, from a military perspective, to highlight what Israel has gone through during this period. The home front, in all its myriad of peoples, also stood like an unmoving rock (Tzuk Eitan in Hebrew can also be translated this way). It has provided the soldiers and their commanders the support that is so essential to their success. That is the true victory of the nation.

The goal of terrorists isn’t to conquer land, rather to break down and dissolve the society that it attacks. A month and a half ago, before our sweet, wonderful boys (Naftali, Ayal, Gil-Ad) were kidnapped, the nation was more fragmented than it has been for a long time. The verbal flames between groups had been whipped up to unprecedented levels.

The Charedim were calling the National Religious Amalekites, while the rest of the nation attacked them as extremists. The Charedim were looked at as corrupt parasites. The non religious were seen as heretics, anti-Jewish, and assimilationists. Look what has happened in the last month and a half. The nation and the army together have become unified, full of strength and a deep bond to our shared traditions. Even the media, who in the past has pulled the nation in the opposite direction, has mostly lined up behind us, supporting the surge in fighting and the nation as a whole.

I have seen the nation standing strong on the home front as well. Dozens of trucks from all over the country have come to bring supplies and treats to the soldiers. A father, mourning the loss of son who had been killed in the fighting, drove a truck down to help support his other sons, the soldiers of the IDF. My own children laugh that I’m unfamiliar with the singer Moki, but he, and other popular entertainers like him, came down to play for the troops, even if they were only performing for a dozen soldiers. People organized themselves to help the wives of those soldiers who received emergency call up notices, helping with shopping, watching the kids and more. The owners of one successful Hi-Tech company bought tablets for all the wounded soldiers. Caterers and restauranteurs who have come down to provide barbecues for thousands of soldiers to help them keep their strength up, making immense efforts, even though they themselves aren’t religious, to keep the strictest Kashrut so all are comfortable eating.

And it just goes on. The mother of one Charedi soldier who was shot in the stomach wanted me to make sure that he is able to go back and rejoin his comrades still in battle. The Mir Yeshiva (the largest Charedi rabbinical seminary in Jerusalem) sent a truckload of food and equipment to the soldiers. Rabbi Steineman (the leader of the Charedi community) broke down in tears at his grandson’s Bar Mitzvah saying, “soldiers are wounded and dying on the front, how can I rejoice?” To that in perspective, it’s said when his wife passed away, he calmly informed the paramedics where she had passed and returned to his Torah learning.

On Shabbat eve there are hundreds of soldiers of all stripes and origins dancing together. You have 1500 soldiers listening to Kiddush (benediction on wine on the Sabbath) all answering amen in unison loudly enough to shake the heavens.

A platoon commander who was wounded and in the middle of being evacuated to the hospital demands that his troops, his children, are all accounted for before he goes.

I can relate hundreds of more stories of strength and courage flowing from the soldier, their commanders and our amazing nation as a whole that I’ve heard and seen in the last month.

Let us all give paid to the lie that we somehow lost and Hamas won.

Let’s all make this change together, with our families and with our workmates. Let us all finally understand, THIS is what victory looks like.

[taken from the Muquata blog site

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17 Responses

  1. DF says:

    FINALLY. Thank you for saying what needs to be said and repeated, again and again and again. We as a people are so conditioned to negativity that we are sometimes unable to see victory for what it is. Those who think we will never lose a soldier, or will never hear other countries or media attacking us, are simply not being realistic.
    I personally am not so sure the achdus will last, nor would I be so sure that we have seen the last of Hamas (halevai on both!) Still, that this was victory through and through, there is no doubt.
    KOL HAKOVOD, to the army and to the people.

  2. Y. Ben-David says:

    It is important to note other significant changes. The IDF has restored its fighting spirit, which 3 decades of defeatest elements in the government and the army High Command eroded. In the last outbreaks, almost all the decorations handed out for bravery were given for evacuating wounded men under fire, NOT for achieving their objective. This time, carrying out one’s mission again comes first, even if it unfortunately means casualties.
    The enemy again is viewed as just that, not a “future peace partner” who must be treated gingerly in order to get him to like us.
    On the home front, life went on a normally as possible in spite of the rocket-bomb attacks, and this itself contributes to victory, because the HAMAS enemy wanted to see us cringing and panicking leading to disruption of society. It is important to note that Islam teaches that Jews are supposedly cowards (due to our abhorrence of bloodshed, something Muslims seem to feel differently about, as we see in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Algeria, Yemen, etc) and this is taught in the Qur’an. The shameful unilateral flight from the Arabs supposedly “tough” Israeli generals like Rabin, Sharon and Barak forced on us, seemingly confirmed this belief which strengthened the radical Islamic movements we faced such as HIZBULLAH and HAMAS. This most recent operation should go a long way to erasing that view and will cause disillusionment among the Arab population with the Islmaist dictators ruling them. Of course, real change will take time but this is a good start.
    Finally, religious soldiers have become very visible and the media has given extensive coverage to them and their beliefs.
    Many people, including very knowledgable ones have been saying that “HAMAS are fanatics, they want to die so we can’t defeat them”. WRONG! The most fanatical soldiers in the Second World War were the Japanese but they lost. The best soldiers man-for-man in the 20th century were the Germans but they lost twice. Fanaticism doesn’t win wars and soldiers wanting to die are not GOOD soldiers. A good soldier wants to carry out his mission and to capture his objective, not to give his life up gloriously. Wars are won with intelligence, perseverence, belief in one’s cause, superior technology and organization, carried out by motivated soldiers. We have proven we have that. Thus, we need to keep our eye on the big picture, to realize that our Islamic enemies are destroying themselves and to keep the faith.

  3. Raymond says:

    The unity shown by our Jewish people has been phenomenal. In fact, it seems so natural, that one wonders why it cannot always be that way. Also worth contemplating, is that only around 5% of all the casualties in this war, have been Jewish. And of course, so many countless Jewish lives that would have been lost in the near future, have also been saved, thanks to all those tunnels that Israel destroyed. Even some Arab countries, such as Egypt, seemed to sympathize with our cause. So in all of those ways, the results of this war has definitely been overwhelmingly positive.

    Having said that, I also feel frustrated over Israel pulling out of Gaza when it did. Why expend all that military effort, with the lives of dozens of Jews killed in battle, when Israel has not even finished the job? From what I understand, about a third of Hamas’ missiles continue to be intact and operational. Many of the tunnels were only partially destroyed. Many of the top Hamas leaders, were not killed by Israel, even though Israel could have done so in several situations. Frankly, if I had been in charge, I would have ordered the Israeli military to do to Gaza, what American Civil War General William T Sherman did to the city of Atlanta: He leveled it. This is what we must do to Hamas and all other islamofascist terrorist groups, for there is no doubt in my mind that such groups are really Amalek.

  4. Ben Bradley says:

    Thankfully though, Raymond, you weren’t in charge. Examples from the American Civil War are, quite obviously, utterly irrelevant given the lack of any parallel with the current conflict. An armchair general helpfully suggesting a radical military solution from a safe distance of several thousand miles, with no first hand access whatsoever to relevant intelligence, is exactly what we don’t need, thanks.

    As for the Amalek reference, your comments frequently include protestations of your lack of Jewish scholarship. I claim no greater scholarship but surely it’s obvious that proclomations about who and what is or is not Amalek should be left to those with requsite scholarship? Particularly when accompanied by advocacy for total war?
    Please.

  5. cvmay says:

    Thank you for a positive and uplifting article.

    Battles & wars have shifted from the fighting grounds to the Media arena. With facebook, twitter, IPhones handy…news is delegated to the quickest mic, keyboard or send button. The upsurge and increase in Pro – Palestinian rallies and demonstrations is a quick indicator where the moral compass of society has descended. BDS is strong and we will be hearing a lot about Israeli/Jewish boycotts. Be ready to defend, respond and react to anti – Israel behavior and sentiment. Let’s us be pro-active for Jewish rights and leave the rest in the hands of the Almighty.

  6. Toby Katz says:

    “The Charedim were calling the National Religious Amalekites, while the rest of the nation attacked them as extremists. The Charedim were looked at as corrupt parasites.”

    It would have been more accurate to write it this way:

    “The charedim were being vilified as corrupt parasites, in a wild national drumbeat of hatred whipped up by the secular media and joined in even by some National Religious, while one single charedi rabbi called the National Reliigious Amelekites. Even though some NR tried to curry favor with the secular by joining in their vilification of charedim, the secular media also drummed up hatred against the National Religious and against the ‘settlers’ — overlapping sets — calling all of them ‘obstacles to peace.'” That would have been a more accurate way to state the case.

    Today we are seeing a terrifying upwelling of world-wide hatred against Israel — even though its army is the most humane and the most moral army in the world. It seems clear to me that this kind of hatred against Israael (and of course against Jews in general) is given wings, in a midah keneged midah way, when Jews hate each other, and especially when vicious hatred is instigated by the Israeli media against the bnai Torah of both the National Religious and especially the charedi communities.

  7. Bob Miller says:

    Let’s say an entity that was defeated militarily, but not totally and without significant personal damage to its ruling clique, can hope to make up its material losses through aid by major world nations. Let’s say that its psychological war aim of stirring up worldwide hatred against its antagonist has been very successful overall. In what way does the preceding not describe Hamas in Gaza? Beyond that, the major nations once again found a way to prevent Israel from fighting to total victory in the normal sense.

    Everyone has seen how the military actions against Hezbollah in Lebanon had no long-term effect; it’s better-armed now than ever before.

    The only way Israel’s “victory” over Hamas can have some real meaning is if Israeli society doesn’t break up again into bickering, and Egypt now mops up Hamas from its side of Gaza in a sustained way.

  8. Y. Ben-David says:

    Bob Miller-
    These terrorist organizations can not exist without public support. HAMAS’s regime in Gaza is based on terror and corruption. That is not to say that the Gaza population doesn’t support them, but in the Arab world, public opinion goes after the “strong horse”, i.e. those who are seen to be winning. Even Egypt’s Nasser, who was probably the most popular Arab world in modern times, lost much of his lustre after his devastating defeat in the Six-Day War. It is true he wasn’t overthrown and his supposed offer to resign was met with large demonstrations which called for him to retract it (and which may have been orchestrated by the ruling political clique) but his power was ebbing away and there are even theories he was poisoned. Sadat later pointedly broke with Nasser’s policies and even signed a peace agreement with Israel.

    Even HIZBULLAH has been very cautious since the 2006 war and is now involved with a debilitating war with the Sunni extremists. The thrashing they took in 2006 no doubt had at least some influence on those who are willing to challenge them, even if they are big as enemies of Israel as HIZBUALLH itself.

    It is important to keep an eye on the big picture. The 30 Years War in Europe (1618-1648) started out as a Catholic-Protestant conflict even though it later degenerated into an incoherent slaughter. Something like 1/3 of the population of Germany died in that war. Its consequence was to lead with a general disgust with political Christianity and it brought about secularization and the increasing move towards separation of religion and State. I am convinced this fratricidal slaughter we are seeing among these various political Islamic movement will lead towards a general feeling of disgust among the Arab/Muslim populations of the Middle East towards Islam in general and this could make some sort of Arab-Israeli modus-vivendi more likely. We may even be seeing the beginning of this already, although it may takes decades, as it did in Europe.

  9. Meir Goldberg says:

    Great to hear positive news. I guess it is expecting too much for there to be a recognition of the open miracles and the Yad Hashem that we witnessed. But at least there is achdus. Hopefully soon, the entire nation with all of our brothers and sisters will return to our Father.

  10. lacosta says:

    rebbetzin katz ‘s comments indicate correctly that the lull in fighting [ between haredim and DL ] is like the lull in fighting [between Israel and Arabs] —- a temporary respite between the unending eternal life struggle between diametrically opposed world views , with neither side respecting the other—with one major difference: there will not be bloodshed in the fight amongst the jews…

    when we fast 12 months from now we will no doubt still point fingers….

  11. Steve Brizel says:

    The scenes of Achdus ranged from the amazing Chesed of the Charedi community to the Mesiras Nefesh of the Chayalim to the Viduim of such members of the left that the presence of the tunnels presented a clear and present danger to the entire populace of the State of Israel. Sometimes, it takes a national tragedy to remind us that we are all in the same lifeboat, even if we disagree on the course of the boat to a safe harbor.

  12. cvmay says:

    Meir,
    It seems as if you have missed the talk of “Yad Hashem” and the rendition of miracles and wonders that many writers, residents and chayalim have spoken of. The mantra of “Kochi Votzem Yadi” was buried in the rubble of Lebanon and everyone has recognized that MIGHT doesn’t win the FIGHT.
    Colonel of Givati, Ofir Winter began his operation with requests for tefillah and davened for hatzlacha from hashem. More soldiers than ever before registered with the Shmira Project, wanting an individual to daven and learn for their zechus. Realizing that this battle was a Milchemes Mitzvah fortified the nation to go way beyond their comfort zone.

  13. YM Goldstein says:

    Toby Katz, please write a full blog post.

  14. YM Goldstein says:

    I would really like to know what Rav Chaim K. or Rav Aharon Leib S. recommend as Israel’s short, medium and long term strategies for dealing with the Palestinians (and fellow commentators, I don’t want to know what you think their advice would be).

  15. cvmay says:

    Meir,
    It seems as if you have missed the talk of “Yad Hashem” and the rendition of miracles and wonders that many writers, residents and chayalim have spoken of. The mantra of “Kochi Votzem Yadi” was buried in the rubble of Lebanon and everyone has recognized that MIGHT doesn’t win the FIGHT.
    Colonel of Givati, Ofir Winter began his operation with requests for tefillah and davened for hatzlacha from hashem. More soldiers than ever before registered with the Shmira Project, wanting an individual to daven and learn for their zechus. Realizing that this battle was a Milchemes Mitzvah fortified the nation to go way beyond their comfort zone.

  16. Yisrael Asper says:

    Toby Katz:”“The Charedim were calling the National Religious Amalekites, while the rest of the nation attacked them as extremists. The Charedim were looked at as corrupt parasites.”

    It would have been more accurate to write it this way:

    “The charedim were being vilified as corrupt parasites, in a wild national drumbeat of hatred whipped up by the secular media and joined in even by some National Religious, while one single charedi rabbi called the National Reliigious Amelekites.”

    To then go and complain about the distortions of the media and the AntiSemites should cause for such Jews a déjà vu as they know precisely how to to do the same thing the AntiSemites are doing:distort,and leave no room for defense. AntiSemites would then use such talk against all Jews. Such Jews have no right to complain about AntiSemitism or to claim they think of all Jews. Enough of them and Hashem will exile us from Israel as a punishment G-d forbid. It happened before.

  17. Wolfman says:

    General Sherman leveled a city that no longer posed a military threat. He terrorized a civilian population to force surrender. He repeated his Atlanta feat by burning Columbia SC and blaming the confederate army. Try finding a better role model.

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