Unsettled Business from Six Months of War

After six months of fighting, here’s what we’ve learned

Israel’s citizenry, the IDF, and even the political echelon have demonstrated remarkable resilience during six months of warfare along multiple fronts. Much has been accomplished to make Israel a safer and stronger country, but the road ahead is strewn with obstacles. Here are a handful of issues that politicians, military leaders, and even private citizens will be grappling with.

Even before the October 7 massacres, Israel and Hamas had fought five major battles after the IDF’s 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and evacuation of 9,000 Jewish residents. The IDF and Hezbollah also squared off in 2006 in the monthlong campaign known as the Second Lebanon War.

All of the clashes proved indecisive, contends Col. (res.) Shay Shabtai, deputy director of the Begin-Sadat Center, because Israel settled for a limited goal of “restoring deterrence.” The barbarity of the October 7 sneak attack forced Israel to drop its deterrence doctrine, but six months of fighting has not brought Israel anywhere near a grand victory, which Shabtai defines as one that ends in a formal peace treaty and/or the total dissolution of terror groups.

Shabtai contends that Israel’s new goal is somewhere in between, namely a “strategic victory.” This would require ongoing IDF military operations against Hamas while working to weaken its grip on the Gaza population and inhibit its ability to rearm, recruit, and train the next generation of terrorists, but these won’t lead to any long-term fundamental change on the ground. If his analysis is correct, strategic victory is just one more limited goal. It comes across as disappointing after the sacrifices Israel has made, and the beating it has taken in world opinion.

Not a day goes by without some player in the international community, mainly the United States, pressuring the Netanyahu government to announce a “day after” plan for Gaza — one to their liking, of course. But how about devising a day-after plan for Israelis displaced and, in some cases, bankrupted by the war?