Since the October 7, 2023 massacre and Israel’s response there has been much talk in Israel about ‘victory.’ Signs demanding victory and stating that ‘Together we will be victorious’ were everywhere throughout Israel in the months immediately after the massacre. Politicians stated that the aims of the war were to eliminate Hamas and to obtain return of the hostages. Who, however, knows whether a hostage deal will make that victory unattainable. But the serious and thoughtful scholar of Middle Eastern affairs, Daniel Pipes has a broader view of what victory means and what Israel victory would look like than merely solving the immediate problem. In his latest book, Israel Victory: How Zionists Win Acceptance and Palestinians Are Liberated Pipes J(Wicked Son Books, 2024) he reviews the history of Arab-Israel relations, shows that Israel has been misguided about the means and goals of victory and suggests pathways to victory for Israel. At the heart of the problem is the fact that for over one hundred years the parties have had significantly different ideologies. The Arab ideology, inherited from the Arabs’ mentor, al-Husseini, the Hitler-supporting murderous Mufti of Jerusalem in the 1920s.1930s and 1940s, is complete and genocidal rejectionism of Israel and of Jews. The Arab position is that there shall be no Jewish state in the Middle East. That rejectionism is manifested as an unwillingness to accept the State of Israel as a fact and the willingness to attack, undermine, disrupt and, of course, murder Jews towards the goal of eliminating Israel and Jews from the Middle East. From the 1920s to 1948 that rejectionism was exhibited in hate-filled words and in murderous deeds by the Arabs of Israel. Islam does not inherently value the land of Israel or Jerusalem, but only values those places to the extent that the Jews have possession of them. From Israeli statehood in 1948 to the 1990s that rejectionist agenda was advanced by the surrounding states, particularly Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq in their wars against Israel. When the surrounding states lost hope of defeating Israel on the battlefield and found the costs of conventional war too high Egypt and Jordan made their ‘cold peace’ with Israel and the other Arab states largely withdrew from the field except to denigrate and slander Israel. Since the 1990s the funding and support for Arab rejectionism has come from other places but the violence has come from the Arabs who call themselves ‘Palestinians.’ At the same time that the Palestinian Arabs have been complete rejectionists Israeli governments-both on the left and on the right- have been conciliatory. Conciliation is manifested as placating the Palestinian Arabs by giving them concessions they want such as the awful Oslo Accords and the Palestinian Authority, by unilateral withdrawals as from Gaza and enriching them by giving money to the Palestinian Authority and free electricity to Gaza. The problem with conciliation and enrichment, says Pipes, is that it causes Arabs to believe that they will eventually reach their goal of destroying Israel. Concessions encourage them. They see Israeli conciliation as weakness by Israel and advancement of their cause. Conciliation gives them hope that more concessions will be obtained and motivates them to continue their destructive path of rejectionism. Israeli conciliation not only feeds Arab hope but is also dispirits Israelis, sometimes making them feel that there has been no movement towards a long-term resolution. The Palestinian Arab position that if they just keep pushing they will get what they want-elimination of the state of Israel- combined with Israeli conciliation fuels the continuing conflict and traps Arabs in a cycle of rejectionism and violence. History teaches that negotiation and conciliation only work after one side has achieved victory and the other side has been defeated. Victory means that one side gives up the ideas and ideology that led to the conflict. The last time the United States, for instance, achieved victory in any conflict was in World War Two. As a result of the Allied victory Germany gave up its supremacist ideology that it should conquer and rule all of Europe. Japanese defeat meant Japan no longer sought to rule all of eastern and southern Asia. In victory the Allies, led by the United States, were able to impose a new set of beliefs on defeated and demoralized Germany and Japan. As a result of the negotiations and conciliation that occurred only after the Allied victory , Germany and Japan were rebuilt as prosperous democratic nations. They became responsible members of the world community. What was necessary to effect their transformation from expansionist rogue states to responsible governments was their defeat and the Allies’ victory. Although it is clear that victory by one party and defeat of the other ends disputes by causing the abandonment of noxious ideologies and aims, the world has become more squeamish about victory and defeat. The modern ethos is to look for negotiated resolutions. Many of those are a sham and not really a win for anyone but only an unhappy compromise for the sake of peace or for the sake of compromise itself. Those kinds of compromises only last until the parties have rested and re-armed. Pipes sees the path to a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict in Israel obtaining victory. Since victory occurs when the enemy abandons its ideology and goals, Israel has to help the Palestinians reach that result. Israel has spent too little effort changing the minds and the attitudes Arabs and too much time and treasure conciliating and enriching them. Israel uses its ‘public diplomacy’ outside Israel but ignores the Arabs in Israel, Judea, Samaria and Gaza, treating them like incorrigible children who cannot possibly reform. Will it be any more difficult to change their minds than it was to change the minds of the Germans and Japanese? Jerusalem, says Pipes “cannot unilaterally end the dismal sequence of aggression and retribution but can relegate it to a sideshow. It can initiate its own program to convince Palestinians that their campaign is hopeless and unnecessary, that Israel is strong and benign” and that their lives will be much better when they accept the State of Israel as a fact. It means “no more enrichment for goodwill, placation seeking quiet, delusions of compromise, dreamy offers of cooperation, lopsided collaborations, expressions of weariness, painful concessions or unilateral withdrawals.” It means acting like a military, not a police force. The path to victory includes extinguishing Palestinian Arab hope that they will eliminate Israel and their hope of killing or expelling all the Jews from the Middle East. It means demoralizing them by showing them that despite their ‘martyrdom’ they can never achieve their goals. The most important piece of victory is a Palestinian Arab change of heart-and that “should be Israel’s central war goal.” That means not just the end of the Palestinian campaign of delegitimization of Israel “but acknowledging definitely and unequivocally, fully and irrevocably, in deed as well as in word, consistently over a protracted period, the Jews’ historic ties to Jerusalem and the land of Israel” and recognition of the Jewish right to live in peace there. Along that path, Israel must eliminate both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, both of which are quasi-sovereign institutions which continually incite against Israel. Even the PA incites and funds “a wide range of low-level attacks on Israel.” The elimination of Palestinian Arab hope for success in their cause, the demand that they recognize and acknowledge Israel has to be a precondition to working with them for a prosperous future. This kind of defeat may be painful to achieve but it will liberate Palestinian Arabs from their counterproductive patterns of malice and violence and free them to become the prosperous and fulfilled people they can be. As examples of how things could change one might ask: What is Israel doing funding Arab schools in Israel that teach that Israel is illegitimate and a temporary phenomena that will be wiped out if Palestinians just continue to apply pressure? What is Israel doing funding the PA which always works against Israel’s interests except when rounding up security threats to itself who are also threats to Israel? Why isn’t Israel funding significant campaigns to convince Palestinian Arabs that their goals are unattainable and that co-operating with Israel in a meaningful way, not just superficially, is in their best interests? The changes Pipes suggests are not going to be easy or pleasant in the short run but they will lead to long-term peace in the same way that Allied victory in World War Two led to long term peace with Germany and Japan. He acknowledges that it might even take multiple generations to achieve this kind of victory. But we have had one hundred years of conciliatory policies that do not work. It is time to try something different. After victory the discussions of what comes next can occur, Until then, all other discussions about the final status of the Arabs in Israel are premature. Pipes is correct that over the long run Israel has been too conciliatory to the Arabs who call themselves ‘Palestinians’ and that Israel’s conciliation, combined with the meddling of other governments, the U.N. and NGO’s has prolonged the Arab-Israel conflict. He is also surely correct that a new approach is needed to end the wasteful cycle of Arab attacks and Israeli response and that the lives of the Arab population of Israel, Judea, Samaria and Gaza will be improved when they acknowledge Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. He recognizes that his suggestions are incomplete and that there is more that can be done than merely the examples he gives. Pipes clearly wants both Israel and the Palestinian Arabs to have prosperous and fulfilling lives but believes this can only be accomplished for the Palestinian Arabs after they have been defeated and Israel has obtained victory. It would be wonderful if every concerned Israeli and everyone who is even thinking about running for the Knesset would read and contemplate Israel Victory and would insist on Israel becoming more proactive in finally defeating the Arabs in their hundred-year war against Israel and the Jews of the Middle East. Pipes is very convincing that victory for Israel is the path to a lasting peace. Dr. Michael Krampner , a retired American trial lawyer, who also earned a Ph.D. In Jewish history, lives in Jerusalem where he is improving his Hebrew, learning traditional Jewish texts, reading widely on historical and political subjects and is engaged with family.
