SEPTEMBER 16, 2025 – Israel’s IDF (or has it by now earned the label, “IWF,” for “Israeli War Force”?) is at it again. Strike that (pun fully intended). “The IDF (IWF) is at it still.
I just don’t “get it.” Well, okay, on one level, I understand some of the dynamics at play, particularly the ones that have nothing to do with the defeat of Hamas and everything to do with domestic Israeli politics and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s corruption, all but established judicially, and his evergreen “stay out of jail”—as long as Israel remains at war against Hamas. But though the nearly two-year-long crushing assault on Gaza satisfies Netanyahu’s personal agenda, I can’t see that it has served any objectively quantifiable interest of the state of Israel. The war certainly hasn’t brought all the hostages home, nor has it brought closure for the families of many of the hostages whose fates are unknown or remains have been withheld.
Make absolutely no mistake about it. The Hamas attack against Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023 was bad, wrong, and savage. It set back peace in the Middle East for the foreseeable future, and as events have unfolded at the command of the Israeli Government and the IDF (IWF), the October 7 attack did no favors for the cause of Palestinians. Except for Netanyahu’s “stay out of jail” card, which benefits only Netanyahu, I can’t see that any person or entity on either side of the violence has benefited or is likely to benefit from the Hamas attack or the Israeli response. Just the opposite: everyone (except Netanyahu, for the time being) is a loser.
It’s a race to the bottom. Hamas has been decimated. Its leadership has been wiped out and its credibility among its claimed constituency has been shattered. The Gazan Palestinians have lost their lives, their homes, pretty much anything resembling a normal life. The Israelis have doubtless created a generation of young enemies who, if they survive the ongoing massacre, will have nothing to lose by seeking vengeance against Israel. In addition, Israelis have lost their standing in the world. The plucky country is now an international pariah. Who knows how, when or if it will ever regain respectable stature. And the worst of it? Most of the world has forgotten the cruel spark that triggered the wholesale destruction of Gaza, and in uglier corners, the Israeli no-holds-barred tactics against Hamas with the immensely disproportionate collateral damage against ordinary Palestinians has stirred anti-Semitism yet again.
Israel, by the way, is a complicated country. It’s hardly a monolithic Jewish state. This fact is underscored in Thomas Friedman’s book, From Beirut to Jerusalem. Published 36 years ago. The work revealed—among many other fascinating aspects of the civil war in Lebanon and the intifada in Israel—that politically, Israel was as fractured as Italy. Moreover, the state was far from being 100% Jewish. An Arab minority was growing at a quickening pace. Furthermore, the percentage that was Jewish split in significant and politically consequential ways.
If anything, those differences are even greater today. A sizable percentage of Israelis oppose Netanyahu, just as a significant chunk of the American population disapproves of its current leader. Protesters here who vilify Israel in blanket fashion and express disdain for all things and all people Jewish need to be more discriminating in their indictments, just as critics of America need to distinguish between the current regime (and its supporters and enablers) and those of us who oppose it rigorously.
Judging by the images of frantic civilians fleeing the latest Israeli military onslaught against a backdrop of rubble without a single tree, plant or blade of grass, it’s hard to imagine what’s left of Gaza to destroy—at least that is above ground. Yet Netanyahu insists on continuing the war. Little coverage has been assigned to “what next’; what after Gaza and its people have been wholly smashed to bits? And at what staggering cost, subsidized by whom?
As to the role of the United States in ending the war—most particularly by exerting pressure on the Israeli Government—the current Administration lacks the will, the knowledge, the credibility, and the diplomatic chops. Neither the President nor the Secretary of State has a clue—just as neither has any idea on how to end Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, and the Administration is bereft of high-ranking officials with the requisite skill set or experience to broker a peace deal in either case. Moreover, our own standing in the world has taken a severe fall since January 20. We don’t and can’t command the influence we once had.
Although every episode inside an epic has inescapable historical connections, to make any progress whatsoever in the interest of peace, justice and harmony, we cannot battle in perpetuity, the wars, injustices and disharmonies of the past. Not in Ukraine, not in the Balkans, not on the Indian Subcontinent . . . not in the America . . . and not in the Middle East. This is not to suggest that the history of each of these troubled areas must be forgotten. Quite the opposite. It must be read, learned, discussed, and above all, acknowledged. That includes the injustices committed at one time or another, by all players across the stage of history. The attempt to right all the wrongs of the past, however, is to embark on the proverbial fool’s errand—guaranteed to fail, at best, and likely to fan the flames into a conflagration, at worst. Instead, for starters, anyway, we must “do no harm”; not allow matters to become worse than they already are.
We Americans who are horrified by what’s happened and still happening in Gaza, just as we must condemn irrevocably the Hamas attacks that triggered the violence, must not let our domestic politics divert our attention from Israel’s intransigence. It’s up to the United States to exert the long-over-due pressure on its ally—thus saving Israel from itself.
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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
