The assassination of three senior Islamic Jihad terrorists is a welcome change of tactics against those who incessantly fire rockets on Israel’s south.
Named “Shield and Arrow,” this latest operation appears to be in response to over 100 missiles fired at Israel the previous week.
It is hoped that this is just the opening gambit in a much wider operation.
The Israeli military and political hierarchy should look further than the most recent skirmish and see the wider war, with a fuller understanding of the long-term battle it can initiate, and respond accordingly.
It is important to understand that Israel is not at war with Islamic Jihad.
Israel is at war with a genocidal Palestinian rejectionism that is over 100 years old and is now being bolstered and supported by outside actors like Iran and its proxies. Islamic Jihad is just a small part of the enemy’s military capabilities, maybe even the smallest.
Nevertheless, the battle lines that were drawn long before the State of Israel was established, remain.
Their goal is to defeat Israel, and Israel’s goals must be, in turn, to defeat its enemies.
Israel’s goal is victory, and thus it must use war as “a continuation of policy by other means,” as the famed Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz once wrote.
Israel’s enemies might fear its advanced weaponry, but they need to also fear Israel’s ability to use those weapons to crush them in a concerted manner.
This does not mean to push them back, place them on the defensive or, in today’s parlance, “mow the lawn.” The thing about mowing a lawn is the grass will eventually grow back.
“Mowing the lawn” means a lengthy battle of attrition; a war that will never end.
Israel must be more optimistic and more strategic in order to see how the war can be won, and how Israel can be the victor.
Israel needs to move away from sending messages –– militarily or diplomatically –– intended to advance towards a short-lived cease fire.
This has not worked for almost two decades and will only send hundreds of thousands of Israelis to their shelters or safe rooms for the foreseeable future.
Although Israel spends billions on its defense, deterrence is currently lacking.
Israel’s enemies might fear its advanced weaponry, but they need to also fear Israel’s ability to use those weapons to crush them in a concerted manner.
Israel needs to use all its tools available in an unpredictable manner. If not, its enemies only grow stronger and more emboldened.
Israel’s full response to this should not end with the killing of a few senior military operatives. It must be more powerful and paradigm-shifting.
Israel must send a clear message that anyone who participates in any way with a terrorist organization is a target.
The rules of the game must change in a shocking and surprising way. Israel needs to use the arrow first and then the shield, not the other way around.
The model must be the assassinations of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi in 2004. Neither held the weapons used to fire on Israel, but they stood a top of a genocidal terrorist pyramid that controlled the means of operation for war.
Israelis have lived for far too long in an absurd situation in which their enemies decide when the round of conflict begins, how long it lasts, and to what level it reaches.
Israel’s goal cannot be mere temporary peace and quiet.
Israel must have arrows not just permanently pointed at its enemies, on every level, but primed and ready. Its enemies should be shocked and surprised by their use, in both timing and ferociousness.
This is the way to defeat an enemy: by changing the paradigm.
Israel has the advanced military technology needed to defeat all its enemies in one fell swoop, but its enemies know the Jewish state’s calculations well and play within these rules to its disadvantage.
That is why Israel needs to change the rules and calculations. It needs to think through how to end the war and how to defeat its enemies.
Developments in the region are not in Israel’s favor, so it must act now.
Operation Shield and Arrow can be turned into something more strategically significant. It needs to be open-ended. It needs to focus more on the arrow than the shield. It needs to send a clear message that this is part of a new strategy to force Israel’s enemies, on all levels, into retreat and submission until their defeat becomes a reality.
