https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20728/can-israel-win-by-winning
A week before the October 7 Hamas assault on Israel, Daniel Pipes, a longtime respected foreign policy expert, a former board member of the United States Institute of Peace and the president of the Middle East Forum, had turned in his manuscript for his new book.
What emerged in the final months of 2023 was Israel Victory: How Zionists Win Acceptance and Palestinians Get Liberated. The foundational thesis of Pipes’ work, that Israel had spent far too much conciliating the Islamic terrorist groups that dominate Gaza and the West Bank, offering them the promise of peace and prosperity, emerged from the rubble more relevant than ever.
“Israeli leaders seek to improve Palestinian economic welfare: I call this the policy of enrichment,” Pipes writes in Israel Victory, criticizing Israel for not adopting “the universal tactic of depriving an economy of resources, but on the opposite one of helping Palestinians to develop economically.”
The quintessential liberal fallacy also at the root of America’s failures in the War on Terror held that wars were fought against regimes, not people. Even when Israel achieved its victories on the battlefield, it still believed that peace would come through mutual prosperity and befriending foes. This vision is alien to the region and rather than bringing peace has only perpetuated generations of war.
In the months before Oct 7, Arab Muslim workers from Gaza were allowed in increasing numbers to work in Israel. And in the months since Oct 7, Israel, under political pressure, has flooded Gaza with aid. The pre-10/7 appeasement failed to prevent the massacres, rapes and kidnappings and the post-10/7 benevolence only convinced Muslims in Gaza they would win.
Israel Victory contends that Israel can’t win through conciliation, it can only win by winning and that furthermore, victory is ultimately the best possible outcome for both sides. Israel’s reticence to achieve a conclusive and decisive victory, and then to act like winners infused generations of Arab Muslims living in the West Bank and Gaza with the conviction that they can destroy Israel if they transform their societies into killing machines and turn over political power to terrorists.
It is as if instead of defeating Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan, the Allies had left a core regime and population intact and free to plot war for another 50 years. That is what happened in Israel.