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Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen

According to the IDF, to defend itself, Israel needs to control the entire area from the Jordan River to the Samarian hills to the west.
Having the audacity to use force, especially in a situation that hovers on the very real threshold of war, entails the risk of escalation, but also the potential to give Israel a prominent role in the crystallizing anti-Iran regional coalition.
The accumulation of threats that Israel faces and the fact these threats can emerge on multiple fronts simultaneously require both the IDF and the homefront to brace for the unexpected.
We need to aspire to an existence in the whole land of our forefathers—in all its fields and open spaces, not just in our gated “villas in the jungle.”
The rejection by Israeli intellectuals of the Jewish spiritual and political activism exemplified by the preaching and actions of Rabbi Akiva runs counter to the thinking of David Ben-Gurion.
The messianic aspects of Zionism and the project of building Israeli communities in the West Bank were not born in 1967.
We must not transform the Zionist dream into nothing more than a desire for a safe haven for persecuted Jews.
At this strategic watershed moment, the policy that has guided the Netanyahu government for the past decade—that it is in Israel’s interest for Hamas to remain in control in Gaza—becomes clearer.
When former security officials justify far-reaching territorial concessions “because the preservation of certain values overrides the importance of land,” they do so from a clear political vantage point.
Surrender to a potentially hostile Palestinian state would make the defense of the Israeli hinterland virtually impossible.
Israel has laid out three goals it wants to achieve in Syria: stopping the development of the terrorist front on the Golan Heights; preventing Iranian military entrenchment in Syria; and preventing Hezbollah and Iranian forces from arming themselves with long-range weapons.
Israel’s attitude towards its presence in a temporary space—an attitude that has us waiting for an agreement and eventual withdrawal—is what gives hope to terrorism.