For decades, writing about the political activities of the entrenched elites in Israel has been a no-go zone. Drawing attention to the agenda of this group has been out of bounds. But gradually and unavoidably, it has become an accepted subject of public discourse as a well-organized vocal minority has been systematically targeting the unity of Israeli society to destabilize and overthrow the legally elected government.
This political and social assault has effectively become the eighth front in Israel’s existential war. We can no longer ignore the danger posed by this group. We must understand the strategy of the other side and defeat it.
The approach of strategic defeatism dates back to World War I when the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, accepted the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which took the Russian Empire out of the war in March of 1918. The terms were draconian, with Russia losing several major territories, including Ukraine and Finland, but accepting defeat made it possible to save the Russian Revolution.
According to British historian John W. Wheeler-Bennett, “The battleground was that of social struggle, and therein frontiers mattered little in comparison with the fight of the proletarian versus the capitalist … . ‘He is no Socialist,’ wrote Lenin in an open letter to American workers, ‘who does not understand that the victory over the bourgeoisie may require losses of territory and defeats. He is no Socialist who will not sacrifice his fatherland for the triumph of the social revolution.’ ”
Beyond the immediate strategy of defeatism, Lenin also advocated the tactic of exploiting existing sources of discontent. He wrote: “Our task is to utilize every manifestation of discontent, and to gather and turn to the best account every protest, however small.”
While the redemption of our hostages still in Gaza has great merit and is one of the main goals of our war, the adversaries of Israel’s legally elected government have used the genuine grief of the hostage families and Israeli society at large as a political weapon.
On April 10, nearly 1,000 reserve pilots and air-force staff published a petition, “A call for the return of all the kidnapped hostages, even at the price of ending the hostilities!”
It said in part, “We, the team of fighters of the air force, in the reserves and retired, demand the return of the kidnapped [hostages] without delay … . End the fighting and return all the kidnapped [persons]—now! Every day that goes by endangers their lives. Every extra moment of hesitation is a disgrace.”
Implementation of this plan by the government would mean accepting national defeat. It was reported that 60 of the signatories were in active reserves, but most of the 1,000 were veterans and no longer in service, while a small number of signatories were unidentified.
Before the publication of this petition, on April 8, The Jerusalem Post quoted the KAN News as saying that the Israel Defense Forces’ Air Force commander, Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar was troubled by one paragraph of the petition in particular, which said, “At this time, the war serves mainly political interests and not security interests. Continuing the war does not contribute to any of Israel’s stated war goals and will lead to the deaths of the hostages, IDF soldiers and innocent civilians.”
Bar objected to this defeatist message, which accused the government of duplicity and bad faith.
The Times of Israel gave the background to the petition and the official response as follows: “After its publication, Commander Tomer Bar, along with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, moved to dismiss the active reservists who signed the letter, with the IDF saying that it has no issue with reservists protesting any matter in their civilian lives, as [long as] they do it without using the name of the military or their role.”
Specifically, they objected to the use of the “air force” brand for political protest.
We must ask who really orchestrated this political initiative, as well as others. Who drafted this letter? And who paid for it? Despite the fact that the signatories of this letter claim to be retired Israel Air Force staff and reservists, its real purpose was to promote defeatism by undermining public trust in the government in time of war.
Furthermore, the petition was not an isolated event. On April 14, The Jerusalem Post reported that 1,790 graduates of the elite Talpiot intelligence program published a letter in support of the IAF reservists’ petition, and, separately, 250 doctors in the reserves joined them.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s initial public reaction was to declare that the letter came from a noisy fringe group whose only aim is to topple the government. Israel Aumann, a Nobel Laureate professor, stated that this act will increase the price that Israel will have to pay for the hostages, and Mordechai Kedar, a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, said that this declaration of weakness is a gift to Israel’s enemies in the Arab world.
In short, the strategy of defeatism undermines the national consensus within Israel and degrades the prestige of the Israeli brand abroad, and will not help to bring the hostages back home.