War-Weariness Takes Hold in Israel

The last 12 months have been a chamber of horrors for the Jewish state.

It was only last summer that Israel undertook the painful project of forcibly evacuating the Jewish presence from the Gaza Strip. In return for gifting the Palestinians their first completely sovereign territory, Israelis were treated to the sight of Palestinian terrorist rallies and marches of celebration and victory, with masked gunmen firing guns into the air and burning Israeli and American flags; Islamic Jihad floated 50 boats off the Gaza coast filled with militants wielding assault rifles, rocket-launchers and Palestinian flags. Spokesmen for the different groups made clear their commitment not to disarm but rather to move their armed struggle against Israel to Jerusalem.

Just months later, the entire political scene in the region flipped on its head. In January, Israel’s government was thrown into disarray when the nation’s stalwart leader, Ariel Sharon, suffered a massive stroke. His vacant position was filled by Ehud (“we are tired of fighting, tired of winning“) Olmert. The same month, the terrorist group Hamas (“jihad is our path and dying as martyrs for the sake of Allah is our biggest wish”) was elected to be the political voice of Palestinians.

Ashes from that political explosion have continued to settle on the landscape ever since. The government continued to deal with threats from Palestinian suicide bombers, who combusted themselves in Israel’s streets and residential areas. Gaza, flooded with terrorist weapons and manpower since Israel vacated, has served as a staging ground for Palestinian terrorist groups and a launching pad for their rockets. And in the background, through it all, has been the voice of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, issuing weekly or daily pronouncements about wiping Israel out or moving it to Europe, about overrunning Israel and the U.S. with tens of thousands of martyrs, about supplying his countrymen with nuclear technology that could easily become nuclear weapons, about hastening cataclysmic world war in order to bring about the return of the messiah of Islam.

How can such a crushing litany of crises not take its toll on a nation’s outlook—even its will to survive? In March, a study showed 63 percent of Israelis willing to give up parts of Jerusalem in exchange for “real peace” with the Palestinians—with 75 percent of those open to such concessions admitting that real peace with Palestinians is impossible. Apparently war-weariness and simple logic don’t coexist easily.

As Israel jadedly hoped for an end to the trouble, Israel’s enemies took this as their cue to ramp up its troubles even more. On July 12, Iran unleashed Hezbollah. The terrorist group, camped out on Israel’s northern frontier, captured two Israeli soldiers and ignited a rocket campaign against towns and cities in northern Israel that put over 300,000 Israeli citizens to flight southward. As Israel’s military retaliated, it soon began to receive the ire of the international community (“disproportionate!”). Meanwhile, the fact quickly became painfully clear that Hezbollah had thought this thing through before starting a war: While the terrorists rained over 4,000 rockets on Israel over the next 30 days, their bunkered positions and civilian shields neutralized the effectiveness of Israel’s air strikes, necessitating a ground war that was exactly what Prime Minister Olmert had hoped to avoid. Apparently Hezbollah had been taking notes during his “we are tired of winning” speech and had sought a way to indulge him with an opportunity to experience losing.

This is the type of crisis that, alone, would stretch thin the resources and capabilities of any government. Trouble is, Israel is dealing with a whole handful of such crises!

A month into the war, cracks in Israel’s unity and resolve began to show. Voices of protest over the ground campaign began to emerge from leading intellectuals and politicians; the numbers at anti-war protests started to swell. As Israeli casualities mounted and images of bloodied and dirty soldiers saturated Israel media’s reporting on the war, it became more apparent that many Israelis are simply tired of the fighting. Despite Israel’s successes, reported the Chicago Tribune, “there is little sense of accomplishment in Israel” (August 11).

Israel has faced several crisis since its inception as a state in 1948, but never so many serious crises simultaneously. Israeli leaders and citizens simply cannot continue to operate under such pressure without the onset of severe political and mental fatigue—which gives birth to other problems such as disunity, lack of willpower and internal conflicts.

We should also consider the impact of this prolonged and gritty war on Israel’s military. Though it is accustomed to fighting quick, focused and high-impact wars, in this case—assuming the cease-fire fails, which it surely will—Israel is having to fight a cumbersome, protracted, high-casuality war. By drawing Israeli soldiers into a gritty, hand-to-hand guerrilla engagement, Hezbollah has not only taxed the mental and physical health of thousands of Israeli soldiers, it has forced the repositioning of Israeli soldiers and kept Israel’s military planners off balance.

Last week, with the crisis mounting, Israel Insider reported that “[r]elations between the country’s political and military leadership are at the lowest point in the country’s history” (August 9, emphasis ours). In addition, the article reported that there is a “growing lack of confidence” between the leadership of Israeli ground forces and the general staff. Some analysts believe that, Olmert’s boasting over Israel’s “victory” notwithstanding, this war has been sufficiently botched that the prime minister’s days in office are already numbered.

Meanwhile, inside the nation, the Israeli military remains locked in conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip—and is having to become ever more vigilant in its lookout for Palestinian terrorist groups as they seek to possibly open a third front for Israel.

This tiny nation cannot indefinitely sustain such a high level of energy and commitment to a conflict that is so broad. Hamas is pressuring from Gaza; Hezbollah is pushing from Lebanon; Palestinian terrorist groups are threatening large-scale attacks from the West Bank. With soldiers scattered all over the country, disunity between the government and military establishments, and numerous crisis erupting, Israel finds itself in an increasingly vulnerable position.

How long before it is forced to capitulate in at least one of these theaters of war?

And further: Consider Israel’s ability to respond militarily if another crisis erupted right now. What would it do if Iran or Syria decided to go on the offensive?

Truly, Hezbollah’s rockets have achieved much for the forces of Islamist extremism. They have chipped away at the willpower and political, mental and physical fortitude of the Israeli government, military and people! Fatigue and its progeny of problems are already beginning to plague the Jewish state.

As political and military exhaustion set in, watch for Hezbollah, its friends the Palestinian terrorist groups and especially Iran to seize the moment. The more exhausted Israel becomes, the more energized and excited its enemies grow.

These facts call to mind a curse God pronounced on the biblical nation of Israel when it disobeyed Him—a declaration that equally applies today to the modern descendants of that nation, with which the little nation today called Israel will share the same fate. God warned, “And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. And I will break the pride of your power … And your strength shall be spent in vain” (Leviticus 26:18-20).

More about Israel’s future can be found in our free booklet Jerusalem in Prophecy.