Pacifying a warrior society
In the run-up to Israel’s plan to eliminate Hamas from the Gaza strip, there are, once again, extended discussions about collateral damage. That is, the number of non-combatant civilians in Gaza who will lose their lives as a result of the fighting and the immorality of it all. Too often those discussions are cast in the framework of proportionality which is a red herring that clearly distracts from the core issues at hand.
The real issue is how to change a warrior society like Hamas’s into a society that values life and becomes a constructive member of the community of nations?
We need only look at some historical examples to get the answer.
The short answer is that to pacify a warrior society it first needs to be destroyed or understand that if it does not change it will be destroyed.
The most recent historical examples are those of World War II. Both Germany and Japan were warrior nations bent on using their power to wage war in the hope that they would end up victorious and in control.
How did the allied powers finally win the battle? Certainly not by years of brutal war in Europe and the South Pacific with the attendant loss of so
many lives on both sides of the conflict. Not at all. At one point in time the political or military leadership, or some combination of both, made the decision that, no matter the loss of civilian lives, full destruction was the only answer.
In Europe, in four raids between February 13-15 1945, 772 heavy bombers of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and 527 of the United States Army Air
Forces (USAAF) dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the German city of Dresden. The bombing and the resulting firestorm destroyed more than 6.2km² of the city center. Up to 25,000 people were killed. Three more USAAF air raids followed, two occurring on March 2, aimed at the city’s railway marshaling yard and one smaller raid on April 17
aimed at industrial areas.
Germany then realized that they had lost the war and two months later, on May 7, they surrendered to the Allies.
After the war, the victors worked to rebuild the country, laying the foundation for what it is today: a thriving economic engine that has set the pace for most of the European continent, coupled with a very limited military capability.
A similar situation played
out in the Pacific theater with the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima (on August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki on August 9, flattening both cities. The bombs killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people and the Japanese surrendered a week later on August 15.
The victors, as in Europe, helped rebuild Japan into what it became, a leading industrial power in east Asia with a pacifist outlook on the world.
WE JEWS were also a warrior nation during the time prior to the destruction of the Temples. We don’t like to talk about it a lot, but the evidence is clear and acknowledged. The destruction of the Second Temple and the laying waste of the area, known then as Syria Palestina (centuries before Islam), by the Romans neutralized the warrior aspect of our society.
It took 2,000 years for us to regain our sovereignty and become a contributory member of the community of nations.
The rest is history as we became a technological power with military and economic strength as well.
It is ironic of course, that in Rome’s recent desire to show their solidarity with Israel after the Hamas attack of October 7, they chose to do so by lighting up the Arch of Titus and focusing on the menorah (seven-branched candelabrum) engraved at its top, which depicts the plunder of Jerusalem. Someone there did not know their history very well, for sure.
And that brings us to Hamas and Gaza. Using the lessons of history to eliminate Hamas and neutralize the warrior nation aspect of that society, we may have no alternative but to destroy it, even though many civilians may be caught in the crossfire. It may be that only then will our enemies learn the history lesson from us that has elude them until now.
History has shown that often, for a society to be rebuilt it first has to be destroyed as there may be no other way to pluck out the cancer that is the warrior tendency.
And for those who may argue that there is no proof that Hamas is a warrior society, one only has to look at the events of October 7, where there was no true military objective, no hope of really gaining control of Israel, no hope of securing a strategic advantage: There was only one goal, to kill as many Jews as possible. Sadly for us, they did that very well, but the price they will need to pay will be very high.
Former US president John F. Kennedy once said: “War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.”
May it be soon.
The writer has lived in Israel for 40 years and is CEO of Atid EDI Ltd., an international business development consultancy. He is also the founder and chair of the American State Offices Association, former national president of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel (AACI), and a past chairperson of the board of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies.