Rosner’s Domain | Three Wartime Questions that Demand Answers

With a resumption of the Gaza war brewing, Israel is facing three questions that need urgent answers. First, what does Israel want? Not in the fantastical sense – not in the hope to realize a Trumpian dream to empty Gaza of its inhabitants and build a Riviera on the beach.

What does it want in terms of a realistic plan?

On Sunday, the cabinet unanimously approved plans to renew the military campaign in Gaza. It approved plans to intensify the fighting and expand the mobilization of reserve forces. Let’s suppose Israel enters Gaza for a ground maneuver. Let’s suppose that maneuver exceeds expectations. Then what? What happens on the day after?

One answer: All the hostages will be back home. That’s a good answer. An easy answer. A unifying answer. We all support this answer to “what,” even if opinions diverge on its place in the war’s broader hierarchy of goals.

Another answer: Hamas will no longer rule Gaza. Also an easy answer – but not as good. Because it leads directly to the next question: Who will rule Gaza instead? There’s a world of difference between a maneuver that ends with Gaza in someone else’s hands — which would require a follow-up question: whose hands? — and a maneuver that ends with Israel holding the territory. If Israel has an answer to this “what” question, it’s an answer kept hidden from the public. So much so that one might suspect that Israel doesn’t have an answer to this “what.” One suspects that the renewed maneuver is not driven by a defined outcome, but by the hope that maybe it will open up options that don’t currently exist.

After the “what,” the second question is “how.” As I write, there is no maneuver yet, and no clear reports about the scope, scale, or precise target areas. There are headlines. There are warnings. Israel is talking about widening the war. Israel is preparing to widen the war. It could still back out. It could all turn out to be a bluff. What hasn’t yet happened — hasn’t yet happened.

But suppose Israel goes back into Gaza with a full-scale ground incursion. Then the second question is not “how” in the tactical sense but “how” in the strategic sense. We’ve been in Gaza before and we know what was achieved and what wasn’t. Hamas was not toppled. Some of the hostages are still in Hamas’ hands. So how will this time be different? How will Israel do better?

We’ve been in Gaza before and we know what was achieved and what wasn’t. Hamas was not toppled. Some of the hostages are still in Hamas’ hands. So how will this time be different? How will Israel do better?

Stating objectives is easy: remove Hamas from power, return the hostages, achieve the goals that Israel has pursued for over a year and a half – with partial success. If the government has decided a renewed maneuver is necessary, it must believe it will succeed where the previous maneuver fell short. But it hasn’t managed to explain this to the public. Why would it work this time? “Why” is not a question to dodge when you’re asking tens of thousands of Israeli civilians to put on a uniform. “Why” is not a question to ignore when you’re demanding that tens of thousands of young Israelis risk their lives.

For now, no good answer is being offered, or at least not one that convinces.

The third question is “how much?” In one reserve unit I’m familiar with, many of the soldiers are students. Here’s how their academic year looks: first semester — two months absent. Second semester – three months absent. And no, this isn’t the most elite combat unit, nor the one that serves the longest or risks the most. There are others that serve more, and risk more. But these soldiers, too, deserve an answer to another question: “how much?”

At the beginning of the year, the IDF stated that reservists would serve roughly 70 days in 2025. That won’t hold. They’ll be called up for more. There aren’t enough soldiers. The army has no surplus manpower. Senior officers explain this to the politicians. The politicians mostly shrug.

What could be done? At least three things.

First — match the size of the mission to the size of the army. Yes, Israel has many plans, many ambitions. But it also has constraints. Manpower is one of them. You don’t launch an offensive without ammunition. You don’t maneuver without soldiers.

Second — act decisively to widen the recruitment base. Everyone in politics knows where more soldiers could be found — the ultra-Orthodox sector. Everyone in politics avoids doing what needs to be done to make these potential soldiers serve. Of course, you could argue that decisive action won’t solve the manpower crisis in time for this coming maneuver. True. But it would signal to the reservists that there’s light at the end of the tunnel. That maybe in a year or two, things will ease up.

Third — answer the “why” question. There is a link between “why” and “how much.” When the “why” is clear – as it was in the early days and weeks of the war – no one really raised the “how much” question because citizens understood that this wasn’t the time for calculations, but for mobilization. But once the “why” becomes murky, the “how much” follows right behind. And that, too, lacks a good answer — for now.

Something I wrote in Hebrew

When a fire eliminated many acres of forest last week, and some were blaming the government for not doing enough to prepare for such disasters, I wrote the following paragraph:

There’s a problem. A persistent one. It has to do with how states allocate resources to tasks like fire services — and no country has truly solved it. The problem is this: there’s no political reward for strengthening the firefighting system. If fire services are excellent and manage to prevent every blaze, then — simply — there are no fires. And if there are no fires, the public doesn’t talk about them, doesn’t think about them, and certainly doesn’t credit the politicians who made smart budgeting decisions years earlier. On the other hand, if a fire breaks out, it’s rare that you can draw a straight line from the fire to a particular leader and say: that’s the one responsible. It’s even rarer for such a leader to pay a real political price for what happened.

A week’s numbers

That’s why a new maneuver is socially complicated. 

A reader’s response

Chavi writes: “It’s time for Israel to wake up: The U.S. isn’t going to attack Iran.”. My response: Waking up is easy, deciding what to do next is not.

Shmuel Rosner is senior political editor. For more analysis of Israeli and international politics, visit Rosner’s Domain at jewishjournal.com/rosnersdomain.