The war sparked a broad public discourse about a "concept" that collapsed on the morning of October 7. The public is asking for soul-searching, and demanding an examination of the way of thinking to which we have become accustomed for decades.
The fundamental change that is required of us is to move from a way of thinking that deals only with problems that seem urgent to us today and tomorrow - to a visionary way of thinking. For too many years, decision-making in the political sphere has been derived from the need for immediate solutions, rather than first discussing basic questions of identity and goals. We reversed the order in a way that undermined our ability to advance long-term national goals. This is the biggest "conception" from which to quit.
From this concept, "solutions" were born, such as military withdrawal from areas under our control, erecting fences, creating underground obstacles, and using technological means to give the illusion of quiet. The words "quiet will be answered quietly," which ended Operation Protective Edge in 2014, were the clearest expression of this concept.
The vision of the existence of a Jewish state in our land is at the basis of the struggle between us and our enemies. Our enemy is not only Hamas or Islamic Jihad as organizations, or the Palestinian Authority that denies the October 7 massacre – our enemy is first and foremost their common counter-vision, which stands as the antithesis of our vision.
Because of the clash of visions, it is important to internalize that victory will be achieved not only by harming Hamas as an organization. The only way to win is to realize our vision and identity, thereby harming the opposite vision, which seeks to uproot us from here. This vision must be formulated, precise and implemented, without rejecting aspirations out of fear that they are "detached from reality," but out of a desire to change reality and adapt it to our aspirations.
In order to understand the role that our vision and their countervision play in the perception of winning or losing a war, we need to examine the three great wars we have known in the first decades of the state: the War of Independence, the Six-Day War, and the Yom Kippur War. In all three, the IDF knew how to win on the battlefield, and even when it encountered adversity, it managed to turn the bowl upside down. However, the first two wars are perceived by us as a victory and by the Arabs as a disaster; The Yom Kippur War, on the other hand, was etched in the collective memory as a war in which we lost, while the Egyptian side celebrates its "victory" to this day.
The explanation for this does not lie in the military side. The crossing of the canal and the encirclement of the Egyptian Third Army are taught to this day in combat schools all over the world. Still, war is perceived on our side as a failure, and on the other side as an achievement.
What distinguishes the Yom Kippur War from its two predecessors? In 1948, and then in 1967, Israel occupied and established settlements on land. After the Yom Kippur War, however, we regained all the many territories conquered in the fighting, and then even handed over Sinai. This is the measure of victory in the eyes of the other side.
The fundamental change that is required of us is to move from a way of thinking that deals only with problems that seem urgent to us today and tomorrow - to a visionary way of thinking. For too many years, decision-making in the political sphere has been driven by the need for immediate solutions
The obvious conclusion, then, is that the way to win the current war is to kill the vision of uprooting the Jews from the Land of Israel, and to implement the opposite vision, of settling in our land. The Hamas enemy does not care about the number of fatalities in Gaza, nor about the organization's own members. They received their picture of victory on 7 October, when Hamas "occupied" Israeli communities for a day and committed horrific massacres there. There is no number of deaths or damage that can change that.
The only thing that can erase Hamas' "victory" in the Palestinian consciousness is the establishment of Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip, and in all parts of the Land of Israel. Such a move would send a clear message: We are in 1967, not 1973. The other side will understand that the Zionist-Israeli vision won this war, and that whoever launched the attack against us lost territory as a result. This is not "revenge," but the realization of our national vision, "by virtue of our historic and natural right, out of security in the siege of Israel," as written in Israel's Declaration of Independence.
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