I Was Wrong About the Israeli Military

There is no peace in the ME without a heavily armed Israel. I know that now.

Since the Trump administration’s decision to send B-2s to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, social media has blown up with “anti-interventionalist” outrage that Trump has now dragged the U.S. into a war (that Israel coerced them into). The general impulse behind this line of thinking is understandable. My generation came of age during Iraq/Afghanistan, conflicts with tenuous justifications that went on for more than a decade. I internalized that large military complex = bad. Naturally, many other millennials like me gravitated to the anti-interventionalist camp. I never want my country to initiate something like that again.

While the western public likes to link the United States with Israel in political decision-making, the military pressures facing the two nations are entirely different. I know that now having spent time in Israel during an active war. And while it might not be as dangerous as living in, say, Gaza, having Iranian missiles lobbed at you day and night really does fuck with you. I used to think that all of the available resources—an effective missile defense system largely funded by U.S. taxpayers, a Homefront Command alert system, and a robust military—meant that Israelis had no reason to fear for their safety. I now know how naive that line of thinking was.

Allow me to give a little summary of what I experienced before moving on to my overall point: you’re being woken up between the hours of midnight and 3am nightly by sirens accompanied by SOS phone alerts screaming at you to get into a bomb shelter because of incoming missiles. The safe rooms available in all Israeli homes built after 1973 are no longer considered safe from this particular type of aggression. So, you’re crowded in a bomb shelter in the middle of the night (and several other times during the day) with a motley assortment of folks. Sometimes you’ll luck out and get into a chill bomb shelter with nice folks and snacks. In my case, it mostly involved sheltering at a hotel we shared with a bunch of American 18-22 year-olds who enjoyed free access to beer. Everyone’s phone is going off with loud alerts at the same time (read: that by itself should be listed a form of torture). Then you hear the booms as the missile defense system goes to work—fingers crossed no structures got damaged. You read in the news that buildings in a neighboring city were hit, casualty numbers to come later. The next day, you do it all over again.

Despite the aggression coming at Israel from multiple jihadi groups, there are no “death to Arabs/Muslims” or “let’s flatten Gaza” signs out in public. Those may be views shared by certain groups of extremists, but they’re not mainstream Israeli views as far as I could see. Hacks and low-IQ entertainers like Piers Springer or Dave ‘As a Jew’ Smith would have you believe differently about that, but it’s only because they haven’t spent any significant time there (“well why not let the journalists in then?!” Great comeback, Piers!). Israelis just want the war to end (even if some of their leaders don’t). The question is how.

I used to believe that maybe Israel had gone too far with some of its military actions and that perhaps the country was too militarized for its own good. I realize now how wrong I was about that. While there is no doubt in my mind that the IDF has indeed made some grievous strategic errors in past and present conflicts (and I still stand by my stated opposition to the current war in Gaza), I now view those errors as secondary. Simply put: the benefits that come from Israel’s military advantages almost always outweigh the drawbacks (read: if there are specific examples of IDF actions you can give that go against this view, I am open to hearing them in the comments. And no, “they destroyed Gaza” is not one of them any more than “they destroyed Hiroshima” is an argument against the U.S. military).

Growing up in the United States, my exposure to the military was limited to what I watched on the news, read about in books, and heard about from stories about my WWII-era grandfather whose service was compulsory. We accepted that as a fundamental difference between American Jews and Israelis: Israel has compulsory military service, we don’t, and most American Jews don’t pursue that path. That setup is the result of the privilege that comes with living in a country largely sheltered from the realities of war. Here, others volunteer to serve so we don’t have to, and those of us who opt out don’t have any real exposure to it.

Does all of the above mean that I’m now a trigger-happy Republican running out to buy a gun and a MAGA hat? Hell no. My feelings towards the U.S. and Israel have not changed, not one iota. My views on war have shifted because circumstances have changed—and there’s no shame in admitting that.

There is no peace in the Middle East without a heavily armed Israel, at least not right now. It’s not a reality that gives me any joy. But peace doesn’t come from negotiating with terrorists and their sympathizers, or from appeasing kaffiyeh-clad useful idiots with no real understanding of the “cause” they believe they’ve taken on. It comes from having the capacity to fight back, to confront our enemies, to survive. If it comes down to us vs. them, I choose us.

When we say “never again,” we aren’t politely asking; we are forcefully telling. Israel must protect herself from her enemies at all costs, and it is our duty to ensure that she can. She must, because the future of both the Middle East and the West depends on it.

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