Teach your tongue to say, ‘I don’t know.’ (Talmud Bavli, Berachot 4a).

“I don’t know” is a difficult confession to make.  We are trained to seek and provide answers.  Kids look to parents for answers.  Employers demand answers from employees.  We ask doctors for answers to medical questions and religious leaders for spiritual ones. We are drawn to order, as if every question must lead to a satisfying answer.  Admitting that we don’t know can feel like an admission of ignorance, particularly when the topic is so close to our heart and others seem so sure of their views.

“I don’t know” is an admission even more difficult for a nation like Israel, which prides itself on finding innovative solutions to difficult dilemmas.  When pioneers faced dry, arid soil, Israel found an answer.  When terrorists hijacked a plane and flew it to Entebbe, Israel found an answer.  When at war against multiple Arab countries, Israel found an answer.  When rockets from Gaza threatened life in Israel, Israel found an answer.

Yet in Gaza itself, the ultimate question Israel must answer – conquer Gaza in full or ceasefire with Hamas – resists a clean resolution. Neither is a true answer; rather, each choice trades one kind of suffering for another. And so, we must consider that we likely have no honest answer except “I don’t know.”

We all have opinions about how Israel should have done, as well as what she must do now.  These “if only” opinions help us think that these intractable dilemmas have, in fact, simple solutions.  “If only Israel had better PR,” is a common one.  “If only Israel focused first on Hezbollah instead of Hamas,” is another one.  “If only Israel held territory from the beginning,” we see commonly repeated now.  Each of these have elements of truth.  We may derive comfort from thinking that an easy answer to our problem is just one simple step away.

The world, of course, is not this simple, and in hindsight, everyone is a fantastic general and politician.  Nor do these hindsight solutions answer the ultimate question of what comes next in Gaza.  Each ultimate answer has its benefits, but also more questions that are unanswerable.

On one hand, Israel can continue its quest to fully conquer Gaza and crush every remnant of Hamas to reestablish deterrence and remove an enemy from its border.  The proverbial eggs are already broken, so perhaps Israel........

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