Smotrich’s Grammar of Absolute Victory

Bezalel Smotrich has defined absolute victory. Not as a general promise to defeat Hamas or as a formula attached to a continuing war, but as a specific sequence of actions. Israel is to conquer and liberate the areas of the homeland in Gaza, settle them, retain the army, and call the resulting permanence security. Only the decision remains conditional: “If we decide, that is what will happen.”

This analysis begins with the Hebrew original, not with an English translation:

אם אנחנו נחליט שהמלחמה הזאת מסתיימת בזה שאנחנו כובשים, משחררים את חבלי המולדת בעזה ומיישבים אותה, זה מה שיהיה. וזה, בעזרת השם, יהיה באמת הניצחון המוחלט — גם בהיגיון הפשוט של גביית מחיר וקיבוע תודעת הפסד למי שעולל לנו את מה שהנאצים האלה עוללו לנו, אבל גם בזה שזה כבר לא עוד סבב. גמרנו, זהו. יש התיישבות, יש צבא, יש ביטחון. המציאות מוכיחה את הדבר הפשוט הזה.

“If we decide that this war ends with us conquering, liberating the areas of the homeland in Gaza and settling it, that is what will happen. And this, with God’s help, will truly be absolute victory—both according to the simple logic of exacting a price and fixing a consciousness of defeat in those who inflicted upon us what these Nazis inflicted upon us, and because this will no longer be another round. We are finished; that is it. There is settlement, there is an army, there is security. Reality proves this simple truth.”

This is not the language of possibility. Smotrich does not say that Gaza might be conquered, that settlement should be considered, or that a permanent Israeli presence could emerge under favourable circumstances. His sentence contains only one condition: אם אנחנו נחליט........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)