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30 May 2024

The lost war in Gaza is not the end of Israel - opinion

MARK LAVIE

Yes, Israel has lost the war in Gaza.

No, it’s not the bitter, bloody end of the Jewish state.

When Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir famously said that if the Arabs lose a war, they lose a war, but if Israel loses a war, it loses everything, she was right—for her time. The 1973 war threatened Israel’s existence. Heroic Israeli army operations and a huge American airlift of weapons and ammunition saved the Jewish state but left it in a deep, decades-long trauma.

The pogrom of last October 7, when Hamas sent thousands of bloodthirsty terrorists across the border and killed, maimed, mutilated, and raped more than 1,200 Israelis, most of them civilians, taking more than 200 hostages, equally traumatized Israelis. However, the state itself was never in danger of destruction. Israel is many times stronger than it was in 1973. Today, defeat in war is painful, but it does not mean losing everything.

And defeat it is. Israel has failed to achieve its stated goals: wiping out Hamas and returning all the hostages.

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