Israel's reticence over the past three decades allowed its despotic adversaries to acquire military capabilities of ominous scope.

…if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. —  Winston S. Churchill, in "The Gathering Storm,"

...the proposition that democracies are generally at peace with each other is [so] strongly supported... [it] has led some scholars to claim that this finding is probably the closest thing that we have to a law in international politics—Profs. Zeev Maoz & Bruce Russett, “Alliances, Contiguity, Wealth and Political Stability: Is the Lack of Conflict among Democracies a Statistical Artifact?” International Interactions, Vol. 17, No. 3, 1992, pp. 245-6

The unprovoked atrocities that erupted on October 7^th, 2023, drove home to many how perilous it can be to embrace optimistic assumptions and benign perceptions of one’s adversaries' intentions—especially when those adversaries are governed by harsh autocratic regimes. 

Antithetical types of "peace"

With optimism (some might say, naivete) severely bruised (some might say, discredited), the focus of attention inevitably turned to assessing (or reassessing) the notion of "peace", its feasibility, its durability, and its elemental components, particularly in a regional Middle East context.

To engage in this assessment adequately, it is crucial to realize that the word “peace” is one that is decidedly both dictatorial and deceptive. 

It is “dictatorial” because, just as one cannot declare opposition to a dictator without severe repercussions, one cannot openly oppose peace without severe repercussions to one’s social standing—certainly not if one wishes access to "polite company". Indeed, much like a dictator, "peace” demands support from all.

However, "peace" is also a “deceptive” word, because the same five letters can be employed to describe two completely different—indeed, antithetical—political configurations. 

On the one hand, “peace” can be used to denote "mutual harmony" between parties; while on the other hand, it can be employed to denote the "absence of violence maintained by deterrence."

There are vastly different sets of conditions that make for the feasibility of these different classes of “peace”. 

In a political environment, which comprises democratically governed states–such as in Western Europe or North America—with free and fair elections, open borders, free exchange of ideas, and largely unhindered movement of people, “mutual harmony” is a feasible type of “peace”. 

However, in a political system comprised mainly of dictatorial regimes—as in the Arab and much of the wider Muslim world—phenomena such as regular elections, unregulated flows of ideas, funds, and people are clearly not common characteristics—being largely incompatible with the unchallenged rule of the incumbent dictator. 

Two-hundred-year-old diagnosis

Arguably, the earliest diagnosis of the divergent proclivity for war and peace of different regimes was articulated by German philosopher Immanuel Kant over 200 years ago in his classic essay “Perpetual Peace” in 1795.

 In it, he writes: 

 [ A state governed according to ] a constitution...[which] is established...by principles of the freedom of the members of a society (as men); secondly, by principles of dependence of all upon a single common legislation (as subjects); and thirdly, by the law of their equality (as citizens) ... gives a favorable prospect for the desired consequence i.e. perpetual peace. The reason is this: if the consent of the citizens is required in order to decide that war should be declared (and in this constitution it cannot but be the case), nothing is more natural than that they would be very cautious in commencing such a poor game, decreeing for themselves all the calamities of war. Among the latter would be: having to fight, having to pay the costs of war from their own resources, having painfully to repair the devastation war leaves behind...

In contradistinction to this, of the opposing (autocratic) type of regime, he warns:

But, on the other hand, in a constitution…under which the subjects are not citizens, a declaration of war is the easiest thing in the world to decide upon, because war does not require the ruler, who is the proprietor and not a member of the state, the least sacrifice of the pleasures of his table, the chase, his country houses, his court functions and the like. He may therefore resolve on war as on a pleasure party for the most trivial reasons, and with perfect indifference leave the justification, which decency requires to the diplomatic corps who are ever ready to provide it.

The devastation that the autocratic Hamas regime has wrought on the hapless enclave and its population clearly mirrors the kind of casual and cavalier “frivolity” with which Kant warns such rulers can embark on war. 

Deterrence vs harmony

This Kantian distinction between regime-linked proclivities for violence has—or at least, should have—cardinal importance for Israeli policy makers and strategic planners.

For, in conditions of "mutual harmony", peace (i.e. the absence of violence) is the natural, equilibrium state of affairs, and when disputes arise, there will be a strong tendency for the system to revert to its former non-violent stability.

However, in the alternative case, where non-violence is sustained only by adequate deterrence, this is not the case. Indeed, if deterrence wanes, violence between the parties will, in all likelihood, result. There will be no tendency to restore stability, and the system will descend into belligerent conflict. 

Clearly then, for peace-making/maintenance to be successful, it is imperative to correctly diagnose what political realities prevail. After all, if the conditions are those in which only a "peace of deterrence" is feasible, adopting a peace-making/peace-maintaining policy, designed to attain a "peace of mutual harmony", is perilously misplaced.

Indeed, such attempts will make war more likely—inducing conciliatory gestures that are likely to undermine perceived deterrence. 

This duality in the typology of "peace" is reflected in a related divergence in the structure of conflictual situations. 

Accordingly, there exist two archetypal and antithetical contexts of conflict: 

In the first of these, a policy of compromise and concession may well be appropriate in advancing a resolution; while in the second, such a course would be disastrously inappropriate.

Sign of goodwill…or weakness?

So, on the one hand, a protagonist in a conflict may make an initial concession, which the opposing protagonist understands was made as a sign of goodwill—and therefore feels an obligation to make a reciprocal concession. 

Thus, via a process of concessions and counter-concessions, matters converge into some kind of consensual resolution. 

However, there is another, equally feasible situation, in which a protagonist is tempted into making an initial concession, but the opposing side sees this, not as a sign of goodwill, but as a sign of weakness. Therefore, rather than inducing a process of reciprocal concessions, the initial concession induces demands for further and more far-reaching concessions. So, instead of converging toward some consensual resolution, it diverges into a coercive or violent conflict. 

Clearly, even the most pliable protagonist will, at some stage, reach the limit of the concessions that can be made. However, when such a limit is reached, he will find himself in a far weaker position than that which existed before his proffered concessions. 

Sinister & surreptitious 

Perhaps the theatre for which the foregoing analysis is most pertinent is that of Egypt, in general and the Sinai Peninsula, in particular. Indeed, it has been around a decade-and-a-half during which Cairo has engaged in the continual erosion of the demilitarization stipulations of the Camp David Agreement—enabled by either ex-ante Israeli approval, tolerated by ex-post Israeli acquiescence, or despite no Israeli approval at all. 

In this regard, Israeli leniency/lethargy is an ominous omen. For even after Cairo had managed to subdue previous Jihadi insurgency (the initial reason for Israel’s consent to Egyptian violations of the 1977 provisos regarding the scale and scope of forces permitted in Sinai), it kept on increasing both the quantity and quality of military deployment in the peninsula. 

Indeed, Israel should not lose sight of the fact that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, is hardly an avid Zionist. Despite the fact that, hitherto, he has been far preferable to his deposed predecessor, Mouhamad Morsi, he has his origins deep in the Muslim Brotherhood with all its ingrained enmity to the “Zionist entity”. Moreover, his refusal to allow the embattled and ill-fated Gazans to leave the war-torn Strip—as is the case in virtually all other conflict zones, such as in Syria, Ukraine, the Caucasus and across Africa.

Sadly, the only plausible explanation for this behaviour is to prevent the Gaza population from finding a less harrowing and harassing life elsewhere, thus preserving the state of belligerency with Israel.

Accordingly, Egypt, Israel’s purported peace partner, is acting as a sinister and surreptitious enemy—and should be treated as such. 

"If you will not fight…"

In the Middle East, experience has shown just how acutely dangerous it is not to factor “worst-case” scenarios into one’s national strategy.

For over a decade,  I have warned repeatedly that innate Israeli reticence to engage in a decisive preemptive offensive against its despotic adversaries is causing Israel to continually back away from conflicts that it can win, thereby risking backing itself into a conflict that it cannot win—or win only at ruinous cost See for example here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

This threat of such nascent catastrophe was eloquently described by Winston Churchill in The Gathering Storm, (see introductory quote) the first volume of his seminal series on WW II: "…if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival."

The futility of compromise

In the perennial conflict with its Arab neighbors, attempts at compromise by Israel have proven not only futile but counterproductive. Despite a series of gut-wrenching concessions, peace seems further away than ever. Every concession made is not followed by an offer of a counter-concession but by demands for further and more far-reaching concessions. Clearly, the only kind of peace that is feasible in the Arab-Israeli conflict is a peace of deterrence—not a peace of mutual harmony. Indeed, it is a peace that concessions and compromises only serve to undermine and endanger. 

Unless the Jews convey the unequivocal message that any challenge to their political independence and national sovereignty will be met with overwhelming lethal force, they will increasingly be the victims of such force at the hands of their Arab adversaries.