Why Israel Hesitates

D uring the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944, Admiral William “Bull” Halsey received a famous telegram from commanding admiral Chester Nimitz: “Where is, repeat, where is Task Force Thirty Four? The world wonders.” Halsey’s task force was out of position chasing the Japanese fleet, and he took great umbrage at the (unintended) suggestion that he was missing in action.

Today, the same question hangs over the Israel Defense Forces. Where is the IDF? The world wonders.

It has now been almost three weeks since Hamas committed one of history’s most infamous atrocities against Israel, mainly targeting its civilians. October 7 was Israel’s September 11; it was, proportional to the nation’s population, September 11 several times over. It originated in a single location, Gaza. Its perpetrators are no secret, nor is the location of their main base of operations: Hamas is the government of Gaza. No political solution can be found until it is driven from power. Israel’s political and military leadership have been clear: The nation must invade Gaza and root out Hamas.

So, why haven’t they? Why the wait?

A few pros and cons should be obvious to those even casually familiar with military history. When your enemy knows you are coming, and coming soon, and coming at a particular location, the great disadvantage of waiting to launch an assault is that it gives the other side more time to dig in, get its people and supplies in place, and upgrade its defenses. On the other hand, this was not a case in which the IDF was ever going to enjoy the element of surprise. Hamas knew before October 7 that it was provoking Israel in a way that was highly likely to result in a ground assault into Gaza. Much of the time and knowledge needed to construct defensive works was available at the leisure of Hamas.

Then again — and we don’t know this — the fact that Israeli intelligence was caught napping may have resulted from Hamas keeping too low a profile on activity near the border to be detected. So, while Hamas doubtless has prepared a nightmare for the IDF in its network of tunnels, it may not have been able to do as much advance work above ground.

The advantage of waiting, and of appearing in public to dither, is that it can keep the enemy on edge and uncertain, having to maintain sentries and guess at avenues of attack while beginning to wonder if the attack is really coming. I’d have more confidence that the Israelis are using this sort of ambiguity to their advantage if it was not so obvious that they actually are dithering — or being made to dither by external pressures.

There are advantages as well to a preparatory bombing, which Israel has been conducting extensively. But bombardment without a ground campaign is bound to deliver diminishing returns when the enemy is largely burrowed underground.

There is also an internal reason for delay, although it is unclear that it requires as much time as has been spent. Israel has called up over 300,000 reservists. These are not raw recruits but military veterans. Nonetheless, they are being called out of civilian life. It takes time to organize them, arm and equip them, and ensure that they are adequately prepared for a deployment straight into the mouth of hell. That doesn’t happen on a dime.

Undoubtedly, Israel must use this additional manpower very carefully. The loss of young men and women in combat is painful, especially in a small country, and especially in a modern world of smaller families. The loss of reservists is, if anything, more politically painful for a democratic government to endure: They are more likely to be married heads of households, business owners, people established in the community. And the tunnel labyrinth of a dense urban combat zone full of fanatics is likely to be the kind of combat unseen since Stalingrad, Berlin, or Iwo Jima. That traditionally is not the kind of operation you want handled by 30-year-old reservists rather than the sorts of active-duty 18- to 25-year-old men who have been the tip of the spear of offensive armies since time immemorial. Mature adults will fight like tigers in defense of their ground, but they tend to lack the blind bravado that is the special province of men in the first burst of adulthood.

Even aside from the value of human life, there is the military cost of casualties: Israel is drawing upon a very large fraction of its total available manpower. The people to be sent into Gaza cannot easily be replaced, especially if a second front opens in the north from Hezbollah, drawing off more combat power and bleeding those forces as well. It is understandable — if, beyond a certain point, inexcusable — that Benjamin Netanyahu and his generals are proceeding with some caution betting their country on this assault.

Israel also has a long-standing policy of bending over backward to recover hostages. In recent years, that has focused more on paying ransoms than on the sorts of rescue operations in which Netanyahu’s brother died at Entebbe in 1976. Hamas has been exploiting delay in order to drip out some hostages with non-Israeli citizenship. But there is no reason to think the rest can be recovered, dead or alive, except by force.

Then, there are the external factors. Israel’s government answers to its people, who are righteously eager to avenge one of the darkest chapters in the long and lamentable catalog of pogroms. But it also faces cross-pressures from its allies, the faithful (e.g., the United States) and the fickle alike, to say nothing of the various Arab states that have made or were in the process of making a modus vivendi with Israel, yet would remain happy to see it driven into the sea. It is dangerous to take too much caution from those sources. A swift-moving Israeli attack would present Washington, Europe, and the Arab world with a fait accompli. That was Franz Josef’s fatal error in July 1914: He should have hauled off and launched an immediate punitive expedition against Serbia in retaliation for the assassination of his heir, and the Great Powers of Europe would have done nothing. By drawing out the diplomatic dance until his German ally and his Russian foe had time to mobilize, he enkindled a world war.

There were not that many protests against an Israeli attack on Gaza in the days immediately after October 7. The longer the delay, the more they will grow. Memories are short where goodwill toward Israel is concerned.

Now, however, the screws are turning upon Netanyahu. It has been widely reported that the U.S. has been pressuring him to delay, partly due to hostages and partly due to other considerations, enumerated in a column in Axios:

1. Biden wants more aid delivered to as many Palestinians as possible, to limit a humanitarian crisis and massive global backlash.

2. He wants the estimated 500+ U.S. citizens trapped in Gaza to get out before the fighting intensifies. Half a dozen attempts to get them out since the Hamas attack have failed — partly because Hamas prevented Americans from leaving, officials say.

3. He needs more time to fortify America’s military presence in the Middle East, given rising fears that Iran or Iran-backed terrorist groups will attack Israel.

4. He fears a quick, impulsive assault on Gaza will land Israel in a long, bloody street battle that could kill tens of thousands of people — and still not destroy Hamas. It could also push Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies to join the war — with deployed Americans likely in harm’s way.

5. He wants to buy time for Benjamin Netanyahu, who has his own reasons to delay. Netanyahu, despite political pressure to move fast against Hamas, has always been risk-averse. He has a somewhat skeptical view of the Israeli military plans — and wants time. So he’s entertaining other opinions. He’s also willing to give more time for hostage-release talks while the Israel Defense Forces better prepare for a ground assault.

Biden has denied “demanding” a delay, but that seems semantic. Frankly, few of these reasons seem persuasive, or in Israel’s best interests. Hamas has no incentive to let Americans out if they can be used as human shields or hostages. Delivering aid inside Gaza just allows Hamas to hold out longer. And is our military really that unprepared?

The longer Israel delays, the less compelling the reasons for waiting will be. At a certain point, the possibly apocryphal advice sometimes attributed to Winston Churchill comes to mind: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”