“Heads of state, above all, must take care not to err regarding the intentions of those who quell their enmity or initiate friendship and ask themselves: Is this a move motivated by pressure within certain conditions, or because their spirit was broken?”

• Polybius, The Histories of Polybius[1]

The first Punic war ended in 241 BCE; the Roman republic forced a harsh peace treaty on Carthage which required it to retreat from Sicily, pay compensation to Rome, and to recognize the latter’s ascendent maritime power. The treaty was bought at a high price, both in blood and money. The Romans needed to enlist large armies to conquer Sicily and invade North Africa and invested a fortune in building a navy. For 23 years, the two states fought for supremacy in the waters of the Western Mediterranean, with Rome ultimately emerging victorious.

The precious peace that Rome achieved was short lived. In 219 BCE, Hannibal, Carthage’s general, attacked Rome’s friend (or perhaps, ally) in Spain, and the following year he invaded Italy. Hannibal, like the Germans in the second World War, wanted to dictate the terms of a new peace treaty, force Rome to recognize Carthage’s power, and, if possible, diminish its strength as a superpower.[2] The Romans once again enlisted large armies, fought for nearly 20 years, and at the war’s end – the second Punic War – Rome won once again; but, this time, they dictated an even harsher peace treaty: Carthage’s settlements were taken, its navy was significantly reduced, and it was forbidden from going to war without Rome’s permission.

Surprisingly, it was the harsher second treaty that brought a peace that lasted more than half a century (202 BCE until 149 BCE). It was violated only when Rome became paranoid about its former rival and now ally, Carthage: Rome feared that the wealth that Carthage had amassed would be turned into a navy and an army. They decided, in the absence of a real threat from Carthage, to destroy the city. Carthage fell in 146 BCE after a difficult siege, its residents were sold into slavery, and the city was razed to the ground.

Many have compared the first and second Punic wars to the two World Wars of the 20^th century. In both cases, rival superpowers fought for hegemony. In both cases, there was a losing side – Carthage and Germany – that refused to accept its defeat and the conditions of its surrender. In both cases, it was extensive destruction by the aggressor that ensured long term peace. This destruction was not accidental; it was the embodiment of victory, a victory that had not been fully achieved in the first round.

According to the Romans, “victory” is achieved when the spirit of the enemy is broken, and he surrenders. The ‘pax’ was a treaty imposed from on high, not the result of negotiations. Peace was imposed on the enemy only after demonstrating the brokenness of his spirit by begging for peace and entreating for mercy, and perhaps he was even required to officially declare he had surrendered. Dr. Carlin Barton cites a formulation of Libius that may have been dictated to the defeated enemy: “The man’s spirit was considered broken once the confession: ‘They overpowered me, not by witchcraft or chance, but by honest battle’ was extracted from him.”[3]

The Roman emphasis on the breaking of the will embodies the understanding, even if not explicitly stated, that victory in battle must focus on the enemy’s motivation to fight. In order to vanquish one’s enemy and turn him into an ally, in order to believe that peace with him is true, it is necessary to destroy what motivated him originally. Later, this idea will be expanded upon, and I will seek to illustrate motivation as the idea or the ideas that a community adopts before going to war. An enemy’s defeat requires that these ideas be uprooted through destroying their cultural, political and economic expressions, and by administering their failure through crushing military defeat.

To our chagrin, what was clear to the Romans became murky over time. In modern military literature, the term “victory” lacks a clear definition; and if the definition of victory is unclear, the way to achieve it cannot be clear either. Israel truly must win the war it finds itself in. Israel cannot afford to be confused about the meaning of the concept, or to waver between different strategies. We cannot afford this because the war we are waging is extremely costly and long, and there will likely be negative ramifications on our security if we lose. We must sketch out a clear strategy for how to win; but to do that, we must first clarify what “victory” means.

To this end, I will focus on the two types of total wars mentioned above: the ancient, of Carthage vs. Rome, and the modern, the First and Second World War. I choose them based on Clausewitz’s suggestion that these total wars give the fullest expression to the fundamental nature of war and hence allow us to understand war in and of itself, thus coming to the correct understanding of every war, even more limited wars.[4]

We will see that in addition to the physical and the psychological dimensions of war, war has an ideological dimension. War is not a one-time act of violence; it is a prolonged effort, sometimes spanning generations. As Professor John David Lewis argues in his book, No Less than Victory, ideas are what motivate nations to engage in long wars that are costly in terms of lives, money and time. Without an idea that justifies the war in the eyes of the community, from the politician to the mother waiting for her son to come home, the community will not support these efforts. If the idea is eliminated, the motivating force behind the war will be eliminated with it.[5]

This article is not for the purpose of theoretical discussion. It concludes with the presentation of a new, coherent strategy for victory not only against Hamas, but against the Palestinian resistance, that forces them to come to terms with Israel’s existence. Hamas draws its strength from the rejectionism of the Palestinian national movement.[6] Until Palestinians abandon this ideology, which they have not done until now, there is no point in furthering a political solution. “The day after” can only begin the day after the Palestinian reconciliation with Israel and the recognition of the Jewish people’s right to their own state in the land of Israel.

Two notes are in order before diving into this issue: First, the final form of this essay took its inspiration from Dr. Daniel Pipes’ call for Israeli victory. For the last two decades, Dr. Pipes has been arguing that Israeli victory is the only way to peace between the two nations. I hope this essay will give a broader theoretical foundation to his call.

Second, in Israeli military discourse, it is common to speak of ‘hakhra’a’- overcoming the enemy. This discourse has spilled over into the public discourse as well. As Dr. Or Barak convincingly demonstrates, this is simply a more “polite word for what we refer to as “victory.”[7] We need to stop speaking about overcoming the enemy and begin to speak about being victorious. What victory is, and how we achieve it – this is the crux of the text before you.

Victory Veiled in Fog

The Romans defined victory specifically as breaking the enemy’s spirit and causing his surrender. In modern times, this concept has become foggy, and for this reason, the strategies to achieve it became unclear. The root of the confusion can already be found, perhaps, at the beginning of the 19^th century in the writings of Clausewitz, considered to be the most important modern thinker regarding war and strategy. Clausewitz, who defined war as, “a violent act whose purpose is to compel our opponent to fulfill our will,”[8] did not define victory.  It is commonly accepted to infer his definition of victory from his definition of war as, “imposing one’s will upon another.”[9] But how is this done? What does it mean to “impose your will?”

Over the years, two schools of thought have developed around these questions: The “battlefield school” and the “psychological school.”[10] The first, as its name implies, sees the battlefield, the physical destruction of enemy forces, as the way to impose one’s will upon him. An important concept of this school of thought at the turn of the 20^th century was the idea of the decisive battle: A single battle in which victory would be so great that it would collapse the enemy’s will and desire to continue fighting. Helmuth  von Moltke, head of Prussia’s general staff in the second half of the 19^th century, declared that:

“Victory in the battlefield is the most important moment in war. Only it breaks the enemy’s will and forces it to bend to our will. Not conquering a plot of land or a post will decide the war, but only the destruction of the enemy’s forces. Therefore, that is the main objective of the operation.”[11]

This school of thought reached its full, perhaps most extreme, expression in the two World Wars: In the First World War, the emphasis on the destruction of the enemy, and the German commanders’ obsessive search for decisive victory, led to battles in which tens of thousands of soldiers were killed in a day; during the Second World War, both sides continued striving to vanquish the enemy in the battlefield. American commanders chose military targets based on the understanding that “overwhelming loss in the battlefield breaks the will of the enemy to fight and forces him to sue for peace.”[12] The infantry were joined by new technological developments: The tank, fighter jet, and, at the end of the war, the atom bomb.

It was the beginning of the atomic age that damaged the stature of this school of thought. Although Japan’s surrender was the direct result of the atom bomb, a clear example of a decisive victory that breaks the enemy, the tremendous damage that it caused, and the fear of the destruction of humanity by nuclear war, brought the battlefield school to a dead end. In the atomic age, the best thing states can hope for is a quick ceasefire, which will prevent a global holocaust.[13] Still, in wars, one must win. A new school of thought was needed, one which could suggest a strategy for a war in which a decisive battle would be disastrous.

The new school of thought that arose was the psychological approach, which sees psychological victory as the most important element in the battle between two warring parties. According to this school, military victory is secondary, not necessary.[14] This school does not seek to overcome the enemy, but only to make them subject to our will. This may require physical victory and may not. As Thomas Schelling, one of the most important thinkers of the psychological school, writes in his book Arms and Influence:

“‘Victory’ does not adequately express what a nation wants from its military forces. What it wants in times like these, most of all, is the influence of force. It wants the power of negotiation that comes from the ability to damage, and not only the direct result of a successful military operation. Even total victory can provide, at most, the opportunity for unfettered violence against the enemy population. Taking advantage of this opportunity for the sake of the national interest, or a broader interest, can be no less important than the achievement of victory itself.”[15]

According to the psychological school, violence in war is only one way to manipulate the enemy. Alongside violence, there are other methods: Demonstrations of power (like military exercises), propaganda, diplomacy, economic pressure, and more.

But nothing lasts forever; the psychological school failed in the Vietnam war, and like a pendulum’s swing, the failure of the psychological school brought the resurgence of the battlefield school.[16] The psychological school believed that through “diplomacy of violence” – the use of military methods as a means to intimidate the enemy and force concessions – it would be possible to convince North Vietnam to end the war and accept the United States’ terms.[17] This did not happen. The United States meted out sanctions, threats, and an aerial bombardment – nothing convinced North Vietnam to give up on what it saw as a war of national independence. On the psychological level, the enemy showed himself to be impervious to standard threats, and the American strategy proved to be a failure.

The end of the Cold War excused the United States from the global fear of a nuclear holocaust. From that point, it found itself grappling with small countries who lacked nuclear weapons, and the battlefield school again led American strategic thinking at the turn of the 21^st century. The Americans aimed for military victories over its enemies and achieved them, whether against Saddam Hussein in Kuwait in 1991, Milosevic in Kosovo in 1999, the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, or Saddam in Iraq in 2003.

We would expect these victories to strengthen the stature of the battlefield school. However, the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq prove that victory in the battlefield does not guarantee an end to aggressive actions. These victories were followed by a long period of terrorism and guerilla warfare against American forces; defeat in the battlefield did not break the enemy’s will to fight back. The victories in Iraq and Afghanistan were seen as empty. The battlefield school again found itself criticized but this time because of doubt as to whether there is a purpose to victory.[18] The pendulum swung again, this time back to the psychological school.

Analysis: The Punic Wars

To overcome the movement of the pendulum, it is necessary to clarify what victory is and what conditions cause victory to lead to long-term peace. To this end, we will return to the Romans, whose attitude towards victory was clearer than ours. The main historical source concerning the Punic Wars is Polybius, the Greco-Roman historian who lived during the time of the Third Punic War. He is considered by modern historians to be a relatively reliable source, and he will guide us in our analysis of the Punic Wars.

Polybius mentions three reasons for the outbreak of the Second Punic War.[19] They are:

• The anger of Hamilcar Barca, the Carthaginian commander in Sicily during the First Punic War, that Carthage had requested a peace treaty even though its forces in Sicily had not been defeated,
• The Carthaginians’ anger that Rome had conquered Sardinia,
• The success of Hamilcar Barca and his son Hannibal in establishing and expanding Carthaginian settlement in Spain.

Let us examine each of these reasons in depth:

First, we have Hamilcar’s anger about the peace treaty ending the First Punic War. The leaders of Carthage decided to surrender and to negotiate a peace treaty for two main reasons: First, because of the defeat of the Carthaginian navy in Aegates Islands in 241 BCE. The destruction of their navy meant that Carthage did not have a way to provide supplies to its troops in Sicily. But this was only the most immediate reason for surrender. The second, deeper reason was the war had simply become too expensive for Carthage.[20] The drowning of their fleet was a convenient excuse for the Senate to end the war, instead of investing a fortune in rebuilding their fleet to continue the war.

Hamilcar opposed this decision. We know this not only based on Polybius’ writings; it is also reflected in an unusual article in the peace treaty signed with Rome. When Carthage sought to sign a peace treaty with Rome at the end of the First Punic War, Hamilcar and his army were under siege. The Romans waived their demand that Hamilcar surrender and allowed them to leave the siege while still bearing arms, a clear sign that they had not been defeated by Rome.[21] In this way, Hamilcar demonstrated that he was not party to Carthage’s shameful surrender. He left Sicily undefeated and later became the leading figure of the anti-Roman party that sought to renew the war.[22]

The second major reason is the Carthaginian anger that Rome had conquered Sardinia. After its surrender to Rome, Carthage (from 241-237 BCE) needed to deal with a mercenary’s rebellion on its soil. At the same time, a mercenary post in Sardinia rebelled, and asked the Romans for help. Initially, the Romans refused to help them but when they turned to them for help a second time, they sent a force that overcame the city. The Carthaginians were enraged: This was an outright violation of the peace treaty, and pushed Carthage out of the central Mediterranean Sea. Rome then threatened war if Carthage did not accept Sardinia’s conquest. Carthage was forced to surrender: As long as the rebellion in Carthage itself, in North Africa, carried on, it could not consider a new war with Rome.

Why did the Romans violate the peace treaty? Why were the people of Carthage so enraged that after almost twenty years, they were ready to begin a war of vengeance against the Romans? It may be that the reason lies in different a understanding of victory, peace and the results of the First Punic War. Carthage ascribed to a Hellenic understanding of victory and peace: War was seen as a competition in which both sides are measuring their strength; when one side tires of the conflict, he sues for peace – whose conditions are formulated in negotiations. Victory was limited, and an opponent could renew their strength for the next round. In Carthaginian eyes, Rome’s victory in the First Punic War did not diminish Carthage’s standing as a superpower. Carthage expected to be treated with dignity by Rome; they did not expect the Romans to take advantage of their weakness for further territorial expansion.[23]

The Romans, as we saw at the beginning of the essay, understood peace completely differently: In the Roman conception, peace was a contract dictated by the victor; an enemy that surrendered relinquished all their rights, their property, and even their lives to Rome. By surrendering, they gave themselves to the mercy of the Romans, who had been gracious enough to dictate terms of a peace treaty. The enemy, therefore, is expected to remain docile.[24] In Rome’s eyes, Carthage had been reduced to a vassal state and was no longer due any Roman respect. Rome believed they could do as they wished with the settlements of the conquered Phoenician city.

The mistake of the Romans was that the peace treaty signed at the end of the First Punic War did not reflect this understanding. Usually, after besting a rival, Rome would annex them as an ally and subject them to Roman political rule. This did not happen in the case of Carthage – it remained an empire independent of Rome. It could be that Rome decided this due to their military and economic fatigue. After twenty years of battle in the First Punic War, even Rome was ready for some kind of compromise, de facto, without officially recognizing the treaty as such.

Since Rome did not annex Carthage, a dangerous situation developed. Rome saw Carthage as her subject but did not establish this in the treaty or express it in a clear political fashion. The Carthaginians did not see things this way but rather saw the war in Sicily as merely another bout of fighting between two empires.[25] The peace treaty held different meanings for each party, which created this tension between them. Foreshadowing later historical occurrences, I am calling this phenomenon the “Versailles Problem.” This will be expanded upon later.

Finally, the third reason that Polybius cites for the outbreak of the Second Punic War is the success of Hamilcar and his son Hannibal in establishing the Carthaginian settlement in Spain. This gave the people of Carthage new hope that they could defeat Rome. Deposits of gold and silver helped them pay the compensation due to Rome. Carthage recruited new mercenaries from the Spanish Barbarians who formed the majority of Hannibal’s forces when he initiated the war against Rome in 219 BCE.[26] Carthage started the war based on the understanding that she is an equivalent power to Rome and based on the hope that she would win.

When we understand the factors that motivated Carthage to engage in the Second Punic War, it is easier to identify the elements that ensured a long peace afterwards. First, the military defeat of Carthage this time was complete. The Carthaginians were not only defeated in the water, but they were also overcome on every military front. Hannibal failed in Italy, the Romans destroyed the Carthaginian forces in Spain, invaded North Africa, and threatened a siege on Carthage itself. This happened despite a series of Carthaginian victories in the beginning of the war, the most impressive of which was the Battle of Cannae in which 50,000 Romans were killed.[27] In the end, the Carthaginians had no choice but to recognize the failure of their military effort.

Second, the new peace treaty reflected the Roman concept of victory and peace: The Carthaginian settlements were taken from them and Carthage was turned into a Roman vassal state. The Carthaginians were forced to accept that they were now subservient to Rome, and must behave accordingly. The “Versailles Problem” of the first treaty was thus resolved.

Finally, the Carthaginians were not left with an undefeated general. Hannibal Barca, the undisputed leader of the Carthaginian war effort, was defeated in the Battle of Zama in 202 BCE, and himself opposed the continuation of the war. Whilst the Senate discussed whether or not to accept the peace treaty the Romans were offering, one of the participants suggested continuing the war. In response, Hannibal grabbed him by his hair and dragged him out of the Senate building.[28] Put plainly, even if there were Carthaginians who wanted to continue fighting, they did not have a leader around whom they could rally. Carthage accepted the Roman treaty and resigned itself to the destruction of its empire. It was Carthage’s humiliation that led to a long-lasting peace, by destroying the idea that motivated the war in the first place.

Germany and Japan

On November 11, 1918, Germany accepted a ceasefire agreement with the Allied powers – the first step towards ending the First World War. Like the First Punic War, the First World War cost many lives. Like in the First Punic War, peace – which was celebrated with relief at the end of a horrific collective trauma – was short-lived. The Versailles Treaty, ending the war, was signed on June 28, 1919. The Second World War broke out in Europe only twenty years later, on September 1, 1939. Like in the Punic Wars, it was the more destructive Second World War that brought in its wake a longer peace. Again, we must ask: Why?

It is not a question of numbers, though it is true that Carthage and Germany were both defeated twice before achieving a long-lasting peace. But an enemy does not have to be defeated twice to be defeated decisively. Japan was defeated only once, in 1945. In 1918, Germany was on the verge of total economic collapse after four years of stagnancy on the Western front. After the war, the German empire beyond the sea was dismantled, some parts of the German Reich became new countries, and the Kaiser was removed. The army was very restricted and Germany was forced to pay compensation to the Allies. There are elements that are reminiscent of the peace treaty after the Second Punic War. So, why did the Versailles Treaty not bring a long-lasting peace? The answer is found once again in the reasons that motivated Germany and Japan to go to war in the first place.

A fact not sufficiently appreciated is that the ideologies of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were not cultural “exceptions,” or some short-lived madness that took over the two nations. In both states, the ideologies behind the desire to go to war manifested beliefs that were part of the nation’s identity and sense of self. Germany and Japan’s surrender, and the profound change they underwent afterwards, only seem obvious after the fact.

Take Nazi Germany, for example: Nazism was not a necessary product of German history, but was undoubtedly native to Germany. The popularity of Nazi ideology and the support for Hitler and his war were not the result of mass brain-washing or temporary insanity. Germans followed Hitler because they saw him expressing German ideas: The primacy of the nation over the individual, the figure of the leader-savior, and racial purity.[29]

Almost from the very dawn of German nationalism, it expressed anti-Western, racist, and antisemitic elements. These formed the ideological and cultural foundation which enabled the broad public support for the Nazi movement. At the beginning of the 19^th century, German nationalists defined the German national identity as the opposite of France and everything it stood for: Enlightenment, democracy, and individualism.

Christian Friedrich Rühs, who headed the history faculty in the University of Berlin from 1810 and was later named the official historian of the Prussian state, published a book in 1815 titled The Historical Development of the Influence of France and the French on Germany and the Germans. Rühs sought to prove to German patriots that their hatred of the French had a historical justification because the French had acted against German interests since the French Renaissance. Therefore, every vestige of cultural or linguistic French influence must be erased by Germany.[30]

Another example is Wolfgang Menzel, a leading literary critic of his time, who believed that the apex of history was not to be found in the Greco-Roman era, but in the German-Christian medieval world. According to Menzel, in order to maintain the vitality of the German nation, Germans must draw on medieval times and their pagan past, and reject foreign influences of unfettered liberalism and individualism.[31] The Germans are a different race and culture from the West.[32] Accordingly, he was a consistent opponent of the poetry of Heinrich Heine, who was a former Jew, and who was not fond of conservative German nationalism.

It is important to understand that Rühs and Menzel were not Nazis, nor were they proto-Nazis. They were central figures in the German culture of the 19th century. The unification of Germany at the end of that century deepened its opposition to Western ideas and culture. The new Reich identified with the Reich of the Middle Ages, the object of Menzel’s adulation; it developed during the war against France, which represented the Western, non-German, enlightened civilization. Many Germans saw the establishment of the Reich as a decision of God himself against liberalism.[33] According to them, the victory against France was only the first step on the way to a global Reich and the victory of German Kultur against decadent Western civilization.

As opposed to popular belief, the First World War was not the result of a tragic error. It is true that the extensive network of coalitions in Europe led to a seemingly minor conflagration in Serbia that ignited the entire continent. But this network and the Germans’ entanglement in it were the results of ideological motivations. Many Germans, including the young Kaiser Wilhelm II, thought that Germany should become an empire equivalent to Britain. They valued power as an end to itself and saw the acquisition of more power as the purpose of the Reich. This drove them to greater conflict with other European powers. Max Weber expressed this in a lecture in 1895:

“We need to understand that, if the uniting of Germany turns out to be the end, and not the beginning point of a policy of German world power, then it was nothing more than a teenager’s prank that the nation pulled off at its twilight.”[34]

Another writer of the same period, Hans Delbrück, wrote:

“We want to be a world power and to lead a colonial policy on a grand scale. That is certain. We cannot retreat from this in the slightest. The future of our nation among the nations of the world depends on this. We can manage this policy with England or without England. With England means [doing this] peacefully. Against England means – by war.”[35]

The policy of German world power quickly led to direct collision with Britain, France, and Russia. In 1890, the Germans refused to renew their pact with Russia, despite Moscow’s pleas. Germany’s refusal to form an alliance with Russia left Moscow no choice but to accept France’s offer of a military pact; this was ratified in 1894.

Similarly, Britain distanced herself from Germany, not seeing any purpose in forming an alliance with her. The Germans, frustrated by this, decided to redouble their efforts at naval armament. They hoped to threaten Britain, so that the latter would enter a pact with them. From 1898, Germany concentrated on developing a navy that could defeat the British army.[36] The hope was that this threat would force London to sign a treaty with Berlin in order to save itself. According to the power-obsessed Germans, any other way – diplomatic negotiations, economic agreements, not to mention any limitation of their aspirations – was a non-starter. If Britain would not work with Germany, Germany would simply crush her on their way to a global empire.

The defeat in the First World War did not diminish the public support of these ideas because it was seen as a mistake, just as Hamilcar saw the surrender of Carthage in the first Punic War. When Germany signed a ceasefire treaty, its cities were not under foreign occupation. The German army held its line against the Allies. Why did Berlin accede to a ceasefire if the war had not been decided? The questions only became sharper when the Versailles Treaty was dictated to the Germans as if they had surrendered, and placed all the blame for the war on them. The treaty’s demand that Germany pay compensation was a mark of shame in the Germans’ eyes.[37]

The Treaty of Versailles repeated the same mistake of the Roman peace treaty at the end of the First Punic War: It represented different things to the different sides. In the Allies’ eyes, Germany had been defeated and the treaty was dictated to her as the losing party. Germany did not see it this way, but rather as a deception: She had only agreed to a ceasefire. The Treaty of Versailles was seen as a grave sin against the Germans. Motivated by the idea that they had been deceived, the Germans succeeded, through grit and determination, to convince even British decision makers to see the treaty as a wrong that must be righted. This partially explains London’s policy of appeasement towards Berlin.[38]

Considering this situation, in which the German public did not accept their defeat, it is easier to understand why the democracy of the Weimar Republic was seen as another national humiliation, as a foreign branch of hypocritical Western culture which speaks of democracy and pacifism while acting to undermine the German nation. The leading scholars of the time, like Oswald Spengler, set up the Englishman and the German as fundamental opposites, the decadent liberalism of the former against the proud collectivism of the latter.[39] According to thinkers like Spengler and Ernst Jünger, the essence of life is struggle and war. The state arose in order to fight, and the nation finds its justification in war.[40]

The Weimar Republic did not express the German spirit or the aspirations of the nation. The Germans yearned for a new Reich that would lead them to victory over the West. Thus wrote Spengler, for example, in The Hour of Decision (1934):

“Germany is the most central key country in the world, not only because of its geographical location on the Asian border (the most important continent in global politics today), but also because the Germans are still young enough to grapple with global problems, to give them form and to solve them, while other nations are too old and inflexible to do anything other than defend themselves from problems.”[41]

Germany was advancing towards the Second World War years before Hitler rose to power.

The ideology of Imperial Japan was similar to the Nazi ideology. In Japan, there was also a chosen race – the Yamato – destined to rule the world given its superiority. Japan also had a supreme ruler who expressed and embodied the spirit of the race – the emperor. But while in Germany there was a tension between Nazi paganism and Christianity, or between Odin and Jesus, in Japan, the imperial ideology was the state religion. The emperor was a god that every person in Japan worshipped, and every person was willing to sacrifice their lives for his sake and the sake of the nation. War in East Asia was seen as holy war, as part of the worship of the emperor. The imperial soldier had only two options: Victory or death. Surrender was not an option. Thus, the soldier’s military code (Senjinkun) begins:

“The battlefield is the place where the imperial army, which acts under imperial command, demonstrates its true nature, conquers every time it attacks, is victorious every time it goes to battle, to spread the imperial way far and wide, so that the enemy can raise his eyes in fear and awe to the greatness of His Imperial Majesty.”[42]

Towards the end of the Second World War, facing the threat of American invasion of Japanese islands, the mentality of victory or death was expanded from the military to the entire population. The imperial government readied 100 million Japanese citizens to fight until the bitter end against the American enemy. Citizens were trained to use weapons. The little food and supplies that remained were stored for the final battle. Ordinary Japanese citizens prepared themselves for the moment they would need to die for the emperor.

In the end, this did not happen; what did happen was that on August 15^th, 1945, the emperor announced Japan’s surrender, followed by a ceremony of surrender on September 2^nd. Both Japan and Germany were occupied by the Allies, who proceeded to affect profound social changes in both countries. The ideas that motivated them to fight were uprooted, as President Franklin Roosevelt dictated when he set “unconditional surrender” as the war aim of the Allies:

“The destruction of the German, Japanese and Italian capacity for war demands their unconditional surrender. It means a reasonable promise of future world peace. This doesn’t mean the destruction of the German, Italian or Japanese populations, but rather the destruction of the philosophies in these countries that are based on the conquest and subjugation of others.”[43]

Like the Romans, the Allies also uprooted the ideas that brought about the war in the first place. This was a true victory, and led to a peace that holds to this day.

How to Destroy an Idea

Every group goes to war for a purpose: To conquer land, to acquire wealth or honor, or to establish a Reich of one thousand years. War is a tool to achieve these goals, and therefore, as soon as they are achieved, war has completed its task. From the perspective of war as a tool, there is a common definition of victory as the accomplishment of specific goals.

The problem is that war is not a one-sided affair: As long as one side continues to fight and to resist, the achievements of the other are in jeopardy. Therefore, war must end by destroying the resistance of the enemy. This is the only way to preserve what has been achieved. Therefore, the definition of victory must be expanded: It is not only achieving one’s war aims, but also destroying the resistance of the enemy.

How can this be achieved? Clausewitz defined the enemy’s resistance as the product of their capacity multiplied by their will.[44] It is a product, and not a sum, because if one of the variables is at zero, there is no resistance. An enemy with no will to fight will not fight even if most of his army is intact, and vice versa. But this is insufficient: The destruction of an enemy’s resistance can be only temporary and partial, as happened after the First World War and the First Punic War.

At the beginning of the essay, we quoted Polybius’s “History”, and it is worthwhile repeating now:

“Heads of state must be careful above all not to err regarding the intentions of those who quell their enmity or initiate friendship – is this because of the pressure of conditions, or because their spirit was broken?”

Polybius distinguishes between two kinds of victories: A victory in which the enemy surrenders because he has no choice and waits for the day when he will be able to fight again; and a victory in which the will of the enemy is broken and he no longer wants to fight. We can call the first a limited victory, and the second a total victory. The difference between the two is not in the scope of the damage to the enemy but in the essence of what has been damaged. Was the motivation for war damaged? In large wars, that demand the conscription of the population, this motivation is first and foremost ideological.

In a large war, leaders must enlist their whole populations. The population is called on to give their sons and their money to achieve a goal that might be far off in the future. A leadership’s ability to do this depends on the existence of an idea that justifies the war and establishes it as good. This is what motivates a community to facilitate a war despite the costs and difficulties. The soldier sent to the front, the worker on the assembly line, and the citizen who sees how his quality of life is affected, all need a justification of the war as something good or necessary. Without such an idea, leaders cannot move their populations to action. Without such an idea, the population would not try to rise anew after an initial defeat; it would see peace not as something to oppose, but as a good that should be adopted.

Total victory does not require unconditional surrender or an official ceremony. It could happen without any ceremony at all. Victory is achieved when the political, cultural, social, and economic expressions of the idea that motivated the war are destroyed. This can be done by the enemy, internally in the wake of their military defeat, or it can be done through external occupation and coercion. The destruction of these expressions eliminates the influence of the idea on the community. Its gravitational pull is weakened, public discourse opens to new ideas, and the political network which was based on the idea is diminished, and a new one is formed. The destruction of the expressions of the idea destroys the idea in the sense that it destroys the ability of this idea to motivate the community to go to war.

In the case of Imperial Japan, total victory did not come with the ceremony of surrender on September 2^nd, 1945. It came with the end of the period of American occupation, on April 28^th, 1952. Between these two dates, the American occupation initiated multiple processes to change Japanese society from its core: The separation of the Shinto religion from the state, a new liberal and pacifist constitution, the dismantling of the army, downgrading the stature of the emperor, and more. All these steps were necessary not only in order for Japanese citizens to internalize their defeat, but to destroy the expressions of the idea that brought Japan to war: The supremacy of the Japanese race, and worship of the emperor.

For many of the Japanese, what brought them to internalize their defeat was not the ceremony of surrender in the gulf of Tokyo, but the picture of the first meeting of Emperor Hirohito and General Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the American occupying forces. In the picture, Hirohito, 20 years younger than MacArthur, stands upright and at attention in official garb while the general stands at ease, with his shirt collar open.[45] It is clear to everyone looking at the picture who stands supreme over whom.

In the case of Germany, their defeat in the Second World War was clear: Berlin was destroyed and occupied. No one could think that Germany had been betrayed from within. In Germany, similarly, the expressions of the idea that had propelled it to war were destroyed. In the German case, this change had clear geographic implications: When the Allies annexed parts of Germany to Russia and Poland at the end of the war, they destroyed the Prussian aristocracy (the Junker class).[46] This was one of the sources of Germany militarism and anti-liberalism. Königsberg, the city in which the Prussian monarchy has been declared in 1701, was given to Russia, and its name was changed to Kaliningrad. The capital of Western Germany had not been Berlin, the capital of the Reich, but Bonn, a city with historic connections to the West from Roman times. Taking territory was not a random punishment: It aimed to change German identity from its foundations.

A Japanese citizen in 1945 harbored no doubt that Japan had failed, just as a German citizen was sure that the Reich had failed. In the bombing of Japan’s main islands, 65% of Tokyo was destroyed, as well as 57% of Osaka and 89% of Nagoya, the second and third largest cities in Japan at that time.[47] Millions lost their homes and loves ones in the American bombing campaign. The end of the war did not bring an easing of the difficult economic situation but in fact made it even worse. Raging inflation erased salaries. Basic staples like rice and soy became rare. People were forced to eat grass on the sides of the road, or not to eat at all. The black market flourished. Families were forced to sell jewelry and other precious items just to get a sack of potatoes that would suffice for a week. The situation was so desperate that the Japanese were angry when the occupying forces first presented daylight savings time: Another hour of the day meant another hour of suffering until night came.[48]

The combination of the profound military and political defeat with the “re-education” process caused the German and Japanese ideas to be defeated – if not forever, then for many long years. If we want to end the war with the Palestinians, we need to destroy the ideas that motivate war: The rejectionist ideology.

The Palestinian Rejectionist Ideology

In 2010, Saeb Erekat, the head of the Palestinian negotiation team, published an opinion piece in the Yediot Acharonot paper entitled, “It’s time to choose: Occupation or Agreement.” In the article, Erekat blamed the Netanyahu government for trying to torpedo that peace talks with the demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Erekat rejected this for three reasons: It harmed the right of return, it harmed the rights of Palestinians within Israel (i.e., Israeli Arabs), and it represented “the complete negation of the Palestinian narrative, and the adoption of the Zionist ideology.” According to Erekat, the true obstacle to peace is not the lack of Palestinian recognition of Israel but is actually building in the settlements.

Erekat was correct: Settlements indeed prevent peace; not only the settlements in Judea and Samaria, but the settlements in the Negev and Gush Dan do as well. The entire Zionist project in the land of Israel is the source of the conflict. According to Erekat, and to many other Palestinians, the conflict did not begin with the Six Day War, or even with the War of Independence, but with the Balfour Declaration. A survey from December 2022 found that 37% of Palestinian respondents answered that, in their opinion, the conflict began with the Balfour Declaration. 27% marked the War of Independence as the starting point, and only 8% pointed to the Six Day War.[49]

The Palestinians have been waging a war against our right to be a sovereign nation in the land of Israel for the last one hundred years. ‘Swords of Iron’ is only the latest round in this ongoing war. The motivating force of the Palestinians is their rejectionist ideology: The rejection of the right of Jews to sovereignty in the land of Israel (which also relates to their denial of the historic connection of the Jewish people to the land), the legitimizing of armed struggle against us (which the Palestinian Authority also partakes in), and the belief in the temporary nature of Israel, which is destined to disappear.

The rejectionist ideology is clearly reflected in Palestinian public opinion surveys. For example, in a survey from December 2022, only 28% of respondents supported mutual recognition, in which Palestinians and Israelis recognize Palestine and Israel as each nation’s homeland, the end of the conflict, and the end of each side’s claims against the other. To compare, 63% of Jewish respondents supported this.[50] These results are consistent with earlier surveys, which all reflect the refusal of Palestinians to recognize the Jewish right to sovereignty, and their expectation that the state of Israel will disappear.[51]

This ideology is also reflected in the historical creation of the Palestinian people.[52] Palestinian nationalism began in December 1920, with the third Palestinian Congress’ decision to give up on the name ‘South Syria,” and on the demand to unify Palestine and Syria. They did this based on the understanding that the Syrian Arabs would not help them combat the Jewish emigration to Israel, and because they wanted to create autonomous rule in Palestine.[53] The defeat in the War of Independence and the creation of the refugee problem became core ingredients of the Palestinian identity, including the hope to return to the places from which they were banished.[54] The idea of the “return to the lost Garden of Eden” became a central theme in Palestinian identity.[55]

Every round of conflict with the Palestinians – the first Intifada, the second Intifada, Operation Cast Lead, Operation Protective Edge – ended after dealing the Palestinians a severe blow. Despite these blows, they refuse to make peace. Of course, over the years, the methods of the Palestinian national movement have become more sophisticated. Arafat understood that to win, the Palestinian national movement needed international legitimacy. Therefore, in November 1988, he declared the establishment of the state of Palestine, based on UN Decision 181 (the Partition Plan) and 242 (which calls for Israeli withdrawal from the territories it conquered during the Six Day War). At the same time, he did not give up on the rejectionist ideology, nor on the principle of armed conflict against us.

The Oslo peace process also did not change the commitment to the rejectionist ideology, among other reasons, because of the refusal of the Palestinian leadership to present the peace accords as the result of Palestinian defeat:

“Arafat, after coming to Gaza in 1994, preferred not to discuss the implications of the Oslo Accords too much in his appearances before the Palestinian people- perhaps because he wanted to maintain the military option of armed conflict, perhaps because of concerns for the reaction of the Palestinian opposition which will highlight his weakness as a leader, and the weakness of the Palestinian side in these accords.”[56]

Public surveys from the period of the Oslo Accords also demonstrate the support that the rejectionist ideology prospered. In 1994, Palestinians were asked to complete the sentence: “The solution that I accept for the Palestinian issue is…” Nearly 50 percent supported a two-state solution. The next most popular choice was “To free all of Palestine,” with 39% support. It should be noted that in the survey, each of the solutions was associated with a particular political party: Two states with Fatah, and the freeing of all of Palestine with Hamas and Jihad. What is surprising is that freeing all of Palestine was supported by 40 percent of respondents, even though the same survey found support of Fatah to be twice the support of Hamas and Jihad combined. In another survey, in 1995, Palestinian respondents were asked if they thought that Israel had the right to exist. 65 percent responded “no.”[57]

If we want to win this war, it is incumbent upon us to destroy this rejectionist ideology.

As long as Palestinians cling to ideas that motivate the conflict, there is no reason that they would agree to territorial compromise with an entity they see as illegitimate. It is reasonable that they would see any agreement signed as an injustice which harms the right of return and their right to sovereignty. After all, the peace agreement that Israel is willing to offer – a demilitarized Palestinian state and limited right of return – does not enjoy popular Palestinian support. Only 13 percent of Palestinians support a demilitarized state. Only 43 percent are willing to be satisfied with a partial fulfillment of the right of return.[58] Therefore, a reality of two states would be no more than a starting point for the continuation of the conflict. After all, the Palestinian motivation is not concerned with conquering Judea, Samaria and Gaza, but with the very existence of the Zionist entity on Palestinian land.

To end the conflict, Palestinians must abandon these ideas that motivate them. It can happen, just as the Japanese and the Germans abandoned their racism, antagonism to the West, and holy war in the name of the emperor. For this to happen, the Palestinians must undergo a deep societal shift, which can only be the result of a deep and complete defeat, and an internalization of that defeat.

Only after this happens will it be possible to speak of a new political order. “The day after” does not begin when we complete the conquest of the Gaza Strip or the elimination of Hamas’ leaders. It begins when Palestinians recognize that Israel is a fait accompli, and that the Jewish people have a right to sovereignty based on their historical ties to the land. It is not that we need this legitimization from the Palestinians. The Palestinians need it to move on from a conflict that has brought them only death and defeat.

Steps to Victory

How can this be accomplished? The three examples that we surveyed – Carthage, Germany and Japan – demonstrate that to destroy the ideas that motivate a people, you must destroy the cultural, political, and economic expressions of these ideas. By destroying these expressions, the ideas lose their power to influence. Military victory is also important because it sears ideological defeat into the enemy’s consciousness.

In the Israeli case, the path to victory begins with the defeat of Hamas. For a society to be ready for a profound change, the failure of its current path must be clear. This failure is expressed by the defeat of the movement that proudly assumed the mantle of armed resistance and which executed an open attack against Israel, and lost. Any moderation of the operations against Hamas would be a critical error which would undermine the entire project. We must not distinguish between Hamas in Gaza and Hamas abroad, and there is no difference between its military arm and its social organs. Israel must act against the entire Hamas movement with all the tools at its disposal – military, economic, and diplomatic. Israel must capture or eliminate all of Hamas’ leaders, whether in Israel or abroad, demand of its allies to impose sanctions against it, identify it as a terror organization, and to dismantle all the organizations connected to it. The leadership of Hamas must be forced to flee for their lives, and the movement must be turned into a pariah.

The next step is to demonstrate their defeat by conquering the Strip and preventing its rehabilitation, beyond necessary infrastructure of water and sewage. The Palestinians in Gaza must understand, as the Japanese did, that this destruction is the result of armed resistance to Israel and therefore, they bear sole responsibility for it and are solely responsible for the rebuilding of the Strip. They stand before a clear choice: Will their resources be directed towards rehabilitation or armed resistance? Israel must advance these messages with propaganda to the residents of Gaza and Judea and Samaria.

The third step is the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority in its present form and reconstituting a new body. The Palestinian Authority supports terror and incites to terror. Defeating Hamas is not sufficient to uproot the Palestinian support for armed struggle against us. The PA also supports and justifies this, even if it does not do so openly and in an organized way. Talk of a “new PA” is laughable as long as such a body is not required to stop the fund for prisoners, to act against the encouragement and incitement to terror in educational materials, media channels and social media, and to condemn Hamas and the atrocities of 2023.

Israel’s tolerance towards the PA’s corruption and incitement to terror does not contribute to peace, or even to stability. It does just the opposite. Even one who supports the traditional peace process, a peace agreement that precedes the victory over ideological resistance, sees tolerating Arafat’s double-speak during Oslo and the PA’s corruption as damaging to the process. A think-tank identified with the “two state solution” writes the following:

“If Israel had been less forgiving and had taken Arafat to task for each time that he spoke against commitments he had made in these accords, he would have been required to speak the truth to his people, and to deal with the obstacles that his opponents place before him. The support of the people would have been increased if Israel had seen the corruption [of the PA] as a threat to the realization of these agreements.”[59]

Ultimately, the Palestinians must be brought to recognize the Jewish people’s right to sovereignty in its land, and acceptance of Israel as a fact of life. This should be accomplished by attacking three expressions of the Palestinian rejectionism of our right to sovereignty, and the hope that we are only temporary: 1) the Palestinian National Charter, 2) the state of eternal refugee status, and the UNRWA which enables this, and 3) the demand that East Jerusalem should be the capital of Palestine.

The Palestinian National Charter is a founding document of the Palestinian national movement. It is impossible to speak of peace if such a basic, important document rejects the very right of the Jewish people to sovereignty in their land. While it is true that Arafat and the PLO leadership publicized declarative steps and claimed that the articles that deny Israel’s right to exist were repealed, the charter was never actually changed. If there were articles that were repealed, as Arafat claimed back in 1993, the PLO should follow through and change the charter. This would be an important step towards Palestinian acceptance of the Jewish right to sovereignty.

The state of eternal refugee status is an expression of the idea that Israel is only something temporary. It also prevents the recognition of the Jewish people’s right to sovereignty, because this would mean that Palestinians would not be able to fully realize the right of return (as Erekat wrote in an opinion piece in 2010). Eternal refugee status is maintained by UNRWA, whose main funding comes from Western states, with the United States being its biggest benefactor. To lead the Palestinians to internalize that Israel is a reality that is not going away, refugee status must be ended. UNRWA should be dismantled, and the Palestinian refugee problem should be solved where they are already located, or in a third country. The right of return should not be a part of future negotiations.

The matter of Jerusalem might be the most fundamental issue in the conflict. Haj Amin Al Husseini, the first nationalistic leader of the Palestinians, was the first to turn Jerusalem into a political issue that motivates Arab nationalism.[60] The Dome of the Rock is a popular symbol in the Arab street, and protecting it is one of the justifications for the struggle against Israel. Palestinians also reject the Jewish historical connection to the city and the idea that all of Jerusalem, and not only the western part, should be the capital of Israel.[61]

So long as Israel “respects” the Palestinian questioning of the Jewish and Zionist connection to Jerusalem, and refrains from demonstrations of Jewish sovereignty in the ‘Holy Basin’, she strengthens the rejectionist ideology. Israel must act in the opposite manner: To weaken the status of Palestinians in the city, to reject the existence of national Palestinian bodies in it, and to decide that if there will be a Palestinian entity, its capital will only be Ramallah. Ramallah, like Bonn in Western Germany, would be the geographic expression of the ideological change.

Is Victory Possible?

Perhaps the reader is skeptical: Can total victory against the Palestinians really be achieved? Maybe they are more dedicated to their struggle against Israel than the Japanese and the Germans were to their ideologies?

I will begin by presenting the two main advantages of the strategy presented here, the strategy of Israeli victory, which stand even if the Palestinians are undefeatable. The first advantage is a new consensus between right and left regarding how to solve the conflict. There is no one on the Israeli political spectrum, except perhaps for the radical left, who is willing to allow all refugees to return to sovereign Israeli territory, or the establishment of an armed Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria. Since the Palestinians are not ready to accept these conditions, any peace agreement can only be on the “day after”: The day after the Palestinian rejectionist ideology ends. Until then, any peace agreement is nothing more than the preparation for the next round of conflict.

Israeli victory is not a call to annex Judea and Samaria or for an eternal continuation of the occupation; it is a call for an end to the war and the achievement of peace, something most voters on the right and on the left are interested in. Both sides can agree that they must work together to achieve victory – through legislation, government decisions, and lobbying for international support of the efforts. Israeli unity on the issue of victory will increase the chances to enjoy broad international support; foreign nations will understand that Israel, on the one hand, does not reject a political process, but on the other hand, is not willing to begin it until Palestinians abandon the ideas that animate the struggle against Israel for the last century.

The steps needed for Israeli victory cannot, and should not, be taken only by Israel. If the Palestinians see that this plan enjoys broad international support, it will increase its influence and the chances of its success, because this support will be another proof that Israel is an established fact. For example, it is possible for the Palestinians to be placed under the international stewardship of states that are committed to act against the rejectionist ideology. This, of course, would be on the condition that no military forces be stationed in the territory of the PA, and that the security envelope would continue to be Israel’s responsibility.

The second advantage of Israeli victory lies in the fact that it offers Israel a clear political case, and a foundation for an active foreign policy. Israeli victory is not only necessary for the sake of Israel; it is equally necessary for the Palestinians. If the international community wants to end the conflict, this must be done through an ideological change, which is accomplished by political, economic, and cultural changes. Most Israelis are ready for mutual recognition of Israel and Palestine as the national homes of their respective peoples, and for the conflict to end. The problem is that most Palestinians are not. Trying to divide the land before an ideological shift only promises further bloodshed, as proven in Korea, the Indian subcontinent, and Serbia-Kosovo. Israel is not willing to be another failed experiment of this type of division. The Palestinians need to accept the success of the Zionist enterprise in order to build a better future for themselves.

Can they do this?  Public surveys consistently show that between 15 and 20 percent of Palestinians are willing to recognize Israel and to end the conflict.[62] In other words, there is an insignificant minority that has internalized defeat and is willing to move on. We need to turn this minority into a majority.

Are the Palestinians undefeatable? There is no historical indication that supports that claim. It is reasonable to assume that they cling to their struggle because of the generous support of the international community, which tends to their needs. The Oslo Accords could have been the beginning of a deep change among Palestinians, if it had enforced an ideological change, and brought Palestinians to recognize the failure of the struggle against Israel. Arafat preferred to avoid this, and to save himself and the Palestinians from grappling with the significance of this failure.[63]

Even if Israel were to declare that she is ready to engage in negotiations on “the day after,” this will not diminish the chance that Palestinians will admit defeat. If Israel would set out a strategy which includes the elimination of the elements of the rejectionist ideology, the countdown to Palestinian defeat would be short. Palestinians would see the dismantling of UNRWA and the settlement of Palestinian refugees in the countries in which they reside. They would see the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, to be replaced by an international body. They would see their educational curricula replaced. They would know one more thing: That Israel will not declare victory, and the arrival of “the day after,” until the Palestinians prove that they have accepted Israel, and that they reject violence as a means to resolve the conflict.

Here too, Israel can draw inspiration from the Americans in Japan. The United States declared that the occupation of Japan would continue until Japan proves that it no longer poses a threat. They did not set a date. Neither should Israel and its allies. The war will end when Palestinians reject the ideology that has brought them, and us, only death and destruction.

photo via Wikimedia Commons IDF Spokesperson’s Unit /

[1] Polybius,  The Histories of Polybius. Bloomington :Indiana University Press, 1962.

[2]  Adrian Keith Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, 1. publ (London: Cassell Military, 2000), 155–156.

[3] Carlin A. Barton, “The Price of Peace in Ancient Rome”, in Kurt A. Raaflaub (ed.), War and Peace in the Ancient World, 1st ed. (Wiley, 2007), 248, https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470774083.ch14

[4]Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1976), bk.1, ch.1, 75

[5]John David Lewis, Nothing Less than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 2–6.

[6] Daniel Pipes, “A New Strategy for Israeli Victory”, Commentary Magazine, January 2017.

[7] Or Barak, “Me’Hakhra’a’ le’Nitzachon’: Hatarat HaBilbul BeTerminologia HaTzva’it BeYisrael” (“From ‘Overcoming’ to ‘Victory’: Clarifying the Confusion in Israeli Military Terminology”), Idkun Astrategi 24:2 (2021). Available at the INSS website.

[8] Von Clausewitz, On War, ibid.

[9] Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), xiv.

[10] Beatrice Heuser, “Clausewitz’s Ideas of Strategy and Victory”, in Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 200 7), 138–162

[11]Ibid., 147.

[12]Lewis, Nothing Less than Victory, 157.

[13] Heuser, “Clausewitz’s Ideas of Strategy and Victory”, 153.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Schelling, Arms and Influence, 31.

[16] Heuser, “Clausewitz’s Ideas of Strategy and Victory”, 157.

[17] Colin Gray, “Defining and Achieving Decisive Victory” (Fort Belvoir, VA: US Army War College Press, 1 April 2002), 15.

[18] Cian O’Driscoll, “Nobody Wins the Victory Taboo in Just War Theory”, Journal of Strategic Studies 42, no. 7 (10 November 2019): 901–919.

[19] Polybius, The Histories of Polybius.

[20] Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, 126   .

[21] Ibid., 128.

[22] Lewis, Nothing Less than Victory, 72–75.

[23] Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, 38–39, 155–156.

[24] Barton, “The Price of Peace in Ancient Rome”, 249–50.

[25] Donald Kagan, On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace (New York: Doubleday, 1995).

[26] Lewis, Nothing Less than Victory, 72–75.

[27] Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, 213.

[28] Ibid., 308–309

[29] Hans Kohn, The Mind of Germany: The Education of a Nation (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), 8–17.

[30] Ibid., 93.

[31] Ibid., 96-97.

[32] An echo of this can perhaps be found in Nietzsche, in Aphorism 146 in “The Gay Science”: “’Germans’ originally meant ‘pagans’ […] it is not at all unlikely that Germans will turn this insult into a mark of pride, by becoming the first non-Christian nation of Europe” (Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science. Translated by Walter Kaufmann, Vintage Books, 1974.)

[33]Kohn, The Mind of Germany, 161–163.

[34] Kagan, On the Origins of War.

[35] Ibid.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Lewis, Nothing Less than Victory, 197–200.

[38] Ibid., chap. 6.

[39] Kohn, The Mind of Germany, 333–335.

[40] David Ohana, Misdar HaNihilistim: Leidata shel Tarbut Politit Be’Eiropa 1870-1930 (The Order of the Nihilists: The Birth of Political Culture in Europe 1870-1930), Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 2016, vol. 1: The Paths of Modernity, 357.

[41] Oswald Spengler, The Hour of Decision, trans. Charles Francis Atkinson (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1934), xiv.

[42] John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat (W.W. Norton & Company, 2000), 277.

[43] Samuel I. Rosenman, ed., The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt: 1943, The Tide Turns (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1950), 37–45.

[44] Clausewitz, On War, 77.

[45] Dower, Embracing Defeat, 293.

[46] Felix E. Hirsch, “The End of The Junker Class”, Current History 10, No. 54 (1946): 146–151.

[47] Dower, Embracing Defeat, 45–46 .

[48]Dower, 91–105.

[49] Palestinian-Israeli Pulse: A Joint Poll (Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, the International Program in Conflict Resolution and Mediation, January 2023).

[50]Palestinian-Israeli Pulse: A Joint Poll, 18.

[51]Daniel Polisar, “Do Palestinians Want a Two-State Solution?”, Mosaic, 3 April 2017.

[52]  Benny Morris, “The Rejection”, The New Republic, 21 April 2003.

[53]  Daniel Pipes, “The Year the Arabs Discovered Palestine”, Middle East Review 21, no. 4 (Summer 1989)

[54] Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal, The Palestinian People: A History (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2003), 259–260; Morris, “The Rejection”.

[55] Morris, “The Rejection”.

[56] “Chasamim LeShalom BeSikhsukh HaYisraeli-Falestini” (“Obstacles to Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”), Studies of The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 2010, pp. 90-91.

[57] Polisar, “Do Palestinians Want a Two-State Solution?”.

[58] Palestinian-Israeli Pulse: A Joint Poll, 18–19.

[59] “Obstacles to Peace”, p.104.

[60]  Philip Mattar, “The Role of the Mufti of Jerusalem in the Political Struggle over the Western Wall, 1928-29”, Middle Eastern Studies 19:1  (1983): 104–118.

[61]  Polisar, “Do Palestinians Want a Two-State Solution?”; Palestinian-Israeli Pulse: A Joint Poll, 19.

[62]  Polisar, “Do Palestinians Want a Two-State Solution?”.

[63] “Obstacles to Peace”, p.91.