In the realm of military strategy, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War has stood the test of time. His principles have guided countless leaders and warriors through the annals of history.
One of the most compelling aspects of the Chinese general’s 6th century BCE strategy is the idea of appearing weak when you are strong and strong when you are weak, aiming to subdue your enemy without engaging in direct conflict. Intriguingly, Israel seems to have been embodying the principle of weakness for decades. While it might be strategic if by design, it has instead been through a series of unfortunate strategic disasters.
Consider the recent events following Israel’s elimination of a senior Hezbollah leader in Beirut. Israel has experienced close to 10 months of unprovoked rocket bombardment from the terrorist group in Lebanon. Israeli homes and communities on the Lebanon border are destroyed. Communities are ghost towns, and 80,000 residents evacuated their homes.
There have been countless deaths from the Hezbollah attacks, including the killing of a Jewish couple driving in their car, the recent killing of 12 Israeli Druze children at their community soccer field, and the recent killing of a 28-year-old Israeli man. Yet with all of this, Israel has still not engaged in the proper military maneuvers necessary to end Hezbollah’s war against us so that Israeli residents can return to their homes and live peacefully without fear of being killed at any moment.
Israel’s targeted strike eliminating Fuad Shukr is not putting an end to their war against us. That was an act that was too little, close to 10 months too late, and that will not put an end to Hezbollah’s war against us and allow everyone to return to their homes to live peacefully.
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was quick to assure the world that Israel is not seeking war with Hezbollah, emphasizing a preference for diplomacy. This statement, however, is being misconstrued by our enemies as a sign of weakness rather than a strategic position aimed at avoiding escalation. I’m sure Defense Minister Gallant means what he says, and that itself is highly worrying, since Israelis have no trust in international diplomacy.
BACK IN 2006, the United Nations decided upon UN Resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War. The resolution forbids Hezbollah from having forces south of the Litani River and smuggling weapons and rockets into Lebanon. While UNIFIL was tasked with enforcing the resolution, it failed in this mission, and the international community has never enforced Resolution 1701.
Hence, Israelis have no trust in international diplomacy to end Hezbollah’s war against us and guarantee security for Israelis to return to their homes. The failure of the international community to hold up international law thereby protecting Israel is directly responsible for the war against Israel from Lebanon today.
While Israel publicly declaring the desire for diplomacy instead of war might seem like a prudent way to avoid unnecessary conflict by the West, it inadvertently sends the opposite message to our adversaries. By declaring a desire for peace or diplomacy while refraining from substantial military operations to destroy Hezbollah, Israel’s actions are interpreted as weakness rather than a genuine strategy to de-escalate tensions. This paradox is reminiscent of Sun Tzu’s assertion: “Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”
In Israel’s case, this strategy appears to be a matter of happenstance rather than deliberate design. Israeli leaders, convinced that their posture of restraint will prevent full-scale war, are unintentionally encouraging further aggression. The paradox becomes evident when we consider historical patterns: efforts at peace over the past 30 years have led to more conflict rather than peace.
Before 1993, when I served in the IDF, the worst terror attacks we experienced in Israel were stabbing attacks because, at the time, the Arab Muslims in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza did not have guns, weapons, rockets, or US military training.
Oslo Accords were completely ineffective
That all changed with the 1993 Oslo “peace” accords.
Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres made significant concessions in the Oslo Accords by giving away ancestral Jewish lands in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza to arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat and his globally recognized terrorist organization called the Palestine Liberation Organization or Fatah. In addition to giving away our land, they gave him weapons and trained Arafat’s security forces.
These actions were intended to foster peace and the implementation of the two-state solution. Instead, they emboldened Arafat, Fatah, the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, and other terrorist groups, which resulted in a barrage of suicide bombings across Israel.
At the time, Rabin, Peres, and the pro-appeasement strategy Israeli press called the massive amounts of Israeli deaths due to terror attacks “sacrifices of peace.” That was their way of trying to convince the Israeli public that the weakness of recognizing an arch-terrorist and his terror organization as a “peace partner” was the right thing to do. That was just the beginning of increased terrorist hostility that has only grown worse and worse.
Similarly, in 2000, prime minister Ehud Barak’s decision to withdraw Israeli Defense Forces from Lebanon in the middle of the night was perceived as a strategic retreat aimed at furthering peace in the region by removing another point of friction and conflict between us and our enemies. Yet, the middle-of-the-night South Lebanon pullout in 2000 resulted in Hezbollah taking over southern Lebanon and amassing a formidable arsenal of over 150,000 rockets, further threatening Israel’s security.
THE 2005 disengagement from Gaza, where Israel expelled nearly 10,000 Jews from their homes and dismantled 21 Jewish communities in the Gaza border region, is another glaring example. This move, intended to bring about peace and the opportunity for the Arab Muslims in Gaza to create a “Singapore in the Middle East,” with trillions of dollars in international aid, only emboldened our enemies. They turned Gaza into a terror launching pad against Israel, using billions or trillions of dollars of international aid to develop rockets and create hundreds of kilometers of terror tunnels.
These historical diplomatic actions over the past 30-plus years reflect a pattern of attempting to negotiate peace through concessions and withdrawals, which has consistently backfired. We have enough proof from our short past as a modern nation to reasonably predict the failure of appeasement strategies in the future.
We know from experience that our enemies interpret these gestures as signs of weakness rather than steps toward genuine peace. The consistent outcome has been increased aggression and a perception of Israel as vulnerable and unprepared for substantial conflict.
Interestingly, while Israeli leaders have not been consciously employing Sun Tzu’s strategy, the unintended consequence of their actions aligns with his principles. By projecting an image of weakness for decades, Israel’s enemies are being drawn into a situation where the Jewish state will be forced to use a more decisive military action against Hezbollah and Hamas that will most probably lead to Israel liberating and remaining in southern Lebanon and Gaza.
TO SECURE lasting peace, Israel will have to address the root of the problem by eliminating Iran’s threats on our borders posed by Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. This approach, while seemingly at odds with the current strategy of appearing restrained, is the only step that will ensure that Israeli citizens can return to their homes up North and down South, without the constant fear of rocket attacks and terrorist infiltration.
While Israeli leaders have not intentionally followed Sun Tzu’s strategic war advice, the continued approach of the Oslo Accords, based on appeasement and weakness towards a genocidal enemy, has led to a situation where Israel’s strength is obscured by an outward appearance of weakness. This irony will ultimately force Israel into a more comprehensive conflict resolution strategy, a full-out war with Israel’s full strength, to destroy Hezbollah’s military capabilities in southern Lebanon.
The unintended alignment with Sun Tzu’s principles highlights a broader strategic paradox: sometimes, appearing weak when strong can lead to the very conflict one seeks to avoid. In this case, it may just mean that Israel’s leaders will do what they need to instead of what they want to, achieving what is best for the people, albeit not by design.
The writer is the host of the Pulse of Israel daily broadcast and the CEO of 12Tribe Films Foundation.