The problem of playing by Jungle Rules

Israel's "jungle crazy" is working, but the cost will be high.

Israel has had the same cast of characters running the place for decades, and as a small country, the same names keep popping up: Ehud Barak is one of them. He is the one credited with the phrase “villa in the jungle” from a 1996 speech given in St. Louis.

The dreams and aspirations of many in the Arab world have not changed. We still live in a modern and prosperous villa in the middle of the jungle, a place where different laws prevail. No hope for those who cannot defend themselves and no mercy for the weak.

Few would argue that the weakest, most defenseless people in Israel’s immediate orbit—even in the entire Middle East—are the Gazan civilians. They are seemingly bred for one purpose: to serve as human shields and set pieces for media to film their squalor, and even their horrific deaths. Those who attempt to elude this fate find resolve by joining the local gang of thugs, Hamas, who prepare them for death in combat against Israel, or, as we all witnessed on October 7th, to commit inhuman barbarism against Jews.

As IDF Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian said in an address to Gazans just three days after the Hamas pogrom, “You wanted hell, you will get hell.”

Hell they have gotten, by jungle rules, meaning “no hope for those who cannot defend themselves and no mercy for the weak.”

The modern American mind has trouble wrapping itself around these rules. We look at history with a tut-tut and a dour expression, while all kinds of massacres took place under our flag and authorized by our government. But we would never do the Trail of Tears today, right? Museums are no longer permitted to display artifacts because the people we oppressed haven’t given their nod. Hollywood makes movies like “Oppenheimer” that apologize for our complete devastation of the Japanese home islands in World War II. America spent decades and billions of dollars rebuilding wartime Germany from its own ruins and starving population, mostly to stand against an ever-ravenous Soviet Union which suffered twenty million deaths. In America, jungle rules are for history and apology, not for today.

In Israel, jungle law is not just for today, it’s an existential imperative.

Israel’s Arab enemies no longer attempt to extinguish the Jewish state by invading it with armies. They tried it and every time, they failed, despite numerical superiority. They even pulled off an amazing intelligence coup, fooling both the Mossad and the CIA while planning a massive surprise attack, bringing Israel to the brink of defeat.

In 1973, Egypt and Syria exploited Cold War realities; they believed Israel could be exterminated with Soviet backing. U.S. President Richard Nixon, busy with the wind-down of Vietnam, wanted to keep America out of this war, but he knew the USSR was watching closely, ready to intervene. In response, Israeli PM Golda Meir fueled Israel’s nuclear-armed missiles in full view of American spy satellites. Cornered, Nixon ordered American forces to DEFCON 3—the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis—and told Secretary of State Henry Kissinger “send everything that will fly” to Israel. Meir got what she wanted, and the Soviets backed down.

Since that war, nobody has tried to invade Israel outright. They know Israel has nuclear weapons. They know the United States will back Israel. They also know that Israel’s military tech is generally far superior to anything the Arab states possess. And most importantly, the geopolitical landscape has changed; many Arab states have other enemies more threatening than Israel, such as Iran, or the Muslim Brotherhood. Some have embraced Abe Lincoln’s proverb, “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

Israel’s main enemies are now Muslim Brotherhood variants such as Hamas, and Iran-backed militias like Hizbollah. Syria and Lebanon are nearly at failed-state levels of government control, giving terrorists and the Iranians, along with the Russians, Kurds, and even Americans, a melting pot base of military operations, with Israel conducting regular raids on its enemies’ activities. Hizbollah boasts between 30,000 to 45,000 IGRC-trained and -equipped troops in southern Lebanon, with a store of over 100,000 missiles, many capable of hitting any target in Israel. The Palestinian territories in the West Bank have about 4 million residents, with an untold number of radicalized youths, armed with everything from rocks to knives, bombs, rockets and assault weapons.

If all these enemies right on Israel’s borders chose to coordinate and attack, the events of 10/7 might pale by comparison. Israel’s Iron Dome and Tamir II missiles can only protect against a certain number of incoming rockets. Rafael’s Iron Beam high-energy laser system can engage many more simultaneous targets, but does not appear to be close to operational deployment. Logic dictates that now would be the “right” time for those who chant “from the river to the sea” to make their play. But they have not done it.

Why not?

Part of the explanation might be the U.S. carrier strike force sitting in the Mediterranean. But President Biden has made it clear he doesn’t want to expand the war, nor does he want American troops to get into a “shooting war” in the Middle East. He may not get his wish, as U.S. and allied forces continue to ramp up counterattacks against Iran-aligned militants in Syria and Iraq. But regarding Israel, America has been a restraining hand, not as much a protective one.

The biggest explanation of Hizbollah’s and the PA’s reticence to make their terrorist play—which the Palestinian people want in great numbers—is that Israel is committed to jungle rules. Israel’s emergency war cabinet approved a full-scale operation against Lebanon, starting in Beirut, to destroy the command and control of Hizbollah, along with a massive invasion of south Lebanon at the Blue Line to deal with the militants and their rockets. Lebanon’s government has seen what Israel is doing to Gaza, and believes that Israel would do it to Beirut, and would turn its nation into a smoking ruin filled with starving refugees.

The PA believes that Israel would ignore all the provisions of the Oslo Accords and roll into the West Bank in full force, bulldozing as they go. The West Bank, unlike Gaza, is not sitting atop a giant tunnel system. It is sitting on top of thousands of years of history, including the Dome of the Rock built directly on the site of the Second Temple, which was built on the site of King Solomon’s Temple, the Holy of Holies in the Jewish faith, and the one-time home of the Ark of the Covenant. It is the place in the Gospels (Matthew 24:2) where Jesus said “not one stone will be left atop another.”

Under jungle rules, Israel would ignore all the historical value of this land in order to launch an unprecedented attack to preserve its existence. It would not matter what The Hague, or the besuited diplomats at the U.N. vote or rule, Israel is not playing by international rules, and it is only held by the most tenuous threads to international law. It is playing by jungle rules, where there is no mercy for the weak.

For years, Israel played by international rules, as the civilized “villa,” and Hamas dug deep tunnels, filled with sophisticated architecture, contingency plans, and backups upon backups to function in the face of a full Israeli assault. Hamas turned Gaza into a giant booby trap for Israel, and the only “solution” Israel has is to engage it by jungle rules. The fact that its other enemies have sat back, watching, without acting, is proof that “jungle crazy” works. Jungle rules are an effective deterrence to those who know they are not strong enough to survive “jungle crazy.” But when “jungle crazy” ends, there must be a plan to return to civilization.

I’m afraid that Israel does not have one. President Biden’s administration believes that Israel doesn’t have one. PM Benjamin Netanyahu has had to move his goalposts to focus on getting the hostages back, versus completing a 100% destruction of Hamas with Israel administering Gaza afterward. The latest proposal by Egypt and Qatar has U.S. backing, and includes the PA in a new Gaza government, a step toward a two-state solution, according to reports by Haaretz.

The IDF estimates that only 20% of Gaza’s tunnels have been destroyed. If the operation ended now, 80% of those tunnels would be operational, and Hamas could very quickly replace its dead leaders, while it rebuilds a force that can hurl hundreds of rockets at central Israel at a moment’s notice. And every day in the media, the suffering of the weak and defenseless Gazan civilians would be splashed across front pages and lead stories. The deal needs to be done before the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in the second week of March, putting Israel on a course to end operations before the November elections.

Biden would gain a big feather in his cap by implementing a timeline to include the cessation of hostilities in Gaza, a new defense pact between Saudi Arabia and the U.S., and normalization of relations between the Saudi kingdom and Israel before November. I wouldn’t bet on that happening, given that events have a way of dictating themselves, and Iran is not going to allow these things to simply progress without opposition.

Iran will make the price of any deal having the U.S. expand the “war” beyond a few B-1B strikes against a few hundred targets. The U.S. will have to address Iran directly, either by buying them off, or by scaring them into compliance. Biden is not a “scare’em” kind of president, so there will likely be some deal.

Israel will eventually have to decide whether it wants to emerge from jungle rules, or to continue its rain of destruction on its enemies. Some in Netanyahu’s government want to go full “jungle crazy” with no return (the ultra-religious right who want to re-establish the Davidic kingdom). Some believe that Israel can have its cake and eat it too, remaining “jungle crazy” while maintaining a civilized government. The fence-sitting can only last so long—at some point, Israel will be tested and have to choose one or the other. Choosing civilization in the middle of a giant war, after spurning the U.S. and others’ calls for an offramp, leaves Israel vulnerable to annihilation. It will be too late at that point.

Those words: “eventually” and “that point” are not some far-off fuzzy times. They are deadlines getting more and more clear, written in stone, every day. Israel has about a month to decide whether it will continue its jungle rules or return to civilization. Gazans have already paid the price of no hope for those who cannot defend themselves and no mercy for the weak. The bigger cost will be to the soul of the only liberal democratic nation in the Middle East. Ultimately, Hamas is counting on Israel selling its own soul to achieve victory.

The cost of Israel keeping its civilization, and remaining the villa instead of another part of the jungle, for this generation is going to be high, no matter what.

As disgusting as this sounds (and it is disgusting), that price, even buying off Iran or having the U.S. confront the Houthis, is probably more palatable than Israel remaining in “jungle crazy” mode. See, the problem with playing too long by jungle rules, is that you lose the right to call yourself the villa.