Two years after October 7, Israel has defeated its enemies. The West is still surrendering to them.
Over the past two years of war in the Middle East, I have often quoted the famous Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz. Among his most famous insights about the art of war was that an army should attack its opponent at its opponent’s center of gravity. On October 7, 2023, it appeared to me that Hamas had done what terrorist groups are so good at doing, which is to add a type of jujitsu into the art of war.
Today you do not attack your enemy at their center of gravity because if you do, in this non-Napoleonic era, you are likely to lose. Instead you try to unsettle your enemy’s advantages by tackling them at their weakest points—by hitting them at their most vulnerable place, throwing them off balance. That is what Hamas terrorists did two years ago this morning when they struck not the headquarters of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) or the nuclear plant at Dimona, but peaceful kibbutzim and a dance party.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Free Press
___________________
Douglas Murray is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor of City Journal.
Photo by Maja Hitiji/Getty Images