I truly dread writing this column. For the first time since this conflict erupted in medieval savagery on October 7, I feel the kind of hopelessness that I have been keeping at bay for over 600 days.

It is ironic because now we are closer than ever to actually removing Hamas from power. We have brilliantly created an alternative to the Hamas-controlled trucks filled with aid that have been used to prop up their bestial power base in Gaza. For the first time, there are armed militias of Gazans shooting at Hamas operatives who try to harm them for taking food from the new distribution centers.

In fact, we should be rejoicing having shown up the idiots in Europe who insisted otherwise, that there actually was a Hamas command and control center underneath the European Hospital. And most of all, we have gotten our hands on the rotting corpse of Mohammed Sinwar, Yaya’s brother, the architect of the kidnapping and tunnel strategy that has cost us so much in blood. His body was dug up and carted away today.

The sense of despair began this weekend. We spent it with family. On Friday night, when everyone else had already gone to bed, I had a long, quiet talk with my daughter-in-law. Some background: her father lost an arm in one of Israel’s wars, and her grandfather was the commander of forces in Neve Yaakov during the War of Independence, leading the entire Jewish outpost to safety from the onslaught of the Jordanians. Her brother – father of four, the youngest a newborn – has been in and out of this war for months. She has nephews, cousins, in-laws who are in the midst of battle.

Very quietly, she said to me: “It isn’t complicated. They are trying to make it complicated, to create a fog, but it is really very simple. Netanyahu has to go. He was the architect of Hamas being in control of Gaza. He has led the country for 16 years. And it was under his watch, and because of his leadership, that we suffered the worst massacre in Israeli history. And we are now involved in a war that is the longest war we have ever fought. He has to take responsibility and he has to go home.”

I have been resisting that conclusion for some time because for many years Netanyahu stood as a bulwark against the delusional left who wanted a Palestinian State, and land for peace.

But she is right. It isn’t complicated. He who facilitated the funding of Hamas with over a billion dollars of Qatari money, funneled to them

at a rate of 35 million a month for years; who facilitated the cement and electricity with which they built the tunnels in which Israelis are now tortured and starved, and which serve to protect terrorists and allow them to kill our young soldiers, this leader has reached the end of his usefulness on the pages of history. It is time for him to go.

The question of who will take his place was what always gave me pause in the past from saying these things. But the quiet, steady voice of a patriotic Israeli woman, mother of an IDF officer, has finally made it clear to me: that doesn’t matter. What matters is that someone finally takes responsibility for the unimaginably nightmarish things that happened here, and continue to happen. It doesn’t even matter that the head of Shin Bet was even more guilty for completely misreading the situation, because he is gone. But Netanyahu is still here. He and all his party members. They have to go.

In the background, was this weekend’s loss of four precious soldiers from the explosion of a booby-trapped house in Khan Yunis. The army claims precautions were taken. But if this is the result, they weren’t cautious enough. The reason for sending in troops instead of carpet bombing, is, of course, to check out tunnel entrances in which our hostages might be held. 

Despite the thousands of tunnel entrances found and destroyed; despite the thousands of Hamas barbarians killed, there are still thousands of tunnels we haven’t yet found, and an estimated ten thousand armed Hamas terrorists with apparently no shortage of IED’s.

We have much to be proud of this week: the IDF has killed terrorist As’ad Abu Sharaiya , head of the Mujahadeen terrorist group which infiltrated Kibbutz Nir Oz and was directly involved in the abduction and murder of Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas and the abductions and murders of Gad Haggai and Judi Lynn Weinstein Haggai, Nattapong Pinta and an additional foreign national who is still being held captive.

I’m glad he’s dead. But I look at his ugly, hateful face and know that there are ten thousand just as ugly and just as hateful ready to take his place.

I’m thinking, is it wrong to want this to end? For our boys to come home? Is it the surrender so many in Israel have been demonstrating for and which I was, and am, staunchly opposed? But I can’t help wondering: What is the plan? Is it really possible to win the war and save the hostages? Or are these goals mutually exclusive?

And if you ask: Who would be a better leader? What would be a better plan? I would not be able to answer you. It feels like a quagmire, with our feet sinking in quicksand, which is exactly what our enemies want. To wear us down. To take away our ability to think straight, and fight on.

If only the fighting didn’t involve the loss of our beautiful young soldiers.

If only everyone in Israel would feel obligated to do their part, and not convince themselves that they have a God-given right to sit on their behinds while the rest of us risk our lives and the lives of our families. The thousands of haredim who say they will die before they agree to do their military duty, are making the burden heavier for all those already serving; they are forcing the IDF to put young women in combat positions because able-bodied men refuse to serve.

There is no way to put a hopeful spin on this. It’s tearing us apart as a nation, and as a society, taking away our cohesiveness. Just look at the number of Israelis caught spying for Iran! It’s unprecedented. And now Iran says it has documentation of all Israel’s nuclear facilities. Is it a bluff? Or another Israeli traitor we have not yet discovered?

All I have left is my faith. I believe that despite the terrible mistakes that were made, the selfishness and narrow-minded groups who think only of themselves and their own special needs, that we will survive. The Jewish people, the Jewish homeland, will survive. Because that is what Jews do. Miraculously. 

But if we don’t want to be a nation in trauma, addicted to anti-depressants, filled with fury and resentment. Things need to change. Netanyahu has to go. The haredim have to put down their books and learn how to shoot. And all of us need to learn to forgive each other, and erect an impenetrable emotional wall against our enemies. Revenge has its place. Hatred has its hour. That too is part of survival. 

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