Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
There is no way for Israel to achieve its military goals, according to former MK Mossi Raz.
Speaking this week on ILTV’s Insider, Raz explained that the government identified two objectives at the start of the war on October 7, 2023: releasing hostages and fighting Hamas — “two targets that for sure there is no military way to do both of them,” he said. “Probably, there is not even a military way to do one of them.”
live
INSIDER 22.04.25
(ILTV)
Raz said that Israel is still fighting in Gaza because the IDF has thus far failed to destroy Hamas and release the hostages, forcing the army to return again and again. He added that the current government is pushing for the “use of full power. They only know the language of violence.”
Beyond the military challenges, Raz said another reason Israel is struggling to defeat Hamas is the lack of a clear goal for what victory would actually look like.
“They [the government] do not know what they want if they go to war or decide to end the war,” Raz said. “Who will be the leader in Gaza after the war?”
Watch these previous episodes of ILTV's Insider:
Raz advocated for an immediate ceasefire agreement, even if it required concessions to Hamas. His view aligns with a recent poll released by the KAN news agency, which found that a majority of Israelis would support a hostage-for-ceasefire deal that allowed for the release of all 59 hostages and hostage bodies from Gaza in exchange for ending the war and releasing thousands of terror prisoners.
However, Raz’s position was challenged in studio by Foreign Ministry envoy Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, who said that his perception was “a delusion of the left wing.”
“They [the left-wing] think that somehow you can just sit down and make a deal with people who very clearly want to kill you. And yes, you can blame [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu all you want, but it was national security consensus, and it was a consensus of the government and the opposition for 20 years, that appeasing Hamas was the way forward, that appeasing Hamas was going to bring us results.”
Hassan-Nahoum argued that Hamas is an Islamic terrorist group that understands only one language — the language of force — and that Israel must defeat them in a way that leaves no doubt about who has prevailed.
“That's how we got the peace treaty with Egypt. That's how we got the peace treaty with Jordan, when they realized they couldn't get rid of us,” Hassan-Nahoum said.
Despite their opposing views, both Raz and Hassan-Nahoum agreed on one critical point: Israel must have a plan for the day after the war in Gaza.
“We need to have a plan,” Hassan-Nahoum said. “We need to strengthen the voices that have been coming out against Hamas within the Gaza Strip, without the Strip, and we need to bring in regional partners from the Middle East to think about how we deal with Gaza the day after this war, whenever that comes.”