“IDF soldiers are overwhelmed – not because there aren’t enough of them, but because the missions are meaningless. They’re not sent to win. They’re not sent to destroy the enemy. They’re sent to manage a never-ending war.”

By Rabbi YY Jacobson – Lilmod.net

He hit the target. Every word is exactly right. Rabbi Eliav Turgeman, CEO of the Union of Community Rabbis, published an article in Arutz Sheva just three days before the outbreak of war with Iran. Unfortunately, everything he wrote is one hundred percent true. Yet this point is lost on many frum Jews.

So what is the real problem in the Israeli army? It’s not that we lack a hundred thousand soldiers. The problem is that the leadership of the army has not wanted to win – for decades. They only want to maintain the status quo. That’s the real tragedy.

But what can we do when our enemies don’t want a status quo? They hunger for victory. And as long as we don’t cultivate that same spirit in ourselves – the spirit that burns in their hearts – we will fail, again and again.

When we enter Gaza and then leave, only to keep on returning, over and over again, is the issue a shortage of fighters – or the lack of a decision to be decisive? When we deploy thirty battalions to do what three brigades used to accomplish, is that a manpower issue – or the result of a paralyzing, defeatist policy?

Instead of defeating the enemy, we “contain” them. Instead of conquering and destroying, we enter and exit. Instead of humiliating and expelling, we “manage the conflict.” The issue isn’t a lack of manpower – it’s a lack of spirit.

On the battlefield, soldiers pay the price of this tragic policy. Because we fear the word “occupation,” our enemies know that after we win, we’ll sabotage ourselves – giving them space to rebuild and continue their war. This is not a sane military strategy. It’s cowardice. It’s rooted in deep self-doubt, in the belief that we must lose in order to satisfy every progressive antisemite who might otherwise call us extremists.

The result? Our soldiers die on the front lines while fighting to subdue Gaza – only for the government to pull them back after a few weeks or months, giving Hamas a chance to regroup and return stronger. No normal army behaves like this. An army like this needs psychological healing and spiritual rehabilitation.

Israel today faces a Nazi-like enemy – but it’s afraid to win. Imagine if Churchill or Roosevelt had been too scared to defeat Hitler. If they’d tried to negotiate peace instead of seeking victory, World War II might still be going on to this day.

G-d has performed supernatural miracles for us in this generation. A lone sheep among seventy wolves, victorious again and again. G-d is shining His face upon us. And what did we do with that light? We told our enemies, “Please go back home. We love you and your children.”

When the Jewish people – “merciful, the children of merciful” – are not grounded in the eternal truth of Torah, they become their own worst enemies.

The result is global: the world grows to hate Israel even more – not because of what we do, but because they see a people ashamed of themselves and their heritage. And the world despises a people who are ashamed of themselves.

“Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit,” says G-d. That’s the foundation of every Jewish victory. What we lack is not more weapons or troops – we lack the spirit to win. This is a battle between good and evil. And in such a war, there is no place for compromise.

When Yehoshua sent the spies to Rachav, she said: “I know that Hashem has given you the land… for the terror of you has fallen upon us, and all the inhabitants of the land have melted before you… our hearts melted, and no spirit remained in any man because of you.”

Yehoshua understood that the key to conquering the land was not numerical superiority, but breaking the enemy’s spirit and will.

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Returning to the current state of the IDF, as aptly described by Rabbi Eliav Turgeman.

IDF soldiers are overwhelmed – not because there aren’t enough of them, but because the missions are meaningless. They’re not sent to win. They’re not sent to destroy the enemy. They’re sent to manage a never-ending war.

When you send troops to patrol Arab villages just to “show presence,” or man checkpoints that open and close depending on the Arab mood; when you enter enemy towns “cautiously” instead of forcefully – that requires endless manpower, because you’re not accomplishing anything.

When you send soldiers into booby-trapped buildings instead of leveling them with airstrikes – just to avoid world criticism – you’re driving your army mad.

Today, we are as if storming Berlin in 1945. Before Oslo, soldiers walked freely in Khan Yunis with nothing more than regular caps. Today, we enter Gaza in body armo like we’re invading Berlin in 1945. Has the enemy changed – or is it perhaps our fighting spirit that changed?

I remember, as a child, walking freely through Yericho and Shechem, because I saw the fear in the Arabs’ eyes. That fear is gone – because we told them: ‘We don’t want to win.’

After 1948 and 1967, we were feared. People cooperated because they knew resistance meant annihalation. We ruled. We administered. Today, Hamas knows that the Israeli government, the High Court, and the media will protect them – and prevent IDF control. That’s what changed. Not the number of soldiers.

And yet somehow, we’ve let ourselves believe the problem is the charedim.

Not cowardly leadership. Not commanders afraid of legal scrutiny or world opinion. Not politicians who’d rather “manage” the war than win it. Not the twisted belief that we are occupiers. Not the army leaders who supported failed “peace” deals that brought destruction.

No – the problem, they say, is boys learning Gemara.

If we really lacked fighters, where were the charedim in 1967? In all the wars we won? Did anyone blame our victories on their absence?

Of course not.

When you have leaders who call Hamas terrorists righteous, and who ignore military intelligence warnings about an imminent war – there is a deeper issue. A cancer. And adding 50,000 charedim to the army won’t cure that spiritual sickness.

The real question we must ask is: Why don’t we decide? Why do our commanders value Arab lives over Jewish lives? Why are enemy children more precious than our soldiers? This war ends only when we restore a spirit of victory—not by recruiting more soldiers to a cowardly mindset. It’s not a manpower issue. It’s a spirit issue. 

We have commanders afraid to decide. Politicians who want “stability,” not victory. An army that “manages” war instead of dominating and winning it.

As faith in our cause diminishes, as belief in Eretz Yisrael as our eternal inheritance weakens, so does our army: brigades shrink, prioritizing women and climate officers over aggression, and military service is shortened – under the illusion that “great wars are behind us.” Simchas Torah shattered that illusion.

Yes, we need a strong army – large enough for all challenges. But it must be an army with a spirit of victory, not an army of containment and fear.

As long as we try to fix a spiritual problem with manpower, we will fail. As long as we shift blame to a whole community, instead of reassessing our war doctrine, we will watch soldiers collapse while our enemies grow stronger.

When our army arrives, the enemy should tremble knowing that his city will be obliterated. I should not fear that the enemy knows I’m coming. That’s for covert recon units operating in the depth of Syria – not an army at war. When we enter, they must know: we dominate. This is our land.

Again: this is not a issue of manpower. It’s an issue of spirit.

Instead of recruiting more soldiers into a war we don’t intend to win, we must restore the IDF’s fighting spirit. Replace cowardice with courage. Instead of training more troops for a reality of fear, we must erase fear from our military vocabulary.

If we truly want to win this war, we must face the truth: cowardly policies created it. And only by changing those policies – by annihilating the enemy, conquering the territory, subjugating the population – can we bring victory. We must return to basic principles of victorious warfare. We need to return to Gaza for good.

The Arabs do not fear death – they see martyrdom as gain. What they fear is losing land.

Once we return to real decisions and real consequences – once the enemy fears raising its head again – once we achieve clear victory, then we can return home, as a united people who know how to win.

But that takes leadership with the courage to look in the mirror.

This is not a manpower issue. This is a spirit issue.

And until we fix that, no draft will bring victory.

This war ends when we restore the will to win – total, complete, and decisive. Like Berlin, 1945.

And so writes the Shulchan Aruch, Laws of Shabbos (Orach Chaim 329):

“If non-Jews besiege Jewish towns and come only for monetary matters, one does not desecrate Shabbos because of them. But if they come to harm lives, or even if there is reason to suspect they intend to harm lives – even if they are merely preparing to come – one must go out against them with weapons and desecrate Shabbos.

“And in a town near the border, even if they come only for straw or hay, one must desecrate Shabbos and go out against them – lest they capture the town, and from there, the entire land will be easy to conquer.”

That’s what Jewish victory looks like.