> You have to look at the bigger picture. If they lose it's going to be a problem for all of us. Thus I have to support them. And no I'm not a Trump supporter o

> You have to look at the bigger picture. If they lose it's going to be a problem for all of us. Thus I have to support them. And no I'm not a Trump supporter or Jewish or Israeli. Presently, some pro-war Israelis are beginning to wonder if the costs from these wars will be worth the guarantees it won't bring: But the simplest is to examine what the goals of the war were, and whether they were achieved. In the first week, in October 2023, the cabinet defined the goals of the war as follows: destroying the military and governmental infrastructure of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip; returning the hostages, both alive and dead; removing the threat of terrorism from the Gaza Strip and preventing its return; and creating conditions for long-term security. Later, a guarantee of the safe return of residents of the south and north to their homes was also added. The return of the kidnapped can be marked with "half a V" — the kidnapped were indeed returned, after going through hellish torment for weeks, months, and years until their return, and after some of them were murdered in captivity. But what about the other goals of the war? Even "half a V" will not fit. It is too early to talk about the last goal, creating conditions for long-term security, but it is already easy to see that Hamas has not been destroyed, neither as a military organization nor as a civilian infrastructure, and the threat of terrorism from the Gaza Strip has not been removed. In recent weeks, reports have been coming in that rockets are being produced there again and tunnels are being dug. And some residents of the north have indeed returned to their homes — certainly not all of them — but in no way can this be called a safe return. Certainly not now. Hezbollah has not been overthrown either, far from it. And the north, the encirclement and the fallout zones from the previous war with Iran are still far from being restored, and from security. Does anyone feel safe now? And what is the real situation on the Iranian front? Have we achieved the goals of the wars there? The government has never published defined war goals, neither in the previous round nor in the current one. Judging by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's victory speech after the last time we eliminated the Iranians, in June, the goals were to eliminate the nuclear threat and the ballistic missile threat — for generations. The very existence of the second Iran war in less than a year is evidence of a thousand witnesses that these goals were not achieved. If overthrowing the regime was an official goal, it has not been achieved so far either. In other words, hundreds of billions, and hundreds of billions more on the way, did not buy the security we tried to achieve with them. The general numbness in which we are currently immersed — for perfectly understandable reasons — is dangerous in all sorts of ways, and it is also dangerous when it comes to the cost of war. The numbers are so large that it is difficult to grasp them, so we don't try. They pass us by. We have no way of grasping 352 billion, and another 350 billion, so come on, another 100-50 here or there, what does it matter? What does it matter at all, and what does it matter to us in our daily lives. Just let us sleep. https://www.calcalist.co.il/magazine/article/8a0gc68cl https://www.calcalist.co.il/magazine/article/8a0gc68cl / https://archive.vn/MtADW https://archive.vn/MtADW