While many world leaders lack the moral clarity to do what is right for their people, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has proved time and time again that when Israel is facing real challenges, he will do all that is in his power in order to protect the country’s greater interest. 

According to late British prime minister Winston Churchill: “The price of greatness is responsibility.” After the recent escalation in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas, the ruling terrorist organization, launched almost 500 rockets at Israeli cities, towns, schools and homes, the prime minister decided not to go to war in Gaza. It was clear to the Israeli premier that a conflict would likely lead to the fact that not all of the Israeli soldiers would return from battle, as well as the probability that a full-scale war could harm the growing ties that Israel has formed with the Arab Gulf states. 

A Courageous Decision

I commend Prime Minister Netanyahu for making one of the most courageous decisions in Israeli history. It would have been easy for the prime minister to have made the same decision as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert — a 30-day war in the Gaza Strip that ended up with over 1,000 dead Palestinian women and children.

This type of attention could be used to increase Hamas’ recruiting and fund-raising and fuel future terrorism against Israel. In the past decade, Israel has seen too many conflicts since withdrawing from the Gaza Strip. Israel’s enemies have been able to twist Israel’s right of self-defense into a blood libel of killing Palestinians, when exactly the opposite is true — Israel pays the price for their extreme attentiveness to avoiding civilian casualties. 

Invisible Wars

The State of Israel is fighting three types of wars — ideological, economic and media — and the current situation in Gaza has involved all three of these invisible wars. Ideologically, Hamas calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and the genocide of the Jewish people worldwide. Economically, far-Left Hamas sympathizers call to boycott Israel and have succeeded to bring about a boycott in some European nations and global companies. The media war of attacking Israel out of context and distorting Hamas’ actions to further incite outrage against Israel is rampant in today’s news and is souring American public opinion of Israel and its people. If Israel had responded to the rocket attacks by going to war in Gaza, they would have lost all three of these invisible wars and with it the alliance. 

Poisoning the Conversation

After meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman, Emirati Crown Prince Muhammed bin Zayed and Egyptian President Fattah el-Sisi, I can see the threat that Hamas poses in the media, using distorted tragic images and text to poison the conversation without context. The world then accepts the misinterpretation of Israel’s aims in the Gaza Strip, while Hamas and Islamic Jihad (a smaller, even more radical terrorist group in Gaza) intentionally fire rockets at Israeli towns from crowded areas, shielding themselves behind their civilians — a double war crime.

In this round in Gaza, the tragic images created by Hamas and Islamic Jihad of dead women and children could have been the last straw for the people on the street, leading to turmoil for Sunni leaders, therefore causing them to backtrack on the solid positive moves that have been made between them and Israel. 

After speaking with these Arab leaders, I believe that if Netanyahu has more time as the Israeli premier, Israel could make peace with five to six Gulf states. Netanyahu’s TTP policy of “technology and anti-terror for peace” has so far been truly astonishing. 

Leaders With Moral Clarity

I praise the leadership of Netanyahu. The media’s attacks on him are biased and mislead the public from the more important issues at hand. These attacks on the prime minister are no surprise; they resemble how the Left attacks US President Donald Trump. They despise leaders with moral clarity. Netanyahu has shown true moral clarity; he is not willing to let the emotions of the current climate distract the State of Israel from the bigger picture — a future of engagement and alliance between Israel and the Sunni states.
 
The writer is a #1 New York Times bestselling author with 92 published books, including The New Iran. He is the founder of Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem, of which the late President Shimon Peres, Israel’s ninth president, was the chair. He also serves on the Trump Faith Initiative.

Copyright 2018. Originally published in The Jerusalem Post. Republished with permission.