Part 1 The roots of the suicidal military strategies
In the three Middle East wars in 1956, 1967, and 1973, Israel's armed forces were able to quickly and decisively defeat the numerically superior forces of several Arab states. In contrast, for over two years now, they have been unsuccessfully pursuing such a victory solely against the terrorist group Hamas. The significant deterioration of the situation for Israel is not due to a shift in the balance of military power, but rather to the way in which these forces are being managed.
When Israel achieved its resounding victory over four Arab states in just six days in 1967, American citizens wondered what made the Israeli military so much more successful than their own. After all, the American military was then embroiled in the frustrating Vietnam War (1955-1975).
Their historical origins can be traced back to the Spanish-American War (1898-1899, with the Philippines and Cuba as the main theaters of operations). Instead of the promised liberation from Spanish colonial rule, this war brought the Philippines a replacement with a far more brutal American one. In this war, the US military established two shameful traditions: a callous, solidarity-preventing treatment of the civilian population and a whitewashing of media coverage of this type of warfare.
Because the censorship of war reporting and the insufficient democratic oversight of the military were not definitively addressed at that time, warfare could even develop further in a counterproductive direction during the 20th century and into the 21st.
For the first time in the Guetemaltecian Civil War (1960-1996), the callous treatment of civilians was accompanied by the arming and training of supposedly pro-Western fighters. Brutal attacks on civilians by those this way ‘trained’ and the uncontrolled proliferation of supplied weapons into enemy hands expanded the counter-strategy. These phenomena subsequently characterized Western military interventions, including those in Somalia, Iraq, and Libya. In conjunction with the repeated rotation of militias favored by the US military, a "perfect" environment was created for the absurd protracted nature of hostilities, ideal for all who profit from war.
The whitewashing of these counterproductive practices is now primarily the job of intelligence agencies. For decades, American citizens have paid the CIA with their taxes to ensure that its Office of Public Affairs concealed the military's counterproductive actions and shielded them from criticism.
Just as the counterproductive methods of warfare have evolved since the Spanish-American War, so too has distorted media coverage. [Reference] The 20-year Vietnam War, in particular, brought about significant "progress." While the two World Wars and the Korean War had united Western societies against a (in the case of World War I, supposed) ideological enemy, the Vietnam War deeply divided them.
"In the bourgeois-conservative camp, there was anger towards the left, who were blamed for insufficient military action, and the same was true, mirrored, in the left camp, where they blamed the conservatives for the inhumane conduct of the war. While the left, thanks to the psychological defense mechanism of 'identifying with the enemy,' was able to survive the 20 years psychologically unscathed, albeit with a flawed mindset, this was not possible in the conservative camp. Identifying as a patriot with American politics and the American military meant reliving all the ultimately futile efforts – resulting in a profound sense of failure and inferiority, a broken pride. The undeniable war crimes also contributed to this trauma, in this case in the form of an accumulation of guilt."
“Feelings of guilt and failure are highly effective psychological mechanisms for transforming people into a compliant ‘agentic state.’ Specifically, such psychological deficits turned previously self-confident conservatives into pseudo-conservative ‘hawks’ and ‘neocons’ during the Vietnam War. While their crude, heavy-handed militarism unilaterally serves the interests of the arms industry and the financial sector, the uncritical media environment prevents any rational resistance against this irrational policy.” From: https://www.frieden-freiheit-fairness.com/buch/kapitel/nationalismus-patriotismus-und-freie-assoziation
What is particularly irrational is the years- or even decades-long delay of hostilities, which a superior superpower, given the will, could of course successfully conclude within weeks or months.
The example of the war in Afghanistan has shown this, which demonstrably could have been concluded victoriously after two months—instead of unsuccessfully after 20 years. https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/08/18/taliban-surrendered-2001
When this happened in 2001, two notorious militarists of the military-industrial complex, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, held high government positions under George W. Bush. Their inflammatory activities in the lead-up to the wars in Afghanistan (2001–2021) and Iraq (2003-2011) confirmed Dwight D. Eisenhower's warning about the dangerously growing influence of the military-industrial complex in his 1961 Farewell Address.
Yet this warning was ignored by politicians and the media for decades. The relentless rise of the militaristic circle was thus inevitable. In tandem with a similarly strengthening financial sector, a clique grew that was interested in protracted wars, but by no means in conclusive solutions.
After the US and its NATO partners, the virus of self-destructive, protracted warfare has, with a considerable delay, also reached Israel – in a now ‘evolved’ version. This mutant is called the Dahiya Doctrine. Due to the typically incomplete reporting of the mainstream media, the Israeli civilian population is only inadequately informed about this counter-strategy. When citizens occasionally encounter the term “Dahiya Doctrine,” they rarely learn more than the motto that in the event of an attack, a disproportionately harsh retaliation will be carried out. This alone would represent a proven strategy in the sense of Niccolò Machiavelli. According to his fact-based rule, an enemy is forced to surrender with short, hard, and decisive blows.
This strategy works perfectly against enemy combatants, as Israel proved in the wars of 1967 and 1973.
However, without the knowledge of the wider Israeli public, the Dahiya Doctrine has distorted this successful concept into a counter-strategy, according to which civilian infrastructure and residential buildings are deliberately destroyed. The supposed aim is to emotionally incite the suffering civilian population against their leaders, in the Gaza Strip, Hamas.
This supposed mechanism, however, contradicts psychological principles. On the contrary, the already prevalent effect of increased solidarity ("rally around the flag") in times of war is further intensified by enemy brutality. In this way, the Dahiya Doctrine has not brought about the alienation of Palestinian civilians from the Hamas leadership, but rather prevented it. This alienation would have occurred because the terrorists regularly established their fighting positions in residential areas and even in schools and hospitals.
An effective Israeli military doctrine must clearly distinguish itself from this inhumane use of civilians as human shields by proclaiming the greatest possible protection of civilian life and property. In this way, military actions lose their character of subjugation and gain that of liberation.
Part 2: The Guilt of the Information Sector
The full extent of the Dahiya Doctrine's counterproductivity becomes clear when viewed as de facto support for media propaganda against Israel. The Israeli leadership provides the visual material for this incitement with the militarily largely senseless devastation of the Gaza Strip. The damage to buildings is of no concern to the Islamists, as international organizations will take care of the reconstruction. But the temporary uninhabitability of the territory brings them closer to a key geostrategic goal: the Islamization of the Western world through streams of uprooted refugees. This strategy works since the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), when European politicians lacking principles started to take in not only the actually persecuted Christians, but also Muslims. https://www.frieden-freiheit-fairness.com/en/blog/fraud-manipulated-clash-civilizations
In contrast, the accusations of genocide against Israel are absurd, since the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) announce attacks in advance. These warnings, however, allow well-informed Hamas fighters to seek safety even more readily than civilians. This makes a military victory against the terrorists almost impossible, while the unavoidable collateral civilian casualties lead to a loss of image for Israel and a global escalation of anti-Semitic sentiment. Thus, in the viewpoint of Hamas leaders, any civilian death is most welcome, as it fuels the propaganda war against Israel by serving the Palestinian victim role. https://www.frieden-freiheit-fairness.com/en/blog/what-hamas-leaders-actually-want-their-own-words-part-2
For Israel, and by way of collateral damage for all of liberal civilization, the Dahiya Doctrine has gigantic, self-destructive consequences:
- It perpetuates the global victimhood narrative of the Palestinians, thereby fueling global Islamist propaganda.
- It causes a dramatic loss of image for Israel and Judaism.
- It polarizes supporters and opponents of Israel in Western countries.
- It manipulates them in two equally suicidal directions – towards a crudely militaristic neoconservatism and towards a policy of self-abandonment in endless appeasement towards Islamists.
- It leads to rampant migration of Islamic refugees to Western countries – while Arab countries are continuously allowed to shirk their historical responsibility. This responsibility for the original refugees and for their numerous descendants dates back to their attack on Israel in May 1948, and has been confirmed in every subsequent Middle East war.
The major British and American news agencies demonstrably bear a massive share of the blame for these dangerous developments: Throughout the entire period from the October 7th massacre to the present day, not a single one of them has mentioned, let alone explained, the Dahiya Doctrine in any report – as confirmed by AI research. The same applies to leading mainstream media outlets such as the New York Times and the BBC. As a result, the vast majority of Western citizens remain unaware. Those who conduct targeted research encounter a growing number of anti-Israel magazines and internet platforms, many of them promoters of political Islam. A common tactic is to distort the definition of the Dahiya Doctrine, as if it included the deliberate killing of civilians. This then leads to accusations such as "Israel's genocidal campaign," which reinforce the already preconceived caricature of a violent, Palestinian-oppressing "apartheid state." https://www.counterpunch.org//2025/07/30/the-sad-history-of-changing-the-map-of-the-middle-east/
Without a thorough course correction, these developments minimize the chances of survival for the authentic Zionist idea and for Israel itself. All Western nations and their concept of liberal society are likewise threatened by the underestimated collateral effects.
Course correction means questioning and replacing the ‘political correctness’ which currently dominates the West—that unspeakable pseudo-philosophy which has given birth to and cultivated both coward appeasement and neoconservative militarism, which latter has escalated into the mindless and suicidal Dahiya doctrine.
A look at the broader political situation shows that there is no better time for this course correction than now. An American armada has arrived at the entrance to the Persian Gulf. Military pressure can bring about negotiated solutions. It can also lead to a clean liberation of the Iranian nation from 47 years of Ayatollah dictatorship, avoiding civilian casualties and major battles.
However, if the lessons from 80 years of counterproductive British-American military interventions are not learned, a repetition and further escalation of these catastrophes is inevitable. https://www.frieden-freiheit-fairness.com/en/blog/excesses-militarism-social-suicide-and-human-sacrifice
In the event of a full-blown war, it would be impossible to keep the Strait of Hormuz open to civilian shipping, causing oil supplies and thus the economies of Europe and China in particular to drop dramatically. Despite the enormous unemployment figures, this would be the less severe consequence.
A major escalation threatens, especially if Israeli politicians fail to immediately identify the Dahiya Doctrine as a suicidal program and replace it with an ideology of liberating the opposing civilian population from its autocratic leadership. https://www.frieden-freiheit-fairness.en/blog/maduros-overthrow-crossroads-world-politics-short-version.
Without the utmost caution, the Gaza war, which continues to simmer on a lower flame could prove to be a dress rehearsal for something far worse in Iran and Israel. Caution must take into account the potential deployment of nuclear weapons by North Korea. The same applies to Turkey's real great-power perspective. https://timesca.com/how-central-asia-is-shifting-from-russia-towards-turkey/
Never before has Israel's leadership borne anything close to as much responsibility as it does now. A short quote from the Torah, the Old Testament, points to the correct path, which has nothing to do with MIC militarism, nothing to do with subservient appeasement, and nothing to do with the undemocratic power of money: Ephesians 5:11 “…and have no fellowship with the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them.