Reply #91: What You Say Is True, Sir

[The Magistrate]

But it points to a serious problem with the prolonged practice of such a war, not often reckoned with. It is quite possible for any conventional military power to in fact lay waste to the area of operations: this has simply gone out of fashion in the present day, but was often employed in the past, and works quite well. What has generally restrained such action in the modern day is that most guerrilla conflicts have involved places that were distant from, and peripheral to the interests of, the major power afflicted by the guerrilla campaign, so that there was no sustained will, born of a perceived necessity to win, animating its people, and so no sufficient political constituency for the measures required. This does not apply in the situation of Israel: the theaters of conflict are directly on its borders, and the homeland and its people are directly threatened. They have no place to go, and no other particular compelling interest but their security and survival. Push people in such a situation hard enough and long enough, and they will do what is required to prevail, if the doing is within their power. A method of war which, in the final analysis, depends on the self-restraint of the foe, contains within it the seeds of its defeat. Pressed long enough in a manner that threatens truely vital interests, it will rouse the will to use the means that will overthrow it, regardless of any artificial constraints, and much of the onus for the horrid consequences must rest with those who took up the method and pushed it too long and too hard.

"No law that conflicts with the ability of a force in the field to survive is ever likely to be much obeyed."