Short answer first:
Promises mean something. When a prime minister stands before his people and the world and vows to “finish the job” against an enemy that massacred civilians and abducted scores of innocents, those words are not rhetorical flourishes - they are obligations. Two IDF soldiers were murdered this week in a blatant violation of the fragile truce, dozens of hostage remains are still being withheld, and new evidence has emerged of Hamas executing large numbers of Gazans in public to cow dissent.
Against that grim backdrop, any talk of a permanent ceasefire that leaves Hamas intact is playing with fire. Benjamin Netanyahu must keep his promise: dismantle Hamas’s military and governing capacity so that October 7 never happens again.
A pause without disarmament is merely a breather for the butcher to sharpen his knives.
The political theater of hostage diplomacy has rightly earned plaudits - President Trump’s intervention to secure hostage releases was, by all accounts, an extraordinary diplomatic achievement that saved lives and brought families a measure of closure. Those returns matter. They are human triumphs in an otherwise horrific chapter.
But rescuing hostages is one square on a much larger chessboard. If the primary objective of war is to deny the enemy the capability to do what it did on October 7 - to cross the threshold from terror to mass slaughter - then freeing hostages is necessary but insufficient. The objective must remain the unconditional dismantling of Hamas as an operational force.
Hostage swaps are victories of mercy; the destruction of Hamas is a victory of security.
Make no mistake about what Hamas is: a hybrid of gang, militia, and political cult that subordinates Palestinian welfare to its ideological and military ambitions. For years it chose tunnels over hospitals, rockets over schools, and executions over the rule of law. In the last week alone there have been verified accounts and footage of Hamas carrying out public executions of Gazans accused of collaborating or defying its authority - an appalling display that shows the organization’s readiness to murder its own people to project power.
When your supposed representatives shoot their neighbors in the streets to intimidate dissent, they are not protectors; they are predators. Removing such predators is not cruelty - it is the precondition for any humane reconstruction.
Hamas is now a greater immediate danger to Gazans than almost anyone else in the region.
The moral question is often posed as a false binary: civilians versus the enemy. This is morally lazy. True moral clarity recognizes two facts simultaneously:
(1) the suffering of Gazan civilians is real and catastrophic, and
(2) a primary cause of that suffering is Hamas’s decision to embed military capability within civilian life and to rule by fear.
Those are not mutually exclusive truths; they are cause and effect. If one truly cares about Palestinian Arab lives, one should not also demand the preservation of an organization that willingly turns its own people into shields, sacrifices them to prolong its relevance, and executes those who refuse to be cowed. The only credible long-term path to protect civilians is to break the cycle by eliminating the instrument of terror.
Promises keep democracies together. When a leader vows to finish a war, failure to do so shreds public trust.
There is a political and moral compact between a nation and its leaders: keep us safe, and we will grant you the authority to use force proportionately. Netanyahu’s repeated public vow to “finish the job” carries weight because it is tethered to the memory of what was allowed to happen when Hamas remained intact - and because the families of the murdered and the abducted expect it.
Every unreturned body, every soldier killed, every family denied closure erodes the legitimacy of leadership that appears to accept a half-solution. That erosion weakens Israel’s hand internationally and invites new dangers at home. This is not vengeance masquerading as policy; it is responsibility.
Practical problems abound - and they must be confronted frankly. Destroying Hamas is not the same as pulverizing Gaza into rubble and abandoning its people to chaos. Any strategy that leaves a power vacuum is irresponsible and will create fertile ground for the next extremist iteration.
Therefore, the military imperative must be matched by a political architecture for the day after: an interim, internationally supervised civilian authority, robust and monitored demilitarization mechanisms, a blockade on arms inflows enforced by regional and global partners, and a reconstruction plan tied to verified disarmament. That plan must also embed accountability measures so that any reconstruction funds go to civilians and infrastructure rather than to new arsenals. Force without a credible reconstruction and governance strategy is a recipe for relapse.
Destroying Hamas is the strategic imperative; building a stable Gaza afterward is the political test.
There are tactical fallacies that opponents of a full dismantling casually deploy. One is the idea that Hamas can be “contained” indefinitely; history rejects containment as a permanent solution to ideologically driven insurgencies. Another is that the international community will not back a decisive approach.
The truth is more complex. International actors want a return to stability and to prevent another humanitarian catastrophe. Many are willing to support a post-Hamas plan - provided the plan clearly separates military defeat from political reconstruction and offers guarantees that a new security arrangement will prevent rearmament.
Israel must therefore use its military advantage to create verifiable facts on the ground while simultaneously securing commitments from regional and global partners for long-term monitoring and aid.
We must be ruthless in our realism: the alternative to decisive action is repetition. The calculus of terror is simple: if the enemy remains capable, he will try again. Israel’s history has entire chapters demonstrating the costs of half-measures and delayed justice.
October 7 should be a lesson, not an inevitability. The world can demand proportionality, and Israel must pursue it; but there is a difference between proportionality and paralysis. To those who fear escalation, the sober reply is this: paralysis guarantees escalation later under worse conditions. Action, guided by a coherent, internationally supported plan, offers at least the chance of ending the cycle.
Let us not sentimentalize in a way that endangers lives. The instinct to avoid civilian suffering is noble. But nobility without clarity is naïveté. Hamas deliberately made Gaza the theater for its project; it chose civilian cover as the cost of its survival. When the international community insists on immediate cessation without credible disarmament, it is, whether intentionally or not, providing relief to the aggressor. The moral weight falls on those who choose to protect innocents - that includes ending the regime that uses innocents as its human shield.
So what must be done - practically and urgently?
1. Maintain military pressure until Hamas’s command, control, logistics, and long-range strike capabilities are irreparably degraded. Surgical operations, intelligence-led targeting, and destruction of weapons, tunnels, and rocket manufacturing must continue until verified.
2. Secure binding international guarantees for post-conflict governance and arms interdiction. Egypt, the U.S., the EU, and regional actors must sign enforceable commitments linking reconstruction funds to verified disarmament and establishing an international policing presence to prevent rearmament.
3. Create a technocratic interim civilian administration for Gaza that is accountable and transparent. Local Palestinian Arab civil society should play a central role - not Hamas. Aid channels must be direct, monitored, and divorced from militant intermediaries.
4. Establish judicial mechanisms for accountability for war crimes and crimes against Gazans committed by Hamas. The world must not only punish attacks on Israelis but also hold Hamas accountable for executions and atrocities against Palestinian Arabs. Documenting these crimes is part of the moral case for dismantling the group.
5. Keep the moral center: expedite the return of remains, continue hostage reunifications, and provide compassionate services to victims’ families. Justice without compassion is cruelty; these must proceed in parallel.
Finally, let us refuse the comfortable lie that there is a painless path forward. Strategy and morality sometimes demand hard choices. The alternative - accepting an army-in-waiting inside a densely populated territory - is not a moral high ground; it is a gamble with future blood.
Netanyahu’s promise to finish Hamas was not an idle boast; it was a strategic commitment grounded in the tragic knowledge of what happens when such promises are unkept. Two soldiers were murdered this week. Families still wait for answers. Gazans themselves are being butchered in the streets by the very people who claim to protect them. The time for equivocation has passed.
President Trump’s diplomatic triumph in securing hostages should be honored and built upon - it demonstrates that the world can act to save lives when it chooses to. But freeing hostages was a chapter, not the book’s end.
The next chapter must be the systematic dismantling of Hamas’s capacity to commit mass terror and govern by murder, coupled with an internationally supervised plan for Gaza’s future. That is what security, justice, and humanity demand.
If leadership means anything, it means doing what must be done even when it is costly. Netanyahu vowed to finish the job. The people of Israel - and innocents everywhere - deserve nothing less.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach,widely known as “America’s Rabbi”, is one of the world’s most recognized and influential Jewish voices. A bestselling author, award-winning columnist, global human rights advocate, and dynamic public speaker, he has dedicated his life to spreading Jewish values, defending the Jewish people, and championing universal human dignity. The international bestselling author of 36 books that have been translated into multiple languages and sold millions of copies worldwide, his works blend timeless Jewish wisdom with modern relevance and are known for their boldness, accessibility, and unapologetic defense of morality in the modern age. In 2000, Rabbi Shmuley became the only rabbi to win The Times of London’s prestigious “Preacher of the Year” competition, and remains the record-holder to this day. He has also been honored with the American Jewish Press Association’s highest award for excellence in commentary, cementing his reputation asone of the foremost Jewish communicators in the world. Follow him on Instagram and X @RabbiShmuley.