When I was a Harvard Undergraduate,  there were two young (in their 30s) professors in the Government Department who were very popular. Both were Europe-born, Jewish, and spoke with heavy accents. One was Henry Kissinger, the other Stanley Hoffman. I never took a Kissinger class, but I took two from Hoffman. He was the most remarkable lecturer I ever heard. Every lecture was perfect in style and form. As to substance? I don’t remember a thing.

The second class I took from Hoffman was simply titled “War”. There have been many wars since I graduated, starting with Vietnam, and each with its own characteristics. But none have been as unique as the war(s) Israel is now waging.

To be accurate,  Israel has always, every day of its existence been at war. From the day the British abandoned its Palestine mandate, from the day Israel declared its independence, from the days when the existence of the State was blessed by the United Nations and it was welcomed as a member, when it was recognized by the US and the USSR, Israel has been at war. The immediate invasion by all of its neighbors plus Iraq was ended by an armistice, not a treaty, with no mutual recognition and no formally agreed upon borders. Except for later treaties with Jordan and Egypt, a condition of war, usually cold but sometimes hot, has continued to exist with everyone else.

Today, Israel’s wars are quite hot. But none of them are like any of the wars (whatever they were) that Stanley Hoffman taught about in the early 1960s.

A quick look:

The war in Gaza has resulted in what has been said to be 40,000 Palestinian deaths and several times that number of casualties. Gaza has been physically destroyed. What other land has suffered such overall destruction? Yet the war continues because the ruling power in Gaza, Hamas, refuses to hand over the hostages that are being held, and refuses to surrender or even discuss seriously the end of the war. Hamas appears to care not for its citizens or its territory. How do you end such a war? It is unique.

Lebanon is another story. Israel is conducting a war in Lebanon, but not against Lebanon. Israel’s war in Lebanon is with Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy that participates as a political party in Lebanon,  and controls its south but does not rule the country. Its fighters are separate from the Lebanese army, as are its arms and military bases. But Israeli troops are in Lebanon, and have pushed Hezbollah north of the Litani River. Israel is now temporarily occupying land of a country against whom it is not fighting an active war. Unique.

Then, there is Syria. Syria under the Assad regime acted as a conduit of war materiel to Hamas in Lebanon. But Syria under Assad was not actively at war with Israel, and at least temporarily allowed Israel to annex the Golan Heights (taken from Syria in 1967) without active military opposition.

But today, and suddenly, Assad is exiled in Moscow and Syria has a new (still unstable and largely unknown) political leadership. Israel has responded by going to war in Syria, with more than 400 aerial strikes against what had been the Assad military structure. It has destroyed Syria’s military bases, arms depots, military factories, naval equipment, air force, and more. This is not a war against Syria, or against the new government,  per se, according to Israel, but it is a war nevertheless. Again, unique.

And then there is the West Bank (and East Jerusalem), taken from Jordan in 1967 and “occupied” by Israel since. This area, which before the  1967 War had virtually no Jews, now has 600,000 or so. Most of these Israelis live in large settlements near the border of Israel proper (the “Green Line”) or near Jerusalem and, unless you know exactly where the unmarked Green Line is, seem part of Israel itself.  But the remainder of the West Bank houses between one and two million Palestinian Arabs, and only tens of thousands of Israeli Jews in settlements, some “recognized” by Israel, some not. Many or most of these settlers want the Arabs to leave (or at least leave the rural parts of) the West Bank, and conduct a low level war against them, a war which is at least tacitly condoned by the current Israeli government. Again….the U word.

Finally, in addition to all of this, Israel carries out sporatic military attacks on facilities in Iran, and although it has been a while, Iraq, another kind of now and then, but chronic, war, and there are sporatic attacks, as well from as far away as Yemen.

No one knows where this will end up. Will Israel exhaust itself, or face from one or more of these sources an attack that will destroy it the way Gaza has been destroyed? Or will Israel’s military might outlast all of its current enemies, and will the current show of strength wind up creating a situation where Israel can finally live in peace?

It may be hard to conceive of peace as a result of all of this current tumult, but Israel’s brash, right wing government may think it’s been long enough that the country has lived under threat, and, considering the current states of disarray surrounding it, now is the time. Now or never. I for one, profess to know nothing. I am stumped.

But Stanley Hoffman might  have had definitive thoughts about all of this. And whatever his thoughts might have been, there is one thing you can be sure. He would have expressed them perfectly.