Regarding Ben Shapiro’s “The power of victory,” I am left scratching my head. Is Shapiro so enamored of military force (and so steeped in Hollywood war movies) that he mistakes explosions and killing for victory? I am reminded of the false celebrations after the US took Iraq in 2003. But this situation is even worse, since Israel, in striking out everywhere it sees danger, has failed to defeat the one foe that stands in the way of peace: its own original sin of building a state by forcing Palestinians out of Israel or down into the second tier of citizenship within it.

Israel can kill anyone it wants, that is clear. But I fear the country is more strategically lost and more morally bankrupt than ever. Enemies defeated, it is left alone atop the apartheid regime it has built. This pyramid of suffering will never be stable. This desperation, this lack of honesty, is not victory. Not for Israeli Jews, the supposed beneficiaries of this caste system. Not for the various groups occupying the lower rungs. Brute force without moral clarity is an utter failure of humanity.

Brian Harmon, Provo