JERUSALEM, Israel — Argentinian President Javier Milei returned to the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism, on Thursday evening — quietly this time, without any public fanfare, without any security barriers.
Aside from his security detail, he was just another person looking for a space by the wall, hoping to talk to God.
A small crowd gathered, as word spread through the plaza, but Javier Milei, who has embraced Jewish teachings, just leaned on the ancient stones, praying and weeping, baring his soul.
I had been with him earlier that day, in Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the communities that suffered most in the October 7 terror attack. Hamas killed or kidnapped a quarter of the population.
This was a community of peace activists, of well-meaning people who helped Palestinians in Gaza reach Israeli hospitals, and who went to demonstrations against their own government.
To Hamas, none of that mattered — they slaughtered anyone they found there, including Thai workers and Tanzanian agriculture students.
Milei toured the devastation. We journalists waited an extra hour for him to make his scheduled remarks. He was taking his time, walking slowly through the burnt homes with survivor Irit Lahav and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, crying at various points at what he had seen.
When he finally spoke to us, he told us that the free world had a duty to support Israel in its fight to destroy Hamas, just as the free world had united to destroy the Nazis.
There was no compromise with pure evil. Only victory would do.
“Victory” was the word used by thousands of Israeli reservists who marched to the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem later that night. Many of them had just been relieved of duty, after four months of fighting.
Some had been called up to fight after October 7; others had volunteered, despite being past the required age. They had left their homes, jobs and families; many of those at the protest had lost their sons, brothers, or fathers in battle. They had one demand: not to stop the war, but to finish it, with victory.
I remember when I first became involved in conservative politics, after being a left-wing activist and a Democrat for the first ten years of my adult life. Then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and his rivals, including Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), wanted to end the Iraq War by withdrawing.
I had seen enough of the world to know that leaving Iraq in haste would embolden America’s enemies (as, eventually, it did). Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona was a long-shot candidate, but talked about “victory.” He wanted to leave Iraq — but only after a win.
That word — “victory” — resonated with voters, and revived McCain’s candidacy (until the Wall Street crash ended it).
It turns out Americans aren’t anti-war; we are just pro-victory. We don’t want wars that politicians don’t want to win.
For today’s Democrats, that’s every war.
Biden botched the Afghanistan pullout after he moved it to September 11, the anniversary of a defeat. He backed away from the primitive Houthis for months. Even now he reacts to Iran killing our troops by reassuring the regime that he won’t go to war.
It doesn’t work, and Americans don’t like it.
Nor do Israelis.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s polls crashed after October 7 not just because it happened on his watch, but because he had told Israelis for years that Hamas could be deterred. His polls have recovered since, because he talks about “total victory” — and because he is standing up to Biden’s efforts to restore appeasement.
More and more openly, Biden shuns talk of fighting Hamas; he wants to let Hamas survive through the ceasefire he wants to impose.
Biden told reporters Thursday that Israel’s response to Hamas terror has been “over the top.” Perhaps it looks that way, if you still see the war as just a form of retaliation — or if you think defeating Hamas is impossible but appeasing Hamas is possible.
But from a perspective that emphasizes victory, Israel’s response has, if anything, been too restrained.
Israelis are aghast that they are expected to feed and fuel their enemy — as Hamas seizes most of the aid delivered into Gaza — rather than simply defeating it.
Javier Milei does not provide Israel with military aid, as the U.S. does. Nor does he provide financial assistance: his own country’s economy is so weak that it can barely survive in peacetime.
But what he brought Israel was moral clarity, which means the will to call evil by its name, and support for what is necessary to destroy it.
Milei understands that Palestinians are suffering, too. But he is an economist; he sees the overall ledger, and understands that more Palestinians will die through war the longer Hamas lasts.
When Milei finished his prayers Thursday night, the gathered crowd hoisted him onto their shoulders, like Diego Maradona at the World Cup — or King David dancing “with all his might” (II Samuel 6:14) with the common people, as he brought the Ark into Jerusalem.
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A woman shouted toward Milei: “¡El es un rey!” (“He is a king!”).
A king who humbles himself before God does so because he knows the strength victory requires. It is pride, and folly, to think, as Biden does, that one can compromise with evil.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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