The atrocities of October 7 traumatized the people of Israel. They at last recognized the fanatical hatred that the “Palestinians” bore for them. Not just the hatred of the 6,000 Hamas operatives who crashed into Israel on October 7, 2023, and proceeded to rape, torture, mutilate, and murder 1,200 Israelis. Nor the hatred of the hundreds of Gazan civilians who accompanied Hamas operatives and joined in the fun. Nor the hatred even of the Palestinians living under the Palestinian Authority, 86% of whom, when polled, said they approved of the Hamas attack on October 7.
Israel’s Ambassador to the U.K., Tzipi Hotovely, was recently interviewed: “Israeli ambassador: The two-state solution is over. We are no longer willing to jeopardise our security,” by
The problem with coverage of Gaza is that emotions run so high, every discussion ends up feeling like an interrogation – and the Israelis push back with force. What outsiders often forget is that beneath the rhetorical fireworks lies a deep pain. Israeli Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely tells me “everyone in Israel is traumatized” by the events of Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas invaded Israel, murdering and kidnapping more than a thousand people.
“We, as Israelis, have been through terror attacks in our coffee shops, on our buses, on our streets, but never in the past did we feel like our houses were not safe.” This is their new “vulnerability: the feeling that you cannot protect your own children….I think that October 7th was a watershed moment…all across Israel. No one can say in Israel that he’s the same person after.”…
“What did October 7th prove? First of all, unfortunately what we’ve seen is big support among Palestinians towards the massacre.” One poll found 86% of West Bank residents sympathized with the pogrom. The concept of a two-state solution “was rejected by the Palestinians again and again. Israelis had hope [in it] in the 1990s and were willing to compromise, but…every time there was some type of negotiation, there was more terrorism….So Israelis are no longer willing to jeopardize their security any longer.”
Unfortunately, much of the rest of the world, including many erstwhile supporters of Israel, lack the empathetic imagination. They expressed sympathy for Israelis after the October 7, 2023 attack, but soon enough turned to criticizing Israel for its conduct of the war in Gaza. They did not feel the full horror of that attack, to the depths of their beings, the way Israelis did. They still thought in terms of an eventual “two-state solution.” They don’t realize that more than four-fifths of Israeli Jews are now dead-set against a “state of Palestine.” They won’t have it. And those countries in Europe that have failed to understand this profound change in the Israeli psyche are going to keep coming up against the Israeli refusal to do what it was clearly willing to do in the past: offer territorial concessions that would put Israel’s security in jeopardy, but which enough Israelis thought was a risk worth taking “for the sake of peace.” Not any more.
Now the Israelis know that there will be no permanent peace with Muslim Arabs, no matter what concessions Israel might once have been prepared to make. They will never again offer “land for peace,” but only “peace for peace.” Israel will never rely on a treaty with the Palestinians or treaties with other Arabs to keep the peace. They now understand that the model today for Muslim treaty-making with non-Muslims is the one that Muhammad made with the Meccans in 628 A.D., which was to have lasted ten years. But after 18 months, realizing his own forces had become much stronger, Muhammad broke the treaty and attacked the Muslims. It is no different today: what keeps the peace between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan is their understanding that Israel is far superior militarily to either of them. Not a “truce treaty” of necessarily limited and shaky duration, but deterrence, is the only way for peace to be maintained by Israel with its Muslim neighbors. Thus Israel must remain militarily much stronger — and be recognized as being much stronger — than those neighbors, individually or collectively. The strategy of deterrence worked for the United States during the Cold War. It will work for Israel today.
Wellington says
The bitter irony in all this is that Israel offering “land for peace” was never a good strategy. Israel should have kept all land it conquered in warfare (and with justifiable expulsion of many people) just as innumerable other political entities have through the centuries.
Israel’s great weak link has been its kindness though the haters out there, and there are many, won’t grasp this at all, and this kindness has proven to be deadly in the Machiavellian world in which we live. Nevertheless, I state again long live Israel, the only free polity in the Middle East and where Israeli-Arabs have far more freedoms than do Arabs in the 22 Arab countries that exist (N.B., no need for a 23rd Arab country—Hell no).
DAvid Blitz says
100 percent
gravenimage says
Good analysis, Wellington.
James Lincoln says
Wellington,
Muslims in Gaza:
Biting the hand that feeds them… i.e. Israel…
somehistory says
It’s about time. God gave the Land of Israel to the direct descendants of Abraham and told them to work, live, prosper, oppose the surrounding nations and their false gods, and to be obedient. He never once told them to *make peace* by giving up portions of their Land.
He also never commanded them to believe the lies other nations, tribes, peoples would tell.
No other people would do what Israel has done regarding the mozscummy hordes who only want to rape and murder until there are no more Jews.
No other nation would say to those who hate and threaten what Israel has said, and offered, to those who hate and daily threaten, and carry out the threats of rape and murder against her people.
The Jews are intelligent people on the whole. But they have allowed other nations and people to pressure them into foolishness.
Tim Hentschel says
It is time the world wakes up and realizes that Islam is the Nazi movement of the 21st century. The only thing Islam recognizes is strength. May Hashem bless Israel and bring defeat to all her enemies
gravenimage says
Israel’s Ambassador to the U.K.: Israelis Will No Longer Jeopardize Their Security
…………………………………..
Good to hear, no matter what Britain has to say.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I am surprised that Israel still has a diplomatic mission in London. It’s less safe than having one in Damascus
tgusa says
Israelis will defend their country people and traditions with force if necessary whereas the UK wont. If the UK doesn’t get it together someone in the future will be making movie about the country titled, Downfall. That has already been done with Hitler and the Nazis being the primary characters. My advice to the good people of the UK is, no matter what you have to do, dont let a movie be made about you.
skeptiker says
Da hilft nur noch ein Putsch gegen die Regierung inkl. Politikwechsel. Und bis dahin, sollte Israel seine Botschaft in UK schließen und eine Zusammenarbeit auf ein notwendiges Minimum reduzieren.
In all den Ländern, wo jüdische Menschen sich nicht mehr gefahrlos und sicher in der Öffentlichkeit bewegen können, müssen Boykotte und Sanktionen die Politik hin zu einer Rückkehr zu westlich-demokratischen Werten gezwungen werden.
Steven says
Jew-hatred is what they are taught and raised on.
Garbage In – garage out.
Ralph says
Total victory and nothing less will keep Israel safe. No compromises, no appeasement, only a massively superior military presence, ready to destroy its enemies when attacked. Speaking of which, I hope that Israel soon destroys Iran’s nuclear arms factories and oil refineries. The USA clearly hasn’t the stomach to do it.
dumbledoresarmy says
And some Israelis have also figured out that Qatar needs to be challenged… and stopped in its tracks. They have seen through the smoke and mirrors. Maybe some have been reading Mr Fitzgerald’s warnings – his continual warnings, over many years – here and elsewhere.
Because I just read a fascinating article in the ‘Jerusalem Post. There are people in Israel who have well and truly woken up.
Look it up. Title “Grassroots Campaign in Israel Targets Qatar’s Ties to Hamas, Support of Terror”.
One correction needed there – “Grassroots Campaign in Israel Targets Qatar’s Ties to Hamas, Support of JIhad”.
Read it. What these people – in Israel – are trying to do, to expose the ‘stealth jihad’, the jihad of the pen and the jihad of the purse, that is waged by Qatar and has been waged by Qatar for a long, long time – needs to be replicated across the entire western world (and probably beyond the West, in places like India?).
Their intention is to get Israel to declare Qatar an enemy state. “We can’t let a country that bankrolls terror [correction: jihad terror] have unfettered access to our businesses, our institutions, or our academic circles. Especially not when they serve as patrons of the Muslim Brotherhood [which was originally formed with the goal of restoring the Caliphate – dda] and its armed offshoots.”
Brilliant. Go for it, people!!
Time to take down Qatar… and then… take a look at … Saudi Arabia.
gravenimage says
+1