There is an old saying, often repeated in Israeli circles and among supporters of the Jewish state:
“If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more war. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.”
For decades, that phrase was met with scepticism by much of the international community. It was viewed as a piece of nationalist rhetoric, an exaggeration born of historical trauma, or a justification for military force. But on October 7, 2023, it ceased to be a theoretical warning. It became a lived reality — a horror story written in blood.
A Morning Like No Other
On that morning — the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, a day of joy and dancing — over 3,000 Hamas terrorists stormed across the Gaza border into Israel. The IDF, long regarded as one of the most prepared and technologically advanced militaries in the world, was caught off-guard. For a few crucial hours, large swathes of southern Israel were effectively unprotected.
In that short window, Hamas did not launch a conventional assault. They did not target military infrastructure or seek to capture territory in a traditional battle. They unleashed a massacre.
- Over 1,200 Israelis were murdered, almost all civilians.
- Families were slaughtered in their homes. In the kibbutz of Be’eri, parents were tied together, executed, and their bodies burned.
- At the Nova music festival, hundreds of young people were chased down, gunned down, raped, and mutilated.
- Babies were beheaded, entire families incinerated, elderly Holocaust survivors kidnapped and dragged into Gaza.
- There are verified accounts of systematic sexual violence — women raped beside the corpses of their friends, brutalized so savagely that their pelvic bones were shattered.
It was not war. It was barbarism. And it was proudly filmed and live streamed by the attackers. This was not collateral damage. It was deliberate cruelty — the fulfilment of an ideology that teaches children to hate Jews, glorifies martyrdom, and denies the very existence of a Jewish homeland.
The Day the Defence Fell
For half a day — that’s all it took — the Israeli military was missing. In those few hours, we saw what happens when Israel puts down its weapons, even unintentionally. What ensued was not peace. It was the kind of atrocity we thought the modern world had vowed never to allow again.
That is why the phrase “If we do, there will be no more Israel” is not paranoia. It is not propaganda. It is a lesson written in the ashes of pogroms, ghettos, and gas chambers — and now, in the charred remains of Israeli homes.
October 7 was not a failure of deterrence. It was a demonstration of what the enemies of Israel will do when deterrence is absent.
Beyond the Fog of Euphemism
Despite the overwhelming evidence, many international institutions and commentators responded to these events with a familiar script: calls for “de-escalation,” condemnation of “violence on both sides,” and warnings against a “disproportionate response.”
This language is not just hollow — it is dangerous. It ignores the asymmetry of the threat, the stated genocidal aims of Hamas, and the fundamental truth that Israel is not fighting for conquest, but for survival.
Hamas is not a resistance movement with political aspirations. It is a terrorist regime that openly seeks the eradication of Jews wherever they are. Its 1988 charter calls for jihad against Israel and rejects any negotiated settlement. In Hamas’s worldview, there is no “two-state solution.” There is only one acceptable outcome: a Judenrein Middle East.
The Moral Inversion
And yet, as Israel responded — as any nation would — by striking military targets in Gaza, the narrative in many global forums flipped almost instantly. The massacre of October 7 was quickly overshadowed by headlines accusing Israel of “genocide” and “apartheid.”
Protests erupted in cities around the world — not in solidarity with the victims of rape and slaughter, but in support of the perpetrators. Israeli flags were burned. Jewish students were harassed. Synagogues were vandalized.
For those of us in the Jewish diaspora, it felt like a terrible déjà vu: once again, Jews were blamed for their own destruction.
What Peace Requires
Peace — true peace — requires two sides willing to live together. It requires the recognition of each other’s right to exist. It demands leaders who seek compromise over conquest, dialogue over death.
Israel has proven, time and again, its willingness to pursue peace. It withdrew from Gaza in 2005. It has offered territorial compromises at Camp David, Taba, and Annapolis. It has made peace with Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco. The Jewish state does not fear coexistence.
But you cannot make peace with an enemy who invades your homes, rapes your daughters, burns your children alive — and celebrates it.
And that is why Israel will never put down its weapons. Not because it prefers war, but because it knows what happens in its absence. If October 7 taught us anything, it is that the only thing standing between life and annihilation is Israel’s ability and willingness to defend itself.
As Golda Meir once said — with the clarity born of bitter experience:
“You cannot negotiate peace with someone who has come to kill you.”
Until Hamas is dismantled, until the ideology of hate is rejected, and until Jewish lives are valued as equal in the eyes of the world, peace will remain a prayer, not a policy. And Israel will do what it must to ensure that prayer does not become an epitaph.
