The fighting in Gaza has just begun. Hundreds of bodies of our brothers, sisters, and children who suffered the greatest pain and terror have already been buried in the earth of the land. Hundreds of others will join them after being identified among the remnants of destruction and hell. The choice the People of Israel face is clear: continue the eternal nightmare of rounds and cycles or decide the matter for ourselves, no matter the cost.
Let us not rest on our laurels, let us not wait for the leaders of the world or their committees and their conclusions. If there is one lesson we must draw from October 7, this dark date, it is that Israel must be active, direct, decisive, and it must above all decide its own fate and shape the world around it for its own benefit.
Israel has always had difficulty with this. We took the Temple Mount but didn’t impose our sovereignty. We annexed the Golan but developed no meaningful settlement. Even when Assad’s rule was on its last legs in the previous decade, some said we should bring him down, supporting moderate forces barring Iran from freely operating in the area.
But Israel is as Israel does, and has always had difficulty making tough decisions. It prefers to speak in two voices: publicly sounding decisive, setting red lines, while everything is on the table behind closed doors, as though we are a state which is a monk. We have no ambitions in the region we live in or relation to it. We sit back and let the chips fall where they may, even when we knew this would lead to a losing hand.
Israel must take its fate into its own hands. This is the moment, the hour has come. The Holocaust Gaza forced on Israel needs to teach us that if we do not shape our fate and our surroundings, they will shape us, and control our fate. Israel therefore bears the responsibility to take Gaza as the first opportunity to shape our fate, and the first thing we must choose is us, the Jewish People in its land, our survival and security coming before everyone.
The situation in Gaza has one solution, and everyone with a brain knows it. Only the movement of the Gazan population outside to Sinai and from there to anywhere on the globe they wish to choose and which will choose to accept them. Everyone with a brain understands that even if we leave every house in Gaza in ruins, but the Gazan population from which Hamas grew remains, within a few years, rockets will start to fall again over our heads and within a decade at best, another pogrom will happen.
The People of Israel must choose the People of Israel. We must shape our environment for our own good, for the security of our children and the safety of our future. It will not be easy. It will have consequences in relations with nearby Arab states. It will also have global consequences – we may very well be boycotted by companies and businesses. Israeli students may very well not be able to study at Oxford or Harvard. Amazon packages might get more expensive.
The consequences will not necessarily be simple, but the time for choosing has come between playing it up in Dubai and survival in Be’eri, between Burger King in Brussels and laughing children in Kfar Aza.
The choice we face is clear: either the dream of security, prosperity, and influence, or a nightmare of repeated bleeding. Let us now hope that our leaders also understand the greatness of the hour and keep their promise to “reshape the Middle East.”