ISRAEL WILL NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR BEING MORE POWERFUL THAN ITS ENEMIES

Israel will never apologize for being more powerful than the failed states and terror groups that seek to destroy it. Nor should any reasonable person ever expect it to.

To paraphrase the immortal words of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir: If Jews have a choice between being dead and pitied or alive with a “bad” image, then they will always choose the second option. A powerful state is the best insurance policy for ensuring their survival.

For millennia, Jews were stateless and subject to the cruel impulses of their brutal antisemitic oppressors. The endless persecution of Israelites culminated in the Holocaust. Millions were systematically exterminated by the Nazis and their cronies and the world’s Jewish population still hasn’t recovered three generations later.

The year is now 2023, not 1939. “Never again” is not an empty and meaningless political slogan for Israel. “Never again” is now, and it means that Jews will fight to defend themselves or die trying. Forged by adversity, the days when the Jewish people were weak, stateless, and bullied are over.

Israel itself is no longer the underdog, like in 1948, 1967, or 1973, but the favourite. Not because of charity or handouts, but due to the sacrifices made and intelligent decisions taken by courageous, creative, and resilient Israelis since the country earned its independence.

The Jewish State is aware that segments of the international community, including so-called “progressive” circles in the western media and academia, will side with the underdog, even if the underdog is a morally bankrupt and shamelessly guilty terror group like Hamas.

Israel understands that it will always be subject to antisemitic conspiracy theories, false moral equivalences, and unrealistic standards, regardless of the Israel Defence Forces’ (IDF) transparency, professionalism and consistent efforts to comply with international law and minimize civilian casualties.

Israel knows that it can’t rely on thoughts, prayers, empty words, biased global opinion, or well-meaning but failed institutions like the United Nations to keep its citizens safe.

Only the IDF can protect Israelis from Hamas, the terror group that perpetrated the Oct. 7 massacre, and whose leaders have since vowed to repeat it again and again until the State of Israel is destroyed.

Life is difficult, the world is unfair, and the Jewish people learned these important lessons the hard way.

The IDF is currently disarming, dismantling and defeating the terror group on behalf of Israelis exhausted from fighting Hamas’ endless and pointless wars with the Jewish State, Gazans desperate for a brighter future with a responsible government, the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah at odds with Hamas since 2007 and the rest of the civilized world, including Canada.

While some of those advocating for a ceasefire may mean well, pausing the conflict now will only delay the inevitable Israel-Hamas war to a later date, help the terror group to avoid accountability for its crimes against humanity and enable Hamas to regroup, reload, and commit another Oct. 7 massacre.

Hamas’s political objective, to eradicate Jews “from the river to the sea” and replace the free, prosperous and democratic State of Israel with the Islamic State of Palestine, has been clear from the beginning. Israel will never apologize for being strong enough to prevent Hamas, or any of the other failed states and terror groups that seek its destruction, from succeeding.

Originally published by Toronto Star on November 17, 2023.