“We do not have to apologize for anything. We are a people as all other peoples; we do not have any intentions to be better than the rest. As one of the first conditions for equality we demand the right to have our own villains, exactly as other people have them. We do not have to account to anybody, we are not to sit for anybody’s examination and nobody is old enough to call on us to answer. We came before them and will leave after them. We are what we are, we are good for ourselves, we will not change, nor do we want to.”
Interesting read. It seems plausible to me, that overly justifying oneself most often leads not to understanding but to further condemnation, as happend with many victims of cancel culture.
My goodness. That is clarity. I wish more of us in the West could put ourselves in the shoes of Israelis and see this truth. Israel has nothing to apologise for. However, I know that your humanity is the best of you, and that is, fundamentally, why you did not raze Gaza to the ground on 8th October. You cannot turn yourself into the nation that could have done that, because you are a truly moral people, surrounded by murderous fanatics and immoral criminals. That is your curse, to be better than your enemies. I do not ask it of you, but I believe you ask it of yourselves.
Let’s be clear. Hasbara = relentless state-sponsored propaganda.
I know of no rational human who denies the nightmare of what happened on 10/7 and fails to condemn it. And almost all of us would be pleased if Hamas somehow magically just disappeared.
But way too many people, including the entire Hasbara machine, refuse to accept that 10/7 didn’t happen in a vacuum and examine Israeli culpability in creating and sustaining Gaza as what has long been defined as an open air prison, full of stateless refugees whose ancestors were forcibly driven from the land just across the border into Israel. Palestine was never “a land without people for people without land”, which was a foundational basis for Israel.
It is often said that Hamas is the elected government of Gaza. That is as far off base as saying that the thugs who who dominate the exercise yard in a big prison are the democratically elected leaders of the prison population. Do the people of Gaza like Hama better than they like an entity that yesterday killed 9 of the 10 children of a Gazan female physician? Probably yes, but the vast majority of people in Gaza would like both of those entities to disappear from their lives.
Sadly, what Israel has done over the past couple of years has insured the existence of a population of two million people who have all witnessed their closest family members and friends being blown into pieces in the most violent ways possible. The Gaza Holocaust will no more be forgotten by them and the international community than the European Holocaust. One doesn’t have to look far online to find numerous videos of Israelis, including rabbinical scholars, who come right out and say that all of the children in Gaza must be killed lest they grow up and remember what has happened there.
The inconvenient truth is that the extreme right wing now controls all political momentum in Israel. We have all known that the two state solution has been dead for 30 years and it’s now obvious that Israel will push for a single state extending from the river to the sea (remember when we were told that references to that phrase were genocidal?). Sadly for Israel’s prospects as a “Jewish state” this single state will effectively make that impossible since it will have as many citizens who are not Jewish as Jews. The rationalization that extreme ethnic preferences, apartheid and, eventually, ethnic cleansing are “OK because God said so” won’t hold much water where rational humans are concerned.
We are all primarily focused on the nightmare of endlessly seeing what happens when American made 2000 pound bombs are dropped from completely undefeated airspace onto a civilian population. But the ongoing nightmare in West Bank, which itself involves a substantial death count for the indigenous people (as well as the recent whitewashed murderers of our fellow Americans Shireen Abu Aklah and Aysenur Eygi), all outside of Israel porters, deserves immense attention, because this is where the inevitability of the one state outcome is being most clearly telegraphed.
Meanwhile here is the reality in the ground in the West Bank. The racist idiocy shown in this video was led by a clearly racist Member of the Knesset, Tzippy Scott. Where is the Hasbara on this?
“Fact-filled”, love that you think the self-assured bullshit you spew is “fact” while any contrary viewpoint is propaganda ricocheting around an echo chamber. Apologists for Islamist terrorists like you always deny the “Palestinians” any agency and encourage their narrative that they’re always the victims, even when they commit horrendous genocidal atrocities.
Few things: Gaza was supposed to be a nascent “Palestinian” state, from which Israel entirely withdrew in the early 2000s. And what did the Palestinians do? Create a progressive and modern state where all faiths and women and gay people could live together harmoniously? Did they advance peace initiatives - including to try and resolve the West Bank issue - or did they, instead, elect a genocidal, fascistic terrorist group and corrupt their own infrastructure and begin to indiscriminately bomb Israel? Which is a war crime btw… which ofc you know. Given the relentless aggression of the gazans then Israel and Egypt had little option but to control the borders.
Ham ass has no interest in protecting its own people, and the more civilians die - a feature of all modern war ofc you know - the more useful idiots get sucked in to their propaganda. What Israel is trying to do is “disappear” ham ass but - as you also know - having embedded themselves in the civilian population and civilian infrastructure presents logistical problems of warfare.
I’m not Israeli but my Jewish/israeli friend help me understand that Israelis were - en masse - protesting the egregiously right-wing coalition and corrupt and self-serving PM. But then what happened? Ham ass committed their genocidal atrocity. Uniting the country against them. Had the protests been allowed to come to fruition BN and co would probably not still be in power and the situation for both Israelis and Palestinians would be very different to how it is now.
As for racist idiocy, if the ramblings of biblical-era lunatics offends you (I offer no defence of the lunatic fringe of settlers, who are obviously part of the problem) but then you’ll be really offended by what ham ass and Hezbollah and Iran and most quotidian discourse in the Arab world says about Jewish people, right? Right?
Let me paraphrase a bit. Then maybe we can exchange views more calmly.
Are you an apologist for “Jewist” terrorists such as the racist Ben-Gvir? Is that why you spew these BS rationalizations for genocide, land theft and apartheid in illegally occupied land outside of Israel’s boundaries? Jew ass kept literally full control over access to the outputs for every critical function needing to occur in Gaza.
You’re seriously spewing the falsehood that Israel truly withdrew from Gaza and gave the indigenous people there full control of their lives?
Apologists for Jewist terrorists like you always deny the “Zionists” any agency and encourage their narrative that they’re always the victims, even when they commit horrendous genocidal atrocities. Any criticism of such genocide gets the must always be antisemitism, of course.
Does it sound off kilter to write such things? Or to imply that I’m an apologist for nuts in Palestine, Iran or Hezbollah. I have personally been a target of such terrorism while you probably have not.
Might I suggest that it’s a big overreach to confuse Jewists with thoughtful and moral Jews, just as it’s a mistake to confuse Islamists with thoughtful and moral Muslims.
All of this is dominated by some basic facts. The 2 state solution is dead. It died with Rabin. The other tribe isn’t leaving and you can’t kill them all. The one state solution with a population that is equally Jewish and non-Jewish living with equal rights will be an inspiration to behold but the maniacal extremists such as Hamas leadership and those represented Israel’s Kahanist (Kahan ass?) Minister of National Security will have to be “disappeared” along with their supporters. It may be bloody and painful as centrists and moderates from both sides do whatever is necessary to regain control along the model that Rabin envisioned only with one state rather than two. Good luck.
Israel’s response has gone way beyond self-defense and no amount of Hasbara can overcome the unspeakable horror imposed on the Palestinian people. We can debate all the many roads that led to this hell. But before that happens, the bombings and forced starvation must stop.
Self-defence means the capitulation of Gaza and the return of the hostages; that hasn't been achieved yet; therefore, the bombing and supposed "forced starvation" must continue!
Then you will be fighting until the end of time and becoming more of a pariah than you are. And if you think this is good for the Jews, you are deluding yourself. This is horrible for us. And ditto if you think Netanyahu is fighting to avenge Oct 7. He’s doing what Trump did…holding on to office to avoid prison. Doing unto others what was done unto us isn’t justice. It’s out and out evil.
Nope. Just an American Jew who sees Israel committing crimes against humanity, the consequences of which can lead to nothing by more blood lust, anti-semitism and death.
There was no cable news or social media on the wake of Entebe or the Six Day War. It is our job to speak to the media constantly. Joe Biden did the fewest press conferences of any president and his party lost in large part as a result. We live in an interconnected world and Israel must stop being so arrogant and get on every news station every single day around the globe and tell the truth of our intentions however bad the optics. Or we will lose like Harris who foolishly decided not to do a press conference the first week of her campaign. It is the only way for us to overpower the propaganda machine from Qatar. Thank you for this detailed analysis.
Israel can't go it alone, it is an island economy and is not self sufficient. A nation in the 21st century needs allies and trading partners.
But it is shocking how Israel has managed to ignore every single element of its national military doctrine in this war: short, decisive wars, on enemy territory, with overwhelming force, leading to territorial gains - which can then be traded back for concessions.
Why was Anthony Blinken in the war cabinet meetings on October 8, 2023? Why, when Trump won in November 2024, did Israel not strike Iran? You'll never win a war if you wait for the USA to bless every move, America's interests are for a ceasefire and "de-escalation".
Meanwhile, young Israelis have been ground down after 300 days in miluim, and the war has alienated a generation of young people in America and the West.
Just on your last point. I woke up in London on 8th October 2023 and the response of one of my neighbours to the atrocities was to put a Palestinian flag in their window. Within days, mass demonstrations were taking place in Europe and America effectively celebrating the mass-murder of Israeli civilians, praising "resistance". Israel had hardly buried the dead, let alone started the military action in Gaza. To many people's horror, we realised that our young people were already radicalised to support terrorists against Israel, through years of propaganda in Universities and in our liberal press and social media. This generation did not become "alienated" in 2024 or 2025 because of the war in Gaza - that's just the excuse.
I agree, but I think the longer this goes on the more the silent majority will swing against Israel. A quick and decisive victory would have given the haters less propaganda while also showing Israel to be strong, winning over more allies.
“We do not have to apologize for anything. We are a people as all other peoples; we do not have any intentions to be better than the rest. As one of the first conditions for equality we demand the right to have our own villains, exactly as other people have them. We do not have to account to anybody, we are not to sit for anybody’s examination and nobody is old enough to call on us to answer. We came before them and will leave after them. We are what we are, we are good for ourselves, we will not change, nor do we want to.”
--Zev Jabotinsky
Beautiful quote!
Interesting read. It seems plausible to me, that overly justifying oneself most often leads not to understanding but to further condemnation, as happend with many victims of cancel culture.
Hasbara is also knowing when to keep your mouth shut.
Agree 100%
Brilliant as usual, Yonatan.
Brilliant.
We need another 40 years of wandering in a desert, to be re-made as a people.
My goodness. That is clarity. I wish more of us in the West could put ourselves in the shoes of Israelis and see this truth. Israel has nothing to apologise for. However, I know that your humanity is the best of you, and that is, fundamentally, why you did not raze Gaza to the ground on 8th October. You cannot turn yourself into the nation that could have done that, because you are a truly moral people, surrounded by murderous fanatics and immoral criminals. That is your curse, to be better than your enemies. I do not ask it of you, but I believe you ask it of yourselves.
Yonatan, great piece. Do you have a version in Hebrew that I can share?
Thank you! Yes I do, I have published it on my Facebook here:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CSwke2Cyw/
Thank-you, Yonatan. This is excellent!
Thank you, Maryallene! I really appreciate your support!
Hebrew Version:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CSwke2Cyw/
Let’s be clear. Hasbara = relentless state-sponsored propaganda.
I know of no rational human who denies the nightmare of what happened on 10/7 and fails to condemn it. And almost all of us would be pleased if Hamas somehow magically just disappeared.
But way too many people, including the entire Hasbara machine, refuse to accept that 10/7 didn’t happen in a vacuum and examine Israeli culpability in creating and sustaining Gaza as what has long been defined as an open air prison, full of stateless refugees whose ancestors were forcibly driven from the land just across the border into Israel. Palestine was never “a land without people for people without land”, which was a foundational basis for Israel.
It is often said that Hamas is the elected government of Gaza. That is as far off base as saying that the thugs who who dominate the exercise yard in a big prison are the democratically elected leaders of the prison population. Do the people of Gaza like Hama better than they like an entity that yesterday killed 9 of the 10 children of a Gazan female physician? Probably yes, but the vast majority of people in Gaza would like both of those entities to disappear from their lives.
Sadly, what Israel has done over the past couple of years has insured the existence of a population of two million people who have all witnessed their closest family members and friends being blown into pieces in the most violent ways possible. The Gaza Holocaust will no more be forgotten by them and the international community than the European Holocaust. One doesn’t have to look far online to find numerous videos of Israelis, including rabbinical scholars, who come right out and say that all of the children in Gaza must be killed lest they grow up and remember what has happened there.
The inconvenient truth is that the extreme right wing now controls all political momentum in Israel. We have all known that the two state solution has been dead for 30 years and it’s now obvious that Israel will push for a single state extending from the river to the sea (remember when we were told that references to that phrase were genocidal?). Sadly for Israel’s prospects as a “Jewish state” this single state will effectively make that impossible since it will have as many citizens who are not Jewish as Jews. The rationalization that extreme ethnic preferences, apartheid and, eventually, ethnic cleansing are “OK because God said so” won’t hold much water where rational humans are concerned.
We are all primarily focused on the nightmare of endlessly seeing what happens when American made 2000 pound bombs are dropped from completely undefeated airspace onto a civilian population. But the ongoing nightmare in West Bank, which itself involves a substantial death count for the indigenous people (as well as the recent whitewashed murderers of our fellow Americans Shireen Abu Aklah and Aysenur Eygi), all outside of Israel porters, deserves immense attention, because this is where the inevitability of the one state outcome is being most clearly telegraphed.
Meanwhile here is the reality in the ground in the West Bank. The racist idiocy shown in this video was led by a clearly racist Member of the Knesset, Tzippy Scott. Where is the Hasbara on this?
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTj9mxjc9/
What a total load of bollocks.
Thank you for the fact filled response. Now you can return to the echo chamber.
“Fact-filled”, love that you think the self-assured bullshit you spew is “fact” while any contrary viewpoint is propaganda ricocheting around an echo chamber. Apologists for Islamist terrorists like you always deny the “Palestinians” any agency and encourage their narrative that they’re always the victims, even when they commit horrendous genocidal atrocities.
Few things: Gaza was supposed to be a nascent “Palestinian” state, from which Israel entirely withdrew in the early 2000s. And what did the Palestinians do? Create a progressive and modern state where all faiths and women and gay people could live together harmoniously? Did they advance peace initiatives - including to try and resolve the West Bank issue - or did they, instead, elect a genocidal, fascistic terrorist group and corrupt their own infrastructure and begin to indiscriminately bomb Israel? Which is a war crime btw… which ofc you know. Given the relentless aggression of the gazans then Israel and Egypt had little option but to control the borders.
Ham ass has no interest in protecting its own people, and the more civilians die - a feature of all modern war ofc you know - the more useful idiots get sucked in to their propaganda. What Israel is trying to do is “disappear” ham ass but - as you also know - having embedded themselves in the civilian population and civilian infrastructure presents logistical problems of warfare.
I’m not Israeli but my Jewish/israeli friend help me understand that Israelis were - en masse - protesting the egregiously right-wing coalition and corrupt and self-serving PM. But then what happened? Ham ass committed their genocidal atrocity. Uniting the country against them. Had the protests been allowed to come to fruition BN and co would probably not still be in power and the situation for both Israelis and Palestinians would be very different to how it is now.
As for racist idiocy, if the ramblings of biblical-era lunatics offends you (I offer no defence of the lunatic fringe of settlers, who are obviously part of the problem) but then you’ll be really offended by what ham ass and Hezbollah and Iran and most quotidian discourse in the Arab world says about Jewish people, right? Right?
Let me paraphrase a bit. Then maybe we can exchange views more calmly.
Are you an apologist for “Jewist” terrorists such as the racist Ben-Gvir? Is that why you spew these BS rationalizations for genocide, land theft and apartheid in illegally occupied land outside of Israel’s boundaries? Jew ass kept literally full control over access to the outputs for every critical function needing to occur in Gaza.
You’re seriously spewing the falsehood that Israel truly withdrew from Gaza and gave the indigenous people there full control of their lives?
Apologists for Jewist terrorists like you always deny the “Zionists” any agency and encourage their narrative that they’re always the victims, even when they commit horrendous genocidal atrocities. Any criticism of such genocide gets the must always be antisemitism, of course.
Does it sound off kilter to write such things? Or to imply that I’m an apologist for nuts in Palestine, Iran or Hezbollah. I have personally been a target of such terrorism while you probably have not.
Might I suggest that it’s a big overreach to confuse Jewists with thoughtful and moral Jews, just as it’s a mistake to confuse Islamists with thoughtful and moral Muslims.
All of this is dominated by some basic facts. The 2 state solution is dead. It died with Rabin. The other tribe isn’t leaving and you can’t kill them all. The one state solution with a population that is equally Jewish and non-Jewish living with equal rights will be an inspiration to behold but the maniacal extremists such as Hamas leadership and those represented Israel’s Kahanist (Kahan ass?) Minister of National Security will have to be “disappeared” along with their supporters. It may be bloody and painful as centrists and moderates from both sides do whatever is necessary to regain control along the model that Rabin envisioned only with one state rather than two. Good luck.
Yup. Good luck with that chief. Whatever the fuck you’re on about…
OK. I confess. Contrary to what I said earlier “What a total load of bollocks” is indeed a fact filled response.
I stand corrected.
Israel’s response has gone way beyond self-defense and no amount of Hasbara can overcome the unspeakable horror imposed on the Palestinian people. We can debate all the many roads that led to this hell. But before that happens, the bombings and forced starvation must stop.
Self-defence means the capitulation of Gaza and the return of the hostages; that hasn't been achieved yet; therefore, the bombing and supposed "forced starvation" must continue!
Then you will be fighting until the end of time and becoming more of a pariah than you are. And if you think this is good for the Jews, you are deluding yourself. This is horrible for us. And ditto if you think Netanyahu is fighting to avenge Oct 7. He’s doing what Trump did…holding on to office to avoid prison. Doing unto others what was done unto us isn’t justice. It’s out and out evil.
I see now; you are from the Shtetl of Kaplan.
You would rather spread lies about your own country than let the Likud Shtetl rule over you.
That's really deplorable.
I suggest trying to get out of the Shtetl.
And I suggest trying to get out of the murderous path you are on. That’s deplorable.
Typical western fool wrapped in her keffiyeh.
Nope. Just an American Jew who sees Israel committing crimes against humanity, the consequences of which can lead to nothing by more blood lust, anti-semitism and death.
Whatever you are you happen to be wrong. We are here, and are focused on completing the mission.
If you were serious, self defense means doing to Hamas what they intend to do to you. You don’t have the stomach for it, and now it’s too late.
This should be more about the moral collapse of Isreal, as the world sees it, corrupt politicians and the influence of West Bank settlers and zealots.
There was no cable news or social media on the wake of Entebe or the Six Day War. It is our job to speak to the media constantly. Joe Biden did the fewest press conferences of any president and his party lost in large part as a result. We live in an interconnected world and Israel must stop being so arrogant and get on every news station every single day around the globe and tell the truth of our intentions however bad the optics. Or we will lose like Harris who foolishly decided not to do a press conference the first week of her campaign. It is the only way for us to overpower the propaganda machine from Qatar. Thank you for this detailed analysis.
Israel can't go it alone, it is an island economy and is not self sufficient. A nation in the 21st century needs allies and trading partners.
But it is shocking how Israel has managed to ignore every single element of its national military doctrine in this war: short, decisive wars, on enemy territory, with overwhelming force, leading to territorial gains - which can then be traded back for concessions.
Why was Anthony Blinken in the war cabinet meetings on October 8, 2023? Why, when Trump won in November 2024, did Israel not strike Iran? You'll never win a war if you wait for the USA to bless every move, America's interests are for a ceasefire and "de-escalation".
Meanwhile, young Israelis have been ground down after 300 days in miluim, and the war has alienated a generation of young people in America and the West.
Just on your last point. I woke up in London on 8th October 2023 and the response of one of my neighbours to the atrocities was to put a Palestinian flag in their window. Within days, mass demonstrations were taking place in Europe and America effectively celebrating the mass-murder of Israeli civilians, praising "resistance". Israel had hardly buried the dead, let alone started the military action in Gaza. To many people's horror, we realised that our young people were already radicalised to support terrorists against Israel, through years of propaganda in Universities and in our liberal press and social media. This generation did not become "alienated" in 2024 or 2025 because of the war in Gaza - that's just the excuse.
I agree, but I think the longer this goes on the more the silent majority will swing against Israel. A quick and decisive victory would have given the haters less propaganda while also showing Israel to be strong, winning over more allies.
Loved this piece. Tell us how Israel could have won the war within a week. Practically, what would that have entailed?