Founder, https://xitter.cf/t.co/904G6eDonQ / Former Editor-in-Chief, The Jerusalem Post / 🇺🇸🇮🇱 / Pretty Jewish. No big whoop. / [email protected]
Jerusalem, Israel 🇮🇱
Joined September 2008
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Last Thursday, I stood in the Oxford Union and delivered the closing argument in a fiery debate about Israel.
Arguing against the proposition that “Israel never truly wanted peace with Palestine,” my colleagues @emilykschrader, @HenMazzig, @EinatWilf and I entered the chamber knowing that we would be facing a largely hostile audience, but determined to make our case nevertheless.
By the end of the evening, we heard from several students that we had, in fact, changed their minds — a reminder that calm, substantive argument can still move people, even in the most challenging environments.
This is the text of my speech. I will share the video as soon as it’s available.
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Madam President,
Members of the House,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It falls to me to bring our case, and this debate, to a close.
My colleagues have ably set out the long history of Zionist and then Israeli efforts to achieve peace with the Palestinians: the compromises proposed, the territorial concessions offered, and the repeated willingness of Israeli leaders and the Israeli public to take extraordinary risks in pursuit of that goal — risks all too often paid for in Israeli blood.
Our opponents, for their part, have offered a very different story. We have heard painful accounts of dispossession — and they are indeed painful, Dr. Karmi. We have heard selective readings of history and arguments that deny any genuine Jewish claim to the land that both peoples call home. We have heard contortions of logic and inversions of truth that seek to explain away every Israeli overture, every negotiation, every concession, as something other than it appeared to be.
And that brings us to the real question before this House tonight.
Because we are not being asked whether Israeli governments have fallen short in their efforts to bring about peace. Some have, while others — including those described earlier — have offered dramatic and far-reaching concessions to bring peace about.
We are not being asked whether Israeli and Palestinian leaders have, at times, missed opportunities that might have brought peace closer. They have.
We are not even being asked whether Palestinians — and Israelis — have suffered due to the absence of peace. They have.
No, the motion before this House tonight is far more extreme. It posits that Israel never wanted peace with Palestine.
Never.
Never?
Not Rabin?
Not Peres?
Not Barak?
Not Olmert?
Not the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who filled public squares in support of peace?
Not the millions who voted for leaders promising territorial compromise?
Not the Israeli parents of every generation who, knowing all too well the cost of war, hoped and prayed and dreamed that their children would be the first to finally know peace?
Never?
Ladies and gentlemen, our opponents have spent this evening asking you to believe something striking: that when Israelis spoke of and prayed for peace, they didn’t mean it. That when Zionist and Israeli leaders offered concessions for peace, they didn’t mean it. That when millions of Israelis voted for peace, they didn’t mean it, either.
This is not an argument about Israeli policy. It is an argument about Israeli motives, about the Israeli soul.
And the difficulty for our opponents is that they have chosen the wrong people.
Because there is no value more essential to the Jewish national soul than peace.
The Jewish tradition is suffused with the quest for peace. It courses through our religious texts, animates our prayers, and inspires our vision of a more perfect world.
It was the prophet Isaiah who envisioned a future in which peace reigned among nations, uttering those immortal words:
“And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”
Every single day, for two millennia, Jews have ended their daily prayers with supplications for peace. The Talmud goes so far as to say that shalom, peace, is one of God’s names, elevating it from an earthly aspiration to the realm of the divine.
It is no surprise, then, that when the earliest Zionist thinkers contemplated the Jewish state they sought to create, they envisioned it at peace.
Socialists and liberals, revisionists and traditionalists, they differed profoundly in their visions of the state to be. Yet across those divisions ran a remarkably consistent belief: that the Jewish national home should one day live at peace with its neighbors.
That aspiration found perhaps its clearest expression in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, issued as five Arab armies advanced upon the nascent state.
Even in that moment of existential peril, Israel’s founders proclaimed:
“We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land.”
And indeed, for generations of Israelis, that aspiration has been not merely a line in a founding document. It has been a sought-after reality, a national ideal, and a deeply personal hope.
I am a relic of the 1980s.
The first word I learned on my first day of primary school in Jerusalem was shalom, peace — an experience shared by all Israelis, including those in this room, on both sides of this debate.
I remember watching, wide-eyed, as Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn, certain that a new era of peace was upon us.
I remember standing in a massive crowd with my father and younger sister as we were swept toward the gates of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to pay our respects to Rabin, felled by an assassin’s bullets in his pursuit of peace.
I remember the wave of Hamas suicide bombings that claimed the lives of hundreds of Israelis, including two young girls from my neighborhood — one year my junior — killed in a Jerusalem pizzeria.
And I remember how, even in the midst of that surge of murderous terror, even in the wake of a prime minister’s assassination, Israelis pivoted not to the right but to the left, electing a leader who had explicitly campaigned on a platform of territorial concessions for peace and granting Ehud Barak one of the largest margins of victory in Israeli history.
But Israel never wanted peace?
Never?
Really?
Ladies and gentlemen, that claim crumbles under the weight of documented history.
One can argue that peace has proven elusive.
One can argue that opportunities have been missed.
One can argue that terrible mistakes have been made.
One can even argue that, today, after October 7, the appetite for territorial concessions in the interest of peace is vastly diminished.
But to argue that Israelis never wanted peace is not a serious reading of history.
It is a denial of history.
Indeed, it requires us to believe that millions of people, across multiple generations, did not truly mean what they said — to one another, to their neighbors, and even to God — about one of their most heartfelt aspirations.
For if every expression of peace was merely a ruse, every offer a deception, every aspiration a lie, then we are left with a familiar accusation — that what Jews said was never what Jews meant.
But beneath much of what we have heard here tonight lies an even deeper, and darker, argument.
It is an argument that has animated not only some of the views expressed in this chamber, but too often the positions of Palestinian leaders throughout this conflict.
It is not really about peace negotiations.
It is not really about diplomatic proposals.
It is not really about Camp David or Oslo or Annapolis.
It is about legitimacy.
Because if one denies that the Jewish people have any genuine claim to this land, if one believes that Israel should never have come into being and should cease to exist today, then no Zionist or Israeli offer, no matter how sincere or expansive, can ever be enough.
Peace itself becomes impossible, because one side’s very existence is regarded as an affront, an injustice, a blight to be erased.
But that is not the motion before this House.
You are being asked whether Israel has ever truly wanted peace with Palestine.
And if millions of Israelis marched for peace, voted for peace, and were willing to take far-reaching and deeply painful risks for peace, then the answer to that question is self-evidently yes.
Ladies and gentlemen, the tragedy of this conflict is not that peace has never been sought.
The tragedy is that peace has been sought, and yet proven so painfully difficult to attain.
The tragedy is that two peoples with deep and abiding ties to the same land have so often found themselves unable to reconcile their competing aspirations.
That is a tragedy, and it is one that we should all hope and pray comes swiftly to an end, for the sake of all who live in that cherished land.
But it is not evidence that peace was never desired.
And it is certainly not evidence that an entire people spent generations engaged in an elaborate collective deception about one of their most deeply-held hopes — one that goes to the very depths of their national soul.
For all its mistakes, for all its failures, for all the opportunities lost along the way, Israel has wanted peace.
Jewish tradition says so.
History says so.
The lived experience of generations of Israelis says so.
And I hope this House will say so as well.
I urge you to reject the motion.
Thank you very much.
Abdul El-Sayed – who brought in Hasan “I hate America” Piker to campaign with him and whose family has ties to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, a designated terrorist group – has the chutzpah to say who is and is not America’s friend?
How rich.
My pleasure! Thank you for having me.
I am horrified by the attack on my dear friend @FleurHassanN and am relieved that she and everyone else in the car is okay.
The lawlessness in the West Bank harms Israelis and Palestinians alike. It must come to an end.
🎙️ I’ll be on Israel’s Channel 13 News in about 15 minutes, around 3 PM local time, to discuss the stalemate between the U.S. and Iran and Trump’s endorsement of Netanyahu for prime minister.
Do tune in.
Thank you to Austrian Ambassador to Israel @AradBenkoe and @BenkoeP for a wonderful evening celebrating Austria’s National Day and 70 years of Austrian-Israeli relations!
Einen schönen Nationalfeiertag!
🇦🇹🇮🇱
A 15-year-old Israeli student has been killed and 20 students and teachers wounded in an explosion reportedly caused by unexploded ordnance near the Israel-Lebanon border.
🔴 BREAKING: At least 12 people are wounded, some seriously, after an explosion on Israel's northern border.
Several days after October 7, editing the next day’s paper in the Jerusalem Post bomb shelter as missiles from Gaza explode overhead.
Mamdani’s October 7 statement is repulsive, morally twisted, and clearly calculated to cause pain to the Jewish community on a day of collective mourning.
What a vile, vile individual.
To Israelis, the pain of October 7 is real and deeply personal.
We all have stories of rescue and redemption, but also all too many stories of loss.
Thank you, @DanaBashCNN and @InsidePolitics, for having me on to discuss this sad anniversary.
Avi Mayer אבי מאיר retweeted
Today marks three years since the October 7th terrorist attack, the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. And for the first time since the attack, Israel honors this solemn day with every hostage home. @DanaBashCNN speaks with @AviMayer on Inside Politics.
“Heroic.”
In the many accounts of what transpired aboard the infamous flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv last week, that word seems to appear more than any other. The Indian pilot who, unable to see straight after having been bludgeoned repeatedly in the back of his head by his Omani co-pilot, somehow managed to summon the strength to unlock the door and enable the Israeli passengers to rush in; the passengers themselves, who overpowered the hijacker, took the controls, and prevented the plane from spinning out of control until the other pilots could take over. All have been lauded time and again — by national leaders, by the media, and by the passengers they saved — as heroes.
And, of course, they are heroes. There is simply no better word to describe individuals who, suspended between life and certain death, decided to act, saving more than 170 innocent lives.
To many commentators, the symbolism of both the episode and its timing — one week before the third anniversary of the October 7 attacks, which takes place today — could hardly be ignored. One by one, they marveled at the heroism of the everyday Israelis who saved the day. “What happened in the skies above Saudi Arabia on Wednesday morning stands as a metaphor for three years of war,” wrote Douglas Murray in The Free Press. “The Israelis saw an existential threat, took matters into their own hands, and decided their own course.” Writing in The Jewish Chronicle, Jake Wallis Simons hailed “an extraordinary act of courage,” but also, “in a fundamental way, an ordinarily Israeli one.” “From the country’s earliest days,” Simons wrote, “heroism has been woven into its national story: the conviction that you don’t freeze, look the other way or wait to be rescued. You act.”
Israelis looked at the heroic passengers and saw in them a reflection of themselves: a nation of ordinary people called upon to engage in acts of breathtaking heroism throughout their existence, but particularly on and since October 7, 2023.
The pages of Israeli history are filled with heroic acts, but few chapters have them in greater density than the ones that will be written about the past three years. Names like Aner Shapira, Amit Mann, and Awad Darawshe shine in the firmament of Israeli heroism for their acts of bravery and sacrifice amidst the unspeakable horrors of October 7. In the three years that have followed, countless other heroes — some known, many whose identities will never be — have marched onto the battlefield, flown planes through treacherous skies, and slipped silently into hostile territory in order to protect their country and their fellow Israelis. In so doing, they managed to repel the initial attack and have dealt Israel’s sworn enemies — Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and the head of the snake itself, Iran — fateful blows from which they will not soon recover, firmly establishing the Jewish state as the most formidable military power in the region.
But the citizen heroes of flight 1073 exhibited heroism in another sense, as well.
Speaking to CBS News, they described the moment they decided to act as animalistic. “Like lions that are in a killing mode,” said Tal Samuel of how he and his fellow passengers felt when they decided to storm the cockpit and save themselves and their families. “I saw my daughter and my wife and I decided that I must run,” Assaf Rajuan recalled. He said he felt himself switch to another mode, “really like an animal.”
But after they forced their way into the cockpit and subdued the would-be murderer of their loved ones, they paused.
“Kill me, kill me,” he implored them, according to Tzvika Manes.
They didn’t kill him. Instead, they lowered him to the floor, restrained him with headphone cords — and placed an oxygen mask over his face.
“We wanted him to live so he could be investigated,” Daniel Schlichter said.
“We didn’t want to kill him,” Manes explained. “We just wanted him not to kill us.”
The Hebrew word for “hero” is גיבור (gibor). It is perhaps not a coincidence that the root of the word, g-b-r, also refers to one who overcomes.
“Who is a gibor?” asks the ancient sage Ben Zoma in the Ethics of the Fathers. “One who conquers his inclinations.”
The everyday Israelis aboard that flydubai flight embodied that kind of heroism, as well. They had every reason to want the attacker dead. They were, by their own accounts, in a frenzied state, consumed by the imperative to act, an estimated thirty seconds away from death. But even in that moment, they held themselves back, doing only what they had to in order to remove the threat and allowing the terrorist to live.
The same heroic principle has guided Israel throughout the three years since October 7. Faced with foes who openly declare their desire to erase Israel and murder every Israeli, and who sought to realize that ghastly desire on that dreadful day, the Jewish state has nevertheless insisted on maintaining its humanity, doing what it can to protect civilian lives even as it pursues the terrorists who embed themselves among them.
That aspiration has found expression in the extraordinary measures the IDF has taken to spare civilian lives in Gaza throughout this war: warning residents by phone, text message, leaflet, and broadcast before attacks; forming a dedicated unit tasked with coordinating efforts to minimize harm to Palestinian civilians; foregoing the element of surprise and announcing areas of operation in advance in order to enable civilians to get out of harm’s way; establishing evacuation corridors and humanitarian zones; facilitating the entry of aid and the exit of those in need of life-saving medical care; carefully selecting munitions to reduce collateral damage; opting to send in infantry soldiers rather than striking targets from the air; and delaying, altering, or aborting strikes when the anticipated harm to civilians is too high.
Oftentimes, these practices have put Israeli forces at a significant operational disadvantage; all too often, they have endangered or even cost soldiers’ lives. But these are the painful decisions made by a military and a country acting heroically.
At the same time, we must acknowledge that there have been failures. Civilians have been tragically killed as a result of errors and miscalculations. There have been policies that, whatever their intended purpose, imposed unacceptable costs on innocent people, such as the decision in March 2025 to halt humanitarian aid to Gaza in an effort to increase pressure on Hamas. And there have been cases in which individual soldiers have intentionally abused or harmed innocent Palestinians, in violation of both the IDF’s ethical code and the orders of their commanders.
The test of a standard is not only when things go right; it is also when they go wrong. And so, when soldiers have crossed those lines, the IDF has investigated them and, in some cases, prosecuted, convicted, imprisoned, and demoted them. It has done so because there are things that even a soldier fighting a just war against a monstrous enemy may not and must not do.
That principle must extend beyond the battlefield and into our national discourse. When certain government ministers call for collective punishment or engage in dehumanizing language against Palestinians, they undermine not only our image, but also our soldiers’ sacrifices and our very humanity. That is the opposite of the heroism that our tradition demands of us.
The actions of Israel’s heroes, then, offer an example to Israeli society and to us all.
The horrors inflicted on the residents of southern Israel on October 7 will live on in our collective memory forever. Our anguish at the cruelty visited upon parents and children, elderly people and infants, young people at a music festival and on holiday duty at military bases remains seared in our hearts. So, too, does our pain at the loss of hundreds of soldiers — sons and daughters, parents, spouses, and siblings — who have made the ultimate sacrifice in Israel’s defense over the past three years, shattering families that will never be made whole again.
The anger, the grief, and the desire for vengeance that Israelis have felt since October 7 are profoundly human and entirely understandable.
But that is precisely when we are called upon to be heroic.
As we mark the third anniversary of October 7, let us pay tribute to the heroes of that terrible day and of the three years since — to those who rose up and took action, and who knew when to hold themselves back. To the soldiers who exercised force responsibly, refusing to surrender their humanity even as they confronted and vanquished evil in the tunnels of Gaza, in the fortifications of southern Lebanon, and in the skies over Tehran.
And let us recommit ourselves to being a nation strong and courageous enough to reject the voices of dehumanization and hate, choosing instead to protect and sanctify life.
Let that be the heroism we honor today.
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From Jerusalem Journal. Link in the next tweet.
On October 7, Another Kind of Heroism
Jerusalem Journal
October 7, 2026
jerusalemjournal.com/p/on-oc…
🎙️ I will be on @CNN with @DanaBashCNN in about 15 minutes, around 12:45 PM ET, to discuss the third anniversary of the October 7 attacks and their enduring impact on Israeli society.
Do tune in.
Today is the third anniversary of the October 7 attacks.
As we mark this solemn occasion, let us reflect on Israel’s heroes and on what we can all learn from their heroism.
May the memory of all who made the ultimate sacrifice be a blessing.
jerusalemjournal.com/p/on-oc…
Pardon my language, but what a bunch of unsportsmanlike dicks.
The Ireland players bow their heads again during the Israel national anthem.
@IndoSport
Wow.
Heads must roll. Anyone who aided or enabled this mind-boggling failure and near-catastrophe must be held to account.
Breaking:
The Omani pilot said during his interrogation that he had planned to crash the plane into Ben Gurion Airport.
That is why he attacked the other pilot only while over Jordan, near Israel.
He planned to make a normal landing approach and, in the final seconds, when interception would no longer be possible, crash the plane into the terminal.
The plot was thwarted only thanks to the fateful decision of the injured Indian pilot to open the door at all costs.