We will never forgive, and we will never forget
Israel cannot turn a blind eye to the past.
There’s a joke that was popular when I was younger. Never ask a man his salary, a woman her age, or a German what his grandparents were doing in World War II. It’s something I’m continually reminded of since the ceasefire was announced.
Since it went into effect, President Trump has been posting an ever-growing number of celebratory tweets, touting this as the start of peace in the Middle East. According to Trump all wars are a thing of the past, and the various Arab countries are ready to put the past behind them and usher in a new era of brotherhood and unity. All of course under his stern but loving guidance.
His plan is based on the desire for a Middle East that’s finally stable, as well as on the belief that both parties are willing to cooperate. It’s also based on the belief that both sides have a desire for a positive future and that they all cherish the idea of rights and dignity for all.
It’s based on a lot of things. But what it’s not based on is reality. The Palestinian Arabs have no desire for any of those things, nor will they ever. Expecting them to change their fundamental nature and their entire worldview overnight is about as realistic as hoping that they come to the peace summit riding on unicorns.
The Palestinian Arabs have never wanted peace. These are the people who, after being given their own rule, immediately voted in a genocidal terror organization. Our alleged new friends are the same folk who shut their eyes for years as Hamas amassed weapons, dug tunnels and built a terror network. Egypt, who signed a peace treaty with Israel, allowed unlimited arms smuggling into Gaza. Polls conducted before the war showed that Palestinian Arab citizens overwhelmingly supported Hamas and their actions.
When October 7th happened, these potential partners in peace were the ones celebrating Hamas’s horrors in the streets, passing out candy like it was a holiday. Moreover, they not only celebrated the October 7th atrocities, they also actively participated in them. Not only Hamas Nukhbas but also so-called “civilian” Gazans stormed into Israel and helped carry out the worst pogrom in modern history.
And in the months that followed, it became increasingly clear the role that Palestinian Arab citizenry played in the hostage situation. Report after report confirmed that many of the hostages were being held not by Hamas, but by the ordinary citizens of Gaza. Doctors, teachers, aid workers, all these normal-sounding professions were discovered to be keeping innocent Jews captive and suffering in their homes. When a hostage managed to escape, not a single Gaza citizen came to his aid.
After she was released, former hostage Mia Schem gave an interview describing her experiences in Gaza. Her report was chilling. “They’d enter the room (children of the family) from time to time to look at me as if I was an animal. There are no innocent civilians there.”
Even in Nazi Germany, there were some brave Germans who heroically defied the Nazis and saved Jews. Not a single Gazan saved a Jewish hostage. Not a single one.
Even if Hamas has agreed to a ceasefire, that doesn’t mean they want peace. It’s to give themselves time to rearm and plan another horrendous attack. In their belief system, surrender is not an option.
In their culture, there exist two dangerous ideas. The first is the hudna, wherein Muslims are allowed to fake an offer for peace in order to gain time to regroup and rearm for another attack. Then there is taqiyya, the principle that Muslims may lie and conceal their true plans from non-Muslims. Understanding these principles, it’s clear that the ceasefire is nothing more than a way for the badly battered Palestinian Arabs to plan their next deadly attack.
Yet peace activists insist that this was all in the past. That the way forward is one filled with new hopes and new beginnings. Once again, it’s a nice dream. But it’s a dream that the facts don’t bear out.
In the last two years, a growing number of Palestinian Arabs reported that their backing for Hamas has increased rather than decreased. A recent survey conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research indicates a significant increase in backing for Hamas within Palestinian Arab society.
Approximately 60 percent of those surveyed expressed satisfaction with Hamas's performance, showing more support in Judea and Samaria compared to Gaza. In an imagined presidential contest between Khalid Mashaal of Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas, Mashaal would emerge victorious by a significant margin, 63 percent to 27 percent.
Approximately 53 percent stated that Hamas was justified in initiating the attack on October 7.
And if Hamas did disappear tomorrow, it would change little. The Palestinian Arabs will simply elect a different jihadist group to represent them. As long as the Palestinian Arabs rule Gaza, they will vote against peace and for the destruction of Jews and the Jewish state.
These are the people with whom President Trump expects us to build a future. What this future looks like is anyone’s guess. Trump constantly talks about Gaza in the future as a new Riviera in the Middle East. His vision sees the warzone transformed into a vacation mecca, most likely with a few prominently positioned Trump hotels. The Gaza Trump is selling is a modern-day paradise.
Fortunately, Israelis aren’t buying it. The trouble is that President Trump’s entire utopian fantasy is predicated on the assumption that the Israeli people will collectively forget everything that the Palestinian Arabs have done to them. It is supposed that our entire population will agree to disregard all the horrors we’ve experienced over these past two years and give the Palestinian Arabs a clean slate.
Frankly - he's asking the impossible of us. Going forward as though nothing has happened not only should not happen, it cannot happen. Israelis have been through much, experienced too much, to ever be able to trust Palestinian Arabs again.
Think for a moment what that would look like. Are we expected to welcome Gazans into our cities and businesses, knowing that any one of them could have committed unspeakable crimes against our families? Should we welcome them into our homes, knowing we could be welcoming in murderers and rapists? Do we work with their leadership, knowing just what their leadership leads to?
The reality is that for the rest of our lives, we in Israel will always look at a Gazan and wonder what horrendous crimes he committed. And more often than not, our fears will be warranted.
The president clearly hasn’t thought about us in all of this. Instead, Trump seems to labor under two dangerous delusions. The first is that the Palestinian Arabs will somehow magically change post-ceasefire. The second is that Israelis will accept a life based on willful ignorance.
A modern-day version of the same joke. Never ask a Gazan where they were on October 7th.
The unspoken truth is that Trump’s peace with Gaza is unattainable. Israelis cannot and should not forget what happened. And knowing what they know, what does Trump expect them to do?
Does he expect us to forget what happened and see Gazans as our new neighbors? Are we to get past the unbelievable horrors they inflicted on us? How are we to look on these people as friends, knowing the unbelievable violence they committed?
Does he really expect us to believe that things have changed? Or does he hope that collectively, Israelis will ignore reality for the sake of a peace deal? This seems to be what the President expects of us. For the sake of his peace plan and his future Nobel Peace Prize, Israelis must make nice to the people who were trying to murder them shortly beforehand. The President seems to think that we as a country will agree to pretend that nothing ever happened.
Forgive and forget. Move on. Let go of the past. Platitudes will only take you so far.
But Israelis simply cannot go back to how things were before. We’ve been forever changed. Living through the nightmares of the last two years, any dreams or delusions have collapsed as decisively as Gaza turned into rubble.
It’s understandable thatTrump wants us to forgive them for the sake of peace. He needs at least one party on board with his plan. But it goes deeper than that. Trump is supposedly a Christian, a belief system in which one-sided forgiveness plays a large role. But we are Jews. Jews are not required to blindly forgive. In Judaism, forgiveness only comes after comes after the guilty party has teshuvah, after they have completed sincere repentance. Then, and only then, when the wronging party has made a heartfelt effort to rectify their mistakes, does forgiveness enter.
We are not like their Nazarene, who commands that “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, offer to them the other cheek also.” And besides, we Jews have already offered enough cheeks throughout our history, more than any Christian nation could ever dream of.
Not only can we not forget what they did to us, we have a duty not to. We owe to the multitudes of those who were massacred to make sure that their memory remains. And we owe to the countless soldiers who gave their lives to make sure that their sacrifices are never forgotten.
If the President would take the time to speak to, rather than at, Israelis he might see with what kind of sentiments his propositions are being met. A survey conducted by the Accord Center reveals that 64% of Israelis say that “there are no innocent people in Gaza,” Among Israeli Jews, consensus increases to 76%, with 42% claiming they “strongly agree.” Voters who switched political affiliations in recent elections exhibit even greater support, with 74% concurring that there are no innocents in Gaza.
Gazans didn’t simply stand by and let October 7th happen. They didn’t even stop at supporting it. They went far beyond any of that. They took part in the massacre and looting and plan to do it again if they’re given a chance. They are not civilians, they are terrorists. And all their titles, doctor, nurse, teacher, lawyer, all these are nothing more than their disguises.
It doesn’t fit into Trump’s long-range dreams for the Middle East, or into his real estate aspirations, but Israelis will not turn a blind eye to who the Palestinian Arabs are and what they have done to us. Nor should we. To play make-believe with our killers dishonors all those who have already died and will ultimately ensure more deaths in the future. We never allow ourselves to forgive or to forget, no matter how politically inconvenient the truth is to the US.
I am grateful for all that President Trump has done for Israel. His securing the release of the remaining hostages will forever be remembered. But in the long term, any peace plan not based on reality is doomed to fail. And the reality is that the Palestinian Arabs of Gaza are not only the monsters who caused October 7th, they are the monsters who are waiting to do it again.
This being the case, we cannot let our guard down. Israelis must not fall for happy lies and beautiful-sounding fantasies. If he thinks his plan will change Palestinian Arabs overnight, Trump is fooling himself. Even so, we don’t have the luxury to also fool ourselves.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/417704
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