Golda Meir said, “If we have to have a choice between being dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we’d rather be alive and have the bad image.”

It’s been over 100 days since Hamas committed the proportional equivalent of 15 9/11 attacks. Over 200 IDF soldiers have already fallen in Gaza, and hundreds fell on October 7, as the government downplayed the very credible threat from Gaza. Thousands more have been injured, many permanently. These soldiers bravely sacrificed their lives so that their fellow Israelis may live in peace. It is not reassuring to contemplate that it is in the hands of Israel’s poorly trusted government whether or not all their sacrifices may have been in vain.

I fought in the Gaza Strip in 2009. My two younger brothers fought there in this war. I have friends who have lost loved ones and who were permanently injured in the same kind of terror nests where Israel is losing its best today. Zionism is the dream of Jewish self-determination as the solution to centuries of antisemitic murder and oppression. I am one of millions over the years who consider it to be a dream worth dying for. But, if Israel does not pursue victory after October 7, Zionism is dead.

Over the last few days, social media posts and other reports have suggested that Israel had proposed a two-month cessation of fighting in exchange for the phased release of the hostages. Such a deal would include a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza’s population centers, allowing Gazans to return; it would release an unspecified number of terrorists, and if implemented, IDF operations in Gaza would be significantly reduced when fighting resumed. In essence, a major win for Hamas and the ultimate loss for Israel.

Let me explain. If Hamas were wise enough to accept such a deal, (I pray they are not) they will have succeeded in irreparably destroying Israel’s sense of security; in demonstrating the efficacy of extreme violence to free terrorists as was their stated objective; in igniting massive global sympathy for the Palestinians, in boosting their own popularity and discrediting the Palestinian Authority (PA) as polls currently show, and in bringing a global initiative for Palestinian statehood back into urgency.

It’s amazing what a campaign of rape, torture, beheading of infants, and hostages taking can achieve. 

Absent Israeli victory, Hamas will rebuild, recruit, and rearm. They do not care about Gaza’s civilian sector. Its destruction is a propaganda win. Finally, a resumption of low-intensity fighting will not disarm Hamas, nor bring its leadership to justice, where high-intensity fighting failed to do so. 

As of today, the IDF has done Hamas significant damage but has failed to end its ability to fight and it has failed to kill nearly any of its senior leadership in Gaza. Most importantly, Israel has, as yet, failed to cause Hamas’s political collapse. The Gazan population has not risen up and Hamas will swiftly reestablish control wherever the IDF leaves. This outcome would make Operation Iron Swords just a larger version of past IDF operations that failed to blunt Hamas’s capabilities and certainly failed to deter terrorists from attacking Israel since it uprooted its communities and withdrew its military in 2005. The only thing that can do so is full Israeli military control over Gaza for the foreseeable future. Political solutions will eventually be important, but this must be Israel’s paramount and unimpeded goal until it is achieved.

While the plight of the hostages is painful beyond words, if Israel does not defeat its enemies, bring them to justice, and reestablish security after October 7, the Zionist dream is dead. 

How could any enemy fear a country that does not win after taking a hit like that? 

Every enemy would learn that to win strategically against Israel and survive, they must make sure to rape and butcher their way through music festivals and communities and take many hostages. 

Israel must reverse the horrible incentive structure that it created with its disastrous deal for Gilad Schalit. Israel should do its best to return the hostages, but it cannot commit suicide over them – which is what abandoning victory would be.

To quote Churchill – another leader who faced an implacable, genocidal foe – Israel’s only option post-October 7 is “victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”

Without victory, Israel would have betrayed Zionism. My relatives arrived in Israel after the Holocaust and fought in 1948 against all odds for Israel’s independence. They and their children fought in every war since. My brothers and I fought decades later.

 Zionists worldwide must fight for Israel

Ours is the story of millions who fight for an idea, for a safe haven and sovereignty. We do not ask for an end to the fighting, we are willing to bleed as much as it takes, for as long as it takes. But, we demand that we do not surrender the mission. Zionists worldwide are willing to fight with every tool at their disposal, be it weapons, words, money, or prayers for a country where Jews and all citizens feel secure, not for a country that surrenders to terrorists.

There is no security or pride in a country that makes a deal that allows the enemy to escape justice and remain a threat after the degradations of slaughter, torture, rape, and mutilation, and after the sacrifice of so many soldiers who fought to win. 

Without victory, Israel would always be waiting in fear of another October 7, which Hamas has vowed to revisit upon Israel until its annihilation. I would not risk my children’s lives for such a country. 

I will not live in its ever-shrinking borders as communities near Gaza and Lebanon become nightmare zones haunted by the gruesome specter of rape and murder. Finally, I will not feel pride for a country that has the means but not the will to defend itself.

I want a homeland, not a 22,000 sq. km. Yad Vashem. 

Golda Meir said, “If we have to have a choice between being dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we’d rather be alive and have the bad image.” This is a great quote but a false choice. The world respects those who respect themselves. This is true on the playground and in the Middle East. 

Victory will ensure both Israel’s security and its image.

The writer has a PhD in International Relations from the University of Virginia with a focus on strategic/security studies, counter-terrorism, conflict resolution, and asymmetric warfare. He is a publishing contributor at The MirYam Institute.