As an Israeli, I have been longing for peace my entire life.

Some of my earliest childhood memories are shaped by fear – fear of terrorists attacking me and my family, fear of getting hurt, fear of losing someone close. Decades later, as a father, it breaks my heart to hear my children express similar fears. Just a few days ago, my five-year-old son told me he had a nightmare: “Bad people from Iran came looking for me.”

That sentence alone is enough to understand why peace is not an abstract idea for me. It is deeply personal.

As a combat soldier in an elite IDF unit, I have fought in multiple wars. I have seen the horrors of conflict up close. I have lost friends. I have lost family. The images of the dead and wounded are part of me now. The sounds of war have become part of my life’s soundtrack.

And still, or maybe because of all that, I pray for peace every single day.

I close my eyes and imagine a world without violence. I dream about a future where my children don’t have to carry the same fears I did. I don’t just talk about peace. I fight for it, literally.

A few days ago, I returned home for a short break from operations in Lebanon. Sitting on the couch, holding my children, I read the news: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had decided to begin direct negotiations with Lebanon.

For a moment, everything shifted.

I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time – hope.

I am not naïve. I understand the obstacles. I know how fragile and complex this reality is. But the very fact that Israel and Lebanon are even considering a diplomatic path forward matters. It should matter to anyone who claims to believe in peace.

My instinct was to share that hope. I wrote a short post expressing cautious optimism.

The reaction? Silence.

Not skepticism. Not criticism. Silence.

What struck me wasn’t that people disagreed. It was that many of those who define themselves as “peace activists” had nothing to say. No acknowledgment. No encouragement. No cautious hope. Not about Israel-Lebanon talks, and not about broader diplomatic efforts in the region.

You would expect that those who dedicate their lives, and in some cases their careers, to promoting peace would at least welcome the possibility of it. But when peace moves from slogan to reality, something changes.

Because real peace is complicated. It requires compromise. It demands confronting uncomfortable truths. It doesn’t always align neatly with political narratives or ideological identities.

And so, too often, it is met with silence.

This silence raises a difficult question: Is the goal truly peace, or is it the posture of advocating for peace?

From where I stand, covered in mud and carrying the weight of war, peace is not a theory. It is not a slogan. It is not a brand.

And perhaps that is the real divide.

Those who have experienced war understand the urgency of peace. They know its cost, not in words, but in lives. Those who haven’t may speak about peace, but too often struggle to recognize it when it appears in imperfect, complicated forms.

Peace will not be achieved by those who only talk about it.

It will be achieved by those who are willing to fight for it, and also brave enough to recognize it when it finally begins to take shape.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)