For decades, Israel traded land for promises, restraint for applause, and strategic depth for the fantasy of “quiet.” October 7 exposed the brutal reality: Israel’s enemies were never fighting over borders alone; they were fighting over Israel’s existence itself.

There is now a diplomatic ritual so painfully predictable that one imagines it being taught in European policy schools and rehearsed annually by Brussels bureaucrats over imported wine. The world expresses horror for approximately forty-eight hours. Then Israel retaliates, and suddenly the conversation shifts from murdered Jews to “restraint,” “de-escalation,” and the urgent need to revive the peace process, that enchanted Middle Eastern unicorn perpetually sighted by diplomats and never by reality.

Now, after October 7 and after Israel has taken control of over half of Gaza, the same chorus rises again. The international community, insists that Israel must eventually withdraw, avoid “occupation,” and recommit itself to the sacred doctrine of land for peace. But October 7 shattered something far greater than a border fence. It shattered the illusion that Israel’s enemies fundamentally seek coexistence and merely quarrel over cartography.

Hamas terrorists did not consult the United Nations registry of internationally recognized borders before crossing into Israel. They did not pause to ask whether burning families alive violated humanitarian protocols. They came to massacre Jews. Enthusiastically. Methodically. Joyfully. The attack was not a border dispute. It was a theological statement delivered with rifles and rape.

And that is the uncomfortable truth the diplomatic class still refuses to absorb: Israel’s enemies do not primarily object to where Israel is. They object to that Israel is.

For decades, however, much of the West behaved as though the conflict were simply a real estate disagreement awaiting enough concessions, enough summits, enough handshakes on White House lawns. The theory was elegant. Israel gives land. The Arabs give peace. Thomas Friedman writes another optimistic column. Everyone applauds........

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