This article was originally published on JNS.org on September 17, 2025.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar put it bluntly: “Israel will not let the armed jihadists of Hamas be 1 mile from our children’s beds.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “We are Athens and Sparta. But we’re going to be Athens and super-Sparta.”
The message could not be clearer. Hamas must surrender. The hostages must come home. Israel will not apologize for defending itself.
Yet the international media would have you believe otherwise. Their headlines shout accusations of cruelty, conquest and expansion. But the humanitarian pose conceals a refusal to answer the real question: Why this war? Are Jews simply presumed guilty for wanting to live?
The truth is far from the caricature. Two IDF divisions, advancing with caution, launched a partial entry into Gaza City after months of preparation and years of debate with Washington. The purpose is not conquest, but to separate civilians from terrorists, force Hamas into submission and rescue the captives.
In Jerusalem, Sen. Marco Rubio endorsed Israel’s goals before flying to Doha to explore a possible deal. But in the global arena, the very idea of defeating Hamas is absent. Instead, Israel faces condemnation. Another United Nations resolution—authored by Navi Pillay, a professional practitioner of anti-Israel bias—accuses the Jewish state of genocide.
Meanwhile, from Eurovision threats to European votes for Palestinian statehood, from Qatari lectures about sovereignty to Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez demanding Israel’s exclusion, the spectacle is the same: the world rushes to shield Hamas while excoriating Israel.
Even Qatar, the wealthy patron of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas’s sponsor, dares to cry foul after bankrolling the very terror that caused this war.
But Israel knows better. After the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and more than 1,000 thwarted terror attacks in a single year, Israelis understand that Hamas is not a “resistance” movement but a religious army sworn to holy war. It is armed and financed by Iran, Qatar and Egypt. Its charter calls for Israel’s annihilation. Its tunnels are not for civilians, but for combat. Its shields are not armor, but women and children.
This is not genocide. Israel warns civilians before every strike. Israel opens humanitarian corridors. Israel delivers aid. But Hamas chooses death—for Israelis and for its own people.
The Middle East is watching. Syria signals interest in compromise. Egypt signs energy contracts. Arab states quietly wait for Hamas to disappear. They know that only Israel has the resolve to finish the job.
Peace will come when Hamas is defeated. If Europe insists on saving Hamas, Europe will pay the price.
Israel has already learned the hard lessons—the failure of Oslo, the slaughter of Oct. 7. Better to be disapproved of than to be dead.
