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Source: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/we-will-defend-ourselves
We Will Defend Ourselves
(Tablet) Gadi Taub - We did not think we would ever see such sights in Israel. Helpless Jews tormented, raped, torched alive, beheaded, and mutilated. The promise of Zionism, the promise of Israel, was "Never Again." Zionism meant that we will defend ourselves or die trying. It is an instinct, an existential orientation toward life and death, more than it is a thought or an ideology. At the heart of Israel's Declaration of Independence it says: "It is the natural right of the Jewish people to be like all peoples, master of their own fate, in their own sovereign state." It means that henceforth, Jews will not be hunted in the streets. They will die, if they must, on their feet, a weapon in their hand - not like hunted animals but like human beings. The horrors of Oct. 7 reminded us that the existential condition of Zionism is not a given and cannot be taken for granted. It is something we must constantly protect and uphold, because it can be lost. I think the Israeli public, emerging gradually from the initial shock, senses this. What Hamas has now done has not just buried the two-state solution and killed all hopes for peace in our lifetime, or in our children's lifetime. It has also tripped the wire that triggers the deepest of Jewish fears. Hamas has committed crimes against humanity and we will not sustain its rule under the guise of "humanitarian aid." The writer is a senior lecturer in communications and public policy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.