A Plea for Peace

Israeli reservist Nir Avishai Cohen took time on his way to the front to write, I'm going to war for Israel. Palestinians are not my enemy.

This war, like others before it, will end sooner or later. I am not sure I will come back from it alive, but I do know that a minute after the war is over, both Israelis and Palestinians will have to reckon with the leaders who led them to this moment. We must wake up and not let the extremists rule. Palestinians and Israelis must denounce the extremists who are driven by religious fanaticism. The Israelis will have to oust National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and their far-right circle from power, and the Palestinians will have to oust the leadership of Hamas.

I try to look for shreds of hope. The Yom Kippur War, the most difficult war that Israel had known until this week, started by surprise in 1973. After a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt was finally signed in 1979, the border with Egypt — one that was once the site of the dead and wounded — became a border of peace.

Israelis must realize that there is no greater security asset than peace. The strongest army cannot protect the country the way peace does. This current war proves it once again. Israel has followed the path of war for too long.

At the end, after all of the dead Israelis and Palestinians are buried, after we have finished washing away the rivers of blood, the people who share a home in this land will have to understand that there is no other choice but to follow the path of peace. That is where true victory lies.