By an Israeli Who Wants Peace Without Erasure
I have read Alan Bickley’s “The Gaza Massacres: A Compromise Solution” with care. While I disagree with some of his conclusions and much of his framing, I cannot pretend that his criticisms are baseless. There is truth in his portrayal of Gaza’s suffering, in his quotations from our ministers, and in his warning that our current course is leading us towards perpetual war.
But I ask his readers to understand that the Government of Israel does not speak for every Israeli, nor do the harshest voices within it speak for every member of that Government. There are many of us—Jews, Arabs, secular and religious—who want our country to survive without being defined by dominance or cruelty, and who believe the future of this land depends on finding a less destructive way to coexist.
What follows is my response—not a defence of every Israeli action, but a plea for a different vision of peace than the one Mr Bickley proposes.
I am an Israeli who has served in uniform, raised a family here, and lived my entire life under the shadow of conflict. I believe deeply in Israel’s right to exist as a secure homeland for the Jewish people, but I also believe that our security will not be achieved through permanent war or the dispossession of another people. Your article, “The Gaza Massacres: A Compromise Solution,” is a provocation—but one worth answering.
You write that “the Israelis are committing atrocities in Gaza” and that “the purpose of these atrocities is… to murder or expel the Arab population, and then to seize their land and incorporate it into an expanded ethno-nationalist state.” I do not dismiss the suffering in Gaza, nor do I deny that the rhetoric of some of our ministers is disgraceful. When you quote Limor Son Har-Melech—“The sole picture of victory in this war… is settlements across the entire Gaza Strip”—I hear the same thing you hear: triumphalism that disregards human life. When Amichai Eliyahu says, “Blowing up everything is amazing,” it wounds not only Gaza but Israel’s moral standing.
Where I part from you is in the leap from these statements to the claim that Israel as a whole is committed to ethnic cleansing as state policy. These ministers speak for themselves, and perhaps for parts of the coalition, but they do not speak for every Israeli or even for every official in government. The IDF is not a private militia; it is bound—however imperfectly—to the rules of war and to a public opinion that is far more divided than outsiders often realise.
Israel did not appear on a blank map in 1948. The Jewish presence here is ancient, and the modern state arose out of a very particular history: centuries of exile, persecution, and in the 20th century, the Holocaust. In the same way that Palestinians carry the memory of the Nakba, Jews carry the memory of a Europe that murdered or expelled millions of us. This does not give us moral licence to do whatever we wish—but it does explain why so many Israelis see territorial control and military readiness as matters of survival, not ideology.
You say, “They are untouchable—because they possess nuclear weapons, because they have great and probably disreputable influence over the American Government…” I agree that our nuclear deterrent and American alliance make military restraint harder to impose from outside. But the “control” narrative misses something: we are also constrained by the U.S. in ways that the public rarely sees. American pressure has repeatedly delayed operations, shaped rules of engagement, and influenced ceasefire terms.
You propose that “Israel should be recognised within the borders it now controls… the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights,” and that “all Arabs in these areas—except those specifically permitted to remain—should be made to leave and resettled elsewhere in the Arab world.” I understand your argument: the facts on the ground are irreversible, so recognise them and prevent further bloodshed.
But such a mass transfer, even generously funded, would be a moral and strategic disaster for Israel. It would vindicate every claim that our state is inherently illegitimate. It would poison relations with every neighbouring country and make any reconciliation with Palestinians impossible for generations. Even if the money flowed freely, the act itself would be remembered as forced expulsion—the kind of trauma that shapes political identity for centuries.
I am not naïve about the current reality. Gaza is in ruins, the West Bank is fragmented, and mistrust runs deep. But the answer is not to formalise separation through removal. The answer is to create secure, recognised borders through negotiation—yes, even now—and to allow both peoples to live within them.
You write: “Israel must pay… for every act of international terrorism it has committed… Among those acts… were the recent bombings in Lebanon in September 2024… The same applies to the campaign of assassinations against Iranian scientists.”
I know these incidents are viewed abroad as state terrorism. Inside Israel, they are generally framed as pre-emptive defence—targeted strikes on actors involved in planning or enabling attacks against us. I am not claiming this settles the debate; reasonable people can question whether such actions are effective or proportionate. But to equate them with indiscriminate attacks on civilians is to erase the distinctions in international law between targeted military/intelligence operations and terrorism as defined by the deliberate targeting of non-combatants to spread fear.
That said, I accept that we owe more transparency to the world, and more honesty to ourselves, about the consequences of such operations—especially when they result in civilian casualties. The moral case for Israel weakens every time we appear to act without regard for innocent life.
Your plan for a “United Nations Compensation Authority” funded by a global tariff on Israeli exports would be seen here as economic warfare under another name. It would harden public opinion against compromise and strengthen the very hardliners whose rhetoric you rightly deplore. If compensation is part of peace, it must come through a negotiated agreement—ideally as part of an international reconstruction fund for Gaza, administered jointly with Palestinian and international partners.
Instead of your “keep the land, move the people” formula, I propose a slower, less dramatic, but ultimately more sustainable approach:
- Immediate Ceasefire – With international monitors and guarantees for humanitarian access.
- Hostage and Prisoner Exchange – To build minimal trust and relieve pressure on both societies.
- Freeze on Settlement Expansion – A political choice that would signal genuine intent for negotiations.
- Two-State Negotiations – Based on the 1967 borders with agreed land swaps, providing security guarantees for Israel and sovereignty for Palestinians.
- Economic Integration Projects – Shared water management, transport links, and industrial zones that bind both economies to mutual stability.
I agree with your warning: “The only alternative… is to continue where we are heading: an expanding Israeli state, surrounded by burning ruins, its enemies radicalised by grief and dreams of vengeance…” This is exactly the trajectory I fear, and it is why I believe moderation is not weakness but survival.
The difference is that I do not accept your premise that we must choose between permanent domination and mutual destruction. There remains a third option: negotiated coexistence. It will be imperfect, fragile, and often ugly—but it is possible, and it has worked before, even between sworn enemies.
Your plan would stabilise the map but freeze hatred in place. Mine would seek to draw a line under the past while leaving space for reconciliation. You see a Middle East divided into fenced-in zones with grudging acceptance; I see a Middle East where, one day, Israelis and Palestinians could live side by side—not because they love each other, but because they have learned that survival depends on it.
Peace will not come from humiliating the other side into submission. It will come, if at all, from both peoples giving up the fantasy of total victory. For Israel, that means abandoning dreams of permanent control over millions of Palestinians. For Palestinians, it means accepting that Israel is here to stay.
If we fail to find that balance, the war you describe so bleakly will indeed define our future. And in that, sadly, you and I agree completely.
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I’m afraid that to write of Israel’s right to exist is simply self-serving, and shows you think you had the right to seize someone else’s land. No Palestinian had any responsibility for Auschwitz. There is a disconnect in the logic there. And the fact that there was a (tiny) continuous Jewish community in what is now Israel cannot be used as a justification for millions of people, largely of Polish and not ancient Israelite descent (often with fair hair and blue eyes), turning up with an explicit plan to expel the Arab population. A land without people for a people without a land was always a lie. I think the Arabs and Israelis should now agree to share the land, on a 50:50 ratio that gives the Palestinians much more than the West Bank and Gaza, but no, the project of Zionism, grabbing someone else’s country was never legitimate right from the very start.
[…] thank my Israeli correspondent for his careful and temperate response to my “Gaza Massacres: A Compromise Solution.” I cannot pretend to agree with him on more than […]