Israelis are tired of war (but we’re not tired of fighting for peace).

Welcome to the ultimate cognitive dissonance in Israel: exhausted by war, unshaken by purpose.

Israeli soldiers at an IDF ceremony (photo: IDF/X)

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It’s been nearly two years since the morning of October 7, 2023.

For most of the world, it was a horrific news cycle. For Israel, it was the moment everything changed, and never un-changed.

Since that day, Israel has not known peace. Not for a week. Not even for a day.

What began as a brutal, coordinated invasion by Hamas became a prolonged war that has outlasted a news cycle, an American presidency, and even the world’s patience.

But not Israel’s.

Because this isn’t just a war against Hamas. It’s a war against Hezbollah to the north. A war against the drip-drip-drip of terror attacks from the West Bank. A war against the random long-range threats of the Houthis in Yemen. And most recently, a 12-day war with Iran itself, a red line many believed would never be crossed. Until it was.

In parts of Israel, parents still send their children to school with a change of clothes in their backpacks — in case they don’t make it home because they had to remain in the school bomb shelter. Across the country, families have been sleeping in bomb shelters for months. Homes still echo with the silence of those kidnapped or murdered. This is nowhere near normal, but it has become the “new normal” for Israelis.

Ask any Israeli how they’re doing, and they’ll tell you, “We’re tired.” But it’s not the kind of tired that fades after a weekend getaway. It’s the deep, marrow-level exhaustion that comes from living in a state of chronic trauma. Not PTSD, but CTSD: Continuous Traumatic Stress Disorder. The kind of mental weight you carry when you never leave the battlefield, when there is no “after,” only “during.”

Israel’s economy has bent under the weight of full military mobilization. Tourism has evaporated. Innovation, Israel’s pride, has slowed. Families are fractured, with one son in Gaza, another on the Lebanon border, and a third sleeping with one eye open in Jerusalem. The price of survival is steep, but the price of surrender would be annihilation.

And yet, despite it all, despite the funerals, the sirens, the shattered families and shuttered businesses, most Israelis don’t want the war to stop — at least, not before its goals are met. Not before Hamas is eradicated from Gaza. Not before Iran is punished for its rogue nuclear program. Not before Israel regains something it hasn’t had since before October 7th: the feeling of safety. True safety. Enduring safety.

This is the great paradox in Israel today: Israelis are tired of war, but we’re not tired of fighting for peace.

We want to return to our lives, of course. But we refuse to return to the illusion of peace. The pre-October 7th status quo — where Hamas was tolerated, Hezbollah was contained, and Iran was watched from afar — is no longer acceptable. Israelis know what that complacency cost us.

There’s a kind of moral loneliness Israelis feel today. We stand largely alone, not because we’ve failed to explain ourselves, but because so much of the world has stopped trying to understand. The global language of empathy has become selective. Israelis are not seen as victims, even when butchered. We are not mourned, only questioned and debated. And so, while the world grapples with us, we bury our dead and prepare for the next siren.

No other country in the world would operate with this level of precision, delay, and self-doubt while fighting for its existence. And yet, every delay to preserve civilian life in Gaza gives Hamas another chance to regroup. Every food truck let in becomes a headline: “Israel is starving Gaza” — until it isn’t, and then no one reports the correction. Restraint by Israel is not rewarded; it’s exploited by the terrorists who use it to regroup, and by the international media who use it to attack Israel’s legitimacy.

This is the paradox of modern empathy: It’s loudest when it’s least informed. It grieves for images, not intentions. It is stirred by children’s faces, but indifferent to the terror that put them there. It sees rubble, but not rocket launchers beneath it. And in much of this upside-down world, the very virtue that should unite humanity (empathy) has become another weapon used against the Jewish state.

That said, even as Israel fights this war on multiple fronts, it is constantly asked to show restraint. To “feed Gaza” while Gaza remains ruled by genocidal terrorists. To keep electricity flowing to those who dig tunnels meant to kill Israelis. To perform miracles of moral clarity while the West loses its own in a haze of slogans and selective outrage.

This, too, extends the war. Every humanitarian corridor Hamas exploits. Every ceasefire called for in bad faith. Every act of restraint that prolongs Israeli insecurity rather than resolve it. The West’s obsession with managing the optics of war, rather than confronting the origins of it, has left Israel in a fight it should’ve finished long ago.

Thus, there is tremendous cognitive dissonance between Israelis and much of the West. Israelis live in reality; the West lives in commentary. Here, every siren is a countdown. Every news alert could be personal. We don’t have the luxury of abstraction; we have skin in the game, blood in the ground. And while pundits debate the “cycle of violence,” we are busy breaking it.

Let’s be clear: This war is not between “Israel” and “Palestine.” It’s between civilization and barbarism. Between a state that values life and a movement that glorifies martyrdom. Between a country that mourns the death of every child (Israeli or Palestinian) and a regime that uses children as literal shields and PR props.

Israel doesn’t ask the world to fight its battles, but it does ask one thing: Don’t side with our enemies while we fight to survive. Don’t cheer for “resistance” that looks like rape, torture, and murder. Don’t claim to care about peace while supporting those who seek eternal war.

So, no, we’re not interested in managing this conflict anymore; we’re interested in ending it. Not with vengeance, but with finality. Not with slogans, but with security. Not with more ceasefires that preserve Hamas and the other Iranian octopus’ tentacles, but with clear terms that remove them. The world can chant, protest, and hashtag; we will protect our children.

And yet still, there is hope.

Because amid the nearly two years of constant war, something has awakened in Israel. A unity forged in fire. A refusal to play by old rules that ensured only cycles of violence, not resolution. A determination to make this the last war, not just the latest one.

The headlines may still twist every Israeli action, but the people of Israel are clear-eyed. We don’t crave war; we crave peace. And, unfortunately, we’ve learned the hard way that peace is not given. It is earned, fought for, bled for, and, ultimately, secured. And that’s exactly what we intend to do.

Israelis are tired of war, but we are not tired of winning. Not for the sake of power, but for the sake of our children, our future, and yes, even our neighbors. Because true peace in the Middle East will only come when those who worship death are finally defeated, and when those who choose life are finally allowed to live it.

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