“… if Arab armies lay down their arms, the war ends; if Israel lays down its arms, Israel ceases to exist.”

Restraint is not a noble peace offer when your adversary’s stated objective is your complete destruction. It is simply self-sabotage.

Yet foreign observers fall into a predictable psychological trap, driven by a well-documented cognitive bias known as the “underdog effect.” Human psychology naturally defaults to sympathy for whoever appears weaker on paper. When Western onlookers see the Iron Dome, a modern military, and a booming tech economy, they instantly tag Israel as the oppressor. Then they look at militant groups operating out of dirt roads and residential blocks, mistaking a lack of advanced hardware for moral virtue. In reality, much of the international outrage directed at Israel isn’t because it crosses ethical boundaries, but because it refuses to be weak enough to die.

That moral posturing ignores how power has actually worked in the region for centuries. Middle Eastern history isn’t a story of peaceful harmony broken only by modern statehood; it is a long timeline of ruthless conquest. Arab imperial armies swept across North Africa and the Levant, subjugating, assimilating, or erasing indigenous populations — from the Copts in Egypt to the Berbers, Zoroastrians, and ancient Christian communities. Total subjugation was the historical default. Modern dictators followed the same script: Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against the Kurds in Halabja, the Assad family leveled entire cities to crush dissent, and Sudan waged brutal campaigns against its non-Arab minorities.

Compared to that reality, Israel is a complete anomaly. It fights continuous defensive conflicts against hostile groups pledged to its annihilation, yet its own Arab citizens serve on the Supreme Court (such as Justice Khaled Kabub), practice medicine in major hospitals, and sit in parliament. Even during active wars, the state continues providing water, power, and humanitarian supplies to territories governed by organizations actively plotting its destruction.

Had Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu buckled under pressure from former President Joe Biden, Europe, and the UN — had he bowed to domestic street protests, catered to woke Ivy League activists, and caved to viral “Eyes on Rafah” graphics — the Middle East would look radically, horrifyingly different:

Yahya Sinwar would still be alive in the tunnels beneath Rafah, plotting his next massacre while Israeli hostages rotted and died in subterranean darkness. Hassan Nasrallah and Ismail Haniyeh would still be breathing easy, directing terror from Beirut and Doha with total impunity. Bashar al-Assad and his torture chambers at Saydnaya prison would stand untouched like an unshakeable fortress. In Tehran, IRGC generals and their execution machine would rule without a single tremor of fear.

Kamala Harris would have won the White House, smiling for cameras while flirting over a second nuclear deal with the Mullahs, while centrifuges at Fordow spun at maximum speed, safe from American B-2 bombers. This would have been “her truth.” Hezbollah and the Houthis would have choked global shipping into total chaos, forcing Israel’s regional allies into quiet, panicked appeasement.

Instead, Israel refused to yield — and that single act of stubborn defiance hit the region like a physical slap, setting off a butterfly effect that flipped the entire board. One decision shattered the terror axis, eliminated the masterminds, and overturned the Middle East.

Sometimes, survival simply requires holding the line. In a dangerous neighborhood, security is never built on international approval, cognitive sympathy, or trending social media campaigns. It is built on unyielding strength and the simple resolve to survive.

There is a movie that depicts this sort of thing: “It is a wonderful life.” An angel demonstrates to the hero of the movie, who is despairing of his life, that if he did not exist, awful things would have occurred. In our present context, we demonstrate the very opposite: that if Israel did not exist in the first place, or surrendered, the result would have been horrid. On Oct. 7, 2023, some 1200 innocent Jews and a few others were murdered, and of the roughly 250 people kidnapped that day of infamy, all too few survived. Were there no Jewish state, or, if it was overrun by the likes of Hamas, this atrocity would have overtaken virtually all of the Jews in the Middle East.

But not only that. These terrorists do not make fine distinction between Jews in Israel, and elsewhere, in the diaspora. Here is what their covenant states:

“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”

THE WEST FORGOT HOW TO FIGHT. ISRAEL HASN’T

Note, there is no mention of “Israelis,” only “Jews.” The disappearance of members of this religion would not only be a tragedy for them, but for the entire world. This group of people have, disproportionately to their numbers in the population, contributed greatly to medicine, the arts, music, scholarship, technology, armaments, inventions, Nobel Prizes, etc.

Consider the following scenario: The Martians attack the earth. There are no longer any Jews on the third planet from the sun. Are earthlings better off or worse off with regard to defending ourselves from this invasion? This question answers itself.

Walter E. Block, Ph.D., is the Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair and professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans. Hushang Manuchehri is an independent writer.