‘October Return’: The Coded Warning English Doesn’t Capture
We’ve all heard the expression “don’t judge a book by its cover.” In the case of Einat Wilf and Adi Schwartz’s recent October Return (an update of their previous The War of Return), I would shift to “don’t judge a book by its title,” at least not its English title, which bears nothing of the Einsteinian economy and explosiveness that the original Hebrew conveys.
In Hebrew, ShivAH b’October is a play on words. Clearly “October is October,” so the issue is “ShivAH.” Written as in the graphic above, it does mean “return.” However, spelled differently — but with only a tiny change in pronunciation (“Shiv’AH) — it means “seven” and “Shiv’AH b’October” is how Israelis refer to “October Seventh,” the day of the Hamas massacre.
In other words, while brilliant, this “play” is anything but funny. With chilling conciseness, the authors point to the core issues of the conflict — which they’ve been screaming for years — the ignoring of which has made peace not only elusive, but illusory.
And what are those issues? The stupefying erasure of Jewish history in the face of millennia of evidence; Palestinian rejection of Jewish sovereignty in ANY part of our ancestral homeland; UNRWA’s perverse — and perversely singular — designation of ALL Palestinians as refugees, no matter where they are or how long they’ve been there; and, most pivotally, the “right of return” for all the aforementioned, even, as Wilf and Schwartz point out, fifth-generation Jordanian citizens with passports.
And what would be the result of five generations (some 5-6 million people) of “return?”
Simple: just as Clausewitz said “war is a continuation of policy by other means” so, too, demography is war by other means. In other words, we’d be a minority in our own state (even Amos Oz warned against that, watch his “Last Lecture”) as in: we’d cease to be sovereign, or, more precisely, we’d cease to be —
Period.
At least not in the Land of Israel.
And so, the conflict is existential, not a single half-measure will suffice — neither “ceasefires” (which somehow always cease); nor ever-more-sickening UN pile-ons; nor third parties talking to fourth parties in supposedly neutral lands; nor prestigious Boards playing “Peace” (while Hamas plays them); nor “mowing the lawn” (which never gets the grass quite short enough); nor suitcases full of cash (which did buy something, just nothing like “quiet”); nor self-satisfied declarations that terrorists are “deterred” — none of that…I repeat NONE of that…I emphasize NONE OF THAT will matter a whit, because the Palestinians (at least the ones with missiles and guns) DO want “from the river to the sea,” with not a single Jew (sovereign, subservient or — let’s make it easier — alive) in sight.
Now I recognize that’s not happy news, but at least it’s real. To change that reality would require nothing short of transformation on both sides.
Jews, unapologetically, would have to say “the State of Israel is here to stay. We’re home. We’re not going anywhere.”
And Palestinians, unequivocally, would have to say, “Indeed, you are home. In a sovereign Jewish state. We’d like a sovereign Palestinian state living peacefully next to your sovereign Jewish state. Then, can we talk water management and trade?”
Quoting an old song, “wouldn’t it be loverly!”
It surely would. Just one problem. The Palestinians don’t want “next to,” they want “instead of.” And no, we’re not interested in the peace of suicide.
And so, quite literally, Israel soldiers on. Israelis work, build, hope, pray…and watch.
Speaking of watching, I read another excellent book recently, While Israel Slept, by Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot. In heart-crushing detail, they recount the desperate pleas from the largely young, female lookouts tasked with keeping an eye on Gaza, whether through binoculars or on computer screens.
Again and again, over months, they raised alarms. Again and again, they begged their higher-ups to acknowledge the urgency and — especially as the horrors were underway — to “CONFIRM RECEIPT!”
Tragically, we all know the result.
Oddly — or perhaps not so oddly — while reading Katz and Bohbot’s book it occurred to me that Einat Wilf and Adi Schwartz have been saying “CONFIRM RECEIPT” for years.
These two fallen leftists have cried out, “Listen to what the Palestinian leadership is ACTUALLY SAYING. In Arabic. To each other. For too long we’ve been essentially talking to ourselves. Even ‘two states’ (as Einat pointed out on the Israel Update podcast recently) was always a Jewish idea!”
I repeat: LISTEN TO WHAT THEY’RE ACTUALLY SAYING.
If we do that, and call it for what is, perhaps (go ahead, color me naive) they’ll say something else one day. Something like:
“Ya know, this hundred years’ war against the Jews hasn’t gone well for us. Maybe we should try a different approach. Maybe we should spend the billions on our development instead of their destruction. Maybe tunnels should be for transport, not terror. Maybe our mothers should have aspirations beyond martyrdom for their sons.”
Again, I invite you to call me naive. I might not disagree. But didn’t Herzl say, “if you will it, it is no dream”?
And didn’t Einat, on that same recent podcast, say “as a devout Zionist, I don’t believe in ‘never’”?
Well, I don’t believe in “never” either.
I do, however, believe in “never again.” And Israel’s political, military and security establishments failed to uphold that oath on — and leading up to — October 7.
Complacency conquered vigilance, which sounds abstract, but the wound still bleeds.
It can never recur.
We have to listen. To our enemies. In their language. In their terms.
We have to confirm receipt.
If we do, then “never again” has a chance to mean “never again.”
Anything short of that, however, and “ShivAH” could again mean “Shiv’AH.”
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Einat Wilf is the founder of Oz Party, which is running in the current election. Though I’m American and cannot vote, I support her. My fuller endorsement can be found in my previous post:
For more information on OZ, including a free manuscript of October Return, click below:
