{"id":297617,"date":"2026-02-18T16:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T16:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/297617\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T16:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T16:17:10","slug":"beware-netanyahus-orwellian-war-of-revival-doublespeak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/297617\/","title":{"rendered":"Beware Netanyahu’s Orwellian ‘War of Revival’ doublespeak"},"content":{"rendered":"

This Editor\u2019s Note was sent out earlier Wednesday in ToI\u2019s weekly update email to members of the Times of Israel Community. To receive these Editor\u2019s Notes as they\u2019re released, join the ToI Community\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is determinedly seeking to have us all remember the war Israel had to wage against Hamas after the terrorists invaded on October 7, 2023, as the \u201cWar of Revival.\u201d<\/p>\n

By cabinet fiat last October, Netanyahu replaced the official IDF designation of the conflict, \u201cSwords of Iron,\u201d which had been announced on the very day that Hamas carried out its invasion, with his carefully chosen \u201cWar of Revival.\u201d He routinely<\/a> utilizes the term in his Knesset<\/a> speeches. Presumably, it is what his planned self-appointed and self-mandated political commission of inquiry into the war would investigate, and pronounce Netanyahu unstained.<\/p>\n

As things stand, the wording on the graves of soldiers killed on and since October 7 simply states, in lieu of a formal decision, that they \u201cfell in battle,\u201d without specifying a name for the war in which they were killed. The IDF noted<\/a> this week that no decision has yet been made by the government as to whether to impose the \u201cWar of Revival\u201d wording on the soldiers\u2019 graves \u2014 a potential requirement that some families are bitterly vowing<\/a> to resist.<\/p>\n

In similar vein, last week, Netanyahu\u2019s office ordered the excision of the word \u201cmassacre\u201d<\/a> from the title of legislation establishing an annual commemoration of the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught.<\/p>\n

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The prime minister\u2019s goal, needless to say, is to remove or at least marginalize the failures surrounding the Hamas-led invasion from the public consciousness and thus escape his crushing personal responsibility.<\/p>\n

Most Israelis think of the two years of fighting, bluntly, simply and accurately, as \u201cthe October 7 war.\u201d Netanyahu\u2019s doublespeak seeks to misrepresent what was an essential resort to force \u2014 against any enemy that had been unfathomably allowed to breach Israel\u2019s defenses and carry out the worst massacre in modern Israeli history \u2014 as some kind of war of choice, an initiated conflict that Israel opted to embark upon in order to achieve a glorious revitalization.<\/p>\n

The war that Israel launched after thousands of Hamas-led terrorists brutally murdered some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in southern Israel and abducted 251 to Gaza was not a \u201cwar of revival.\u201d Neither, as some cynics have sniped, was it the \u201cwar of self-revival\u201d for Netanyahu.<\/p>\n

It was, rather, a war of survival, a necessary response to unprovoked mass murder by an enemy next door that was vowing (indeed, still is) to keep killing Israelis until our country is destroyed.<\/p>\n

By misnaming the war, by falsifying<\/a> what went wrong \u2014 his defense minister on that terrible day declared flatly on national television<\/a> earlier this month that \u201cwe have a liar for prime minister\u201d \u2014 and by refusing to allow the failures to be properly investigated by a state commission, Netanyahu aims to exculpate himself from blame. He peddles a skewed narrative that dishonors the dead, the injured, the traumatized. And he obscures the imperative to get to the root of the failures.<\/p>\n

An oft-invoked aphorism has it that \u201cthose who cannot remember the past\u201d \u2014 or, in this case, those who misrepresent it \u2014 \u201care condemned to repeat it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But we might also usefully recall one of many appropriate quotations from George Orwell\u2019s 1984: \u201cThe Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enemy within<\/p>\n

As IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir declared on Sunday, after the attack on two female IDF soldiers<\/a> who had the temerity to enter the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak, it is \u201can intolerable reality\u201d that Israeli soldiers cannot walk freely around the State of Israel.<\/p>\n

There is simply no future for an Israel in which the fastest-growing community does not merely refuse to share in the burden of the country\u2019s defense by performing national service but is violently hostile to the Israeli mainstream that both keeps it safe and finances its freeloading distortion of Judaism.<\/p>\n

Corrupt politicians who extort the government for an ever-growing share of the state budget to support a community much of which does not work, prominent rabbis who condemn the arrest of draft dodgers as a crime<\/a>, and demonstrators who routinely vow that they will die rather than enlist and who attack their fellow Jews \u2014 are carrying out untenable acts of internal rebellion. Yet the government bows to the blackmail, tens of thousands of eligible recruits are not drafted, and the lawbreakers generally go unpunished.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tTwo female IDF soldiers are rescued by police after being chased by a mob in the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak on February 15, 2026. (Screenshots\/David Keshet\/X)<\/p>\n

There are innumerable moderate, authentically Jewish ultra-Orthodox leaders who recognize the gravity of this violent skewing of Jewish values, and who advocate for paths of internal Jewish coexistence. But they are drowned out by the mob mindset, itself empowered by feebleminded sages who have lost sight of God.<\/p>\n

Bnei Brak on Sunday was a domestic battlefield. These were not the first such violent confrontations and they won\u2019t be the last. The Haredi community is turning itself, and allowing itself to be turned, into the enemy within \u2014 a genuine threat to Israel\u2019s future. This is the moment for leaders from within that community who recognize the danger to stand up, speak out, and reassert the authentic Judaism of mutual respect and shared responsibility.<\/p>\n

Honoring the promise that \u2018help is on its way\u2019<\/p>\n

Culminating on January 8-9, the Iranian regime massacred thousands \u2014 probably tens of thousands \u2014 of its own people, who had dared to rise up against their oppressive leaders. US President Donald Trump, making clear that he would come to the aid of the Iranian people where previous American presidents had signally failed to do so, posted on January 13: \u2018\u201dIranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING \u2013 TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!\u2026 HELP IS ON ITS WAY,\u201d<\/p>\n

Five weeks later, there is no shortage of US military might in the neighborhood \u2014 as Trump has proudly declared, the US has built up a \u201cbig\u2026 massive\u2026 beautiful armada\u201d to confront Iran. But actual, practical assistance to constrain the regime and help enable the Iranian people to bring it down has been in short supply.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tScreenshot from footage broadcast February 15, 2026, of protests in Iran on January 8, 2026. (Channel 12 screenshot)<\/p>\n

Instead, the US is now in talks with the Islamic Republic, with the focus of American efforts having unaccountably shifted from preventing the ayatollahs from massacring their own people and expediting the regime\u2019s downfall to trying yet again to lock them into an agreement ensuring they cannot build nuclear weapons \u2014 the kind of deal, that is, that experience shows the regime will evade and breach without compunction. The talks don\u2019t even cover Iran\u2019s revived ballistic missiles production, or its ongoing support for proxies, including Hezbollah and Hamas, that exist solely to expand Iran\u2019s rapacious ideology.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s as though Iran holds the upper hand in setting the framework for this interaction, when it is a failing regime, loathed by its own people, facing off against the most powerful military force in the world.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tFrom R-L: This combination of pictures shows, a handout photograph provided by the office of Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei showing him addressing a meeting with the people in Tehran on January 17, 2026 and US President Donald Trump speaking in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, February 3, 2026. (SAUL LOEB \/ various sources \/ AFP)<\/p>\n

Ousting the ayatollahs is manifestly no overnight operation, but it is within the capabilities of a populace determined to be free if backed by a US-led coalition radically constricting the regime\u2019s capacity to function economically, to communicate effectively, and to mobilize its murderous forces against its people.<\/p>\n

Trump has set his heart on acting as global peacemaker, ending conflicts rather than starting them. Where Iran is concerned, peace and stability require effectively supporting an Iranian citizenry that has shown, time and again, that it will put its lives on the line for freedom, and where, to date, the supposedly enlightened, life-affirming West has failed, also time and again, to play its vital part in the struggle.<\/p>\n

As US senator and close Trump ally Lindsey Graham told ToI\u2019s Lazar Berman<\/a> on Monday, \u201cIf having said all the things we\u2019ve said and done all the things we\u2019ve done, if the ayatollah is still standing after all this bluster, then it would be a strategic victory for Iran and the force of radical Islam.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This Editor\u2019s Note was sent out earlier Wednesday in ToI\u2019s weekly update email to members of the Times…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-297617","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}