“Let my people go.” — Moses, Exodus 5:1
Two years and a few days after the world changed, the remaining hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, 2023 will walk free. Israeli families will see their children again. Communities will exhale for the first time in 730 days.
I don’t usually write about geopolitics on AirSugar. But some moments demand you say what you believe, without apology.
October 7 changed me. Not as an investor. As a person. Forever.
What happened was simple
Hamas militants stormed into Israeli communities at dawn and murdered 1,200 people: parents, grandmothers, children dancing at a music festival. They dragged over 200 hostages into Gaza tunnels.
They came to kill Jews.
They thought they’d break us. They were wrong.
Israel’s answer: No negotiation. No compromise. Total annihilation.
Every jihadist watching just learned what happens when you come for Jewish children. Remember it. Teach it to your children. Whisper it in Tehran and Gaza and Beirut. Israel doesn’t break. Israel breaks you.
The campaign was long and brutal. Hamas hid command centers under hospitals. Fired rockets from residential blocks. Used their own people as shields.
Israel chose a third option: hunt you everywhere, eliminate you precisely, win absolutely.
This weekend’s breakthrough came through relentless American diplomacy. Trump’s record on Israel is unmatched: embassy to Jerusalem, Golan recognition, Abraham Accords.
The deal is brutal: all surviving hostages freed, the deceased returned, Gaza demilitarized. Israel releases 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Some will return to terror. But when the choice is between keeping killers locked up or bringing your children home, you bring your children home.
Every. Single. Time.
Here’s what 730 days bought: deterrence that will echo for generations. The next enemy plotting the next massacre will pause. They’ll remember. They’ll fear.
The Middle East doesn’t listen to speeches. It listens to strength.
Israel has spoken.
The price of conviction
I watched people I respect excuse jihadist barbarism. I watched institutions equivocate. I watched the moral architecture of the world reveal itself as hollow.
And I learned: moral clarity is the rarest thing. Rarer than genius. Rarer than courage. Rarer than truth.
The world demanded Israel fold. Pressure from allies. Condemnation from enemies. Every day, a new reason to surrender.
But you don’t compromise with evil. You don’t split the difference between right and wrong. You don’t abandon your children because the world finds their rescue inconvenient.
Israel refused. Not politely. Absolutely.
For 730 days, with their children in tunnels, with the entire world screaming at them to stop, they held the line between civilization and barbarism. Alone if necessary. Condemned if required. Unbending always.
This is who we are. This is who we’ve always been.
I thought I understood pressure. I understood nothing.
Dawn breaks Monday
By the time you read this, mothers are holding daughters they thought they’d lost. Fathers are embracing sons they’d mourned. Brothers and sisters reunited after 730 days in hell.
Can you see it? Can you feel it?
Two years of empty chairs at Shabbat dinner. Two years of photographs on walls. Two years of families praying for a miracle that seemed impossible.
And now, the miracle. Reunions that seemed impossible. Life reclaimed from death through sheer refusal to quit.
Everyone remembers the music festival. The 364 young people murdered while dancing at dawn. We carry them with us. Always.
They danced for life. They died for being Jewish.
And now we dance for them.
They used to say “We will dance again.” Not as prediction. As war cry. As defiance against darkness. As a promise that light survives, that joy outlasts terror, that the Jewish people don’t disappear when evil demands it.
Because we refuse to let horror win. Because a people who outlasted Pharaoh and Haman and Hitler don’t break now.
Never again means never again.
Life defeats death. Light defeats darkness.
That’s what we will dance again means. That you can murder us but you cannot make us disappear. That you can hate us but you cannot break us.
What I carry forward
October 7 taught me: when evil comes for the Jewish people, you destroy it completely.
For 730 days, Israel refused to trade their children for approval. They refused to split the difference between right and wrong.
They fought when the world said stop.
They stood when the world said kneel.
They won when everyone said they’d lose.
The hostages come home. And with them comes proof that moral clarity is the rarest courage. That when evil arrives to slaughter your children, you don’t negotiate. You don’t stop until evil is destroyed.
This is what it looks like when a nation refuses to die.
This is what it looks like when the Jewish people say enough.
I’ll never apologize for standing with Israel. I’ll never forget what 730 days taught me about who stands with you when darkness comes and who makes excuses for evil.
The next jihadist planning the next October 7 will remember what Israel did. They’ll fear. They’ll understand that Jewish blood is no longer cheap.
That’s not vengeance. That’s survival. That’s deterrence. That’s peace through strength.
Some things are worth more than comfort. More than consensus. More than being liked.
Your children. Your people. Your survival. Your right to exist.
Good over evil. Every time. Whatever it takes.
Am Yisrael Chai.
We dance again.
Watch us.
So beautifully written, as always. October 7th showed me an ugliness to the world, the least of which is that anti-semitism is all around us. You’re not wrong about moral clarity. Gone are the days of shades of grey. We saw here very clearly what was wrong and what was right and I’m still appalled that there was even a debate about that. Anyways, kiss Lisa and your girls for me!
So perfectly stated. Am Yisrael Chai 💙🙏🏼