Say It Plainly: Israel Is Here to Stay

Jacob Silver Senior Contributor 📅 September 23, 2026

Peace cannot begin while Hamas and Iran’s leaders refuse to accept that Israel is here to stay.

Here is a peace proposal nobody should have to make: before we argue about where the border goes, can we agree there will still be an Israel on one side of it?

Hamas cannot bring itself to say yes. Neither can the men running Iran. They will talk about ceasefires, conditions, and maps. But ask whether Israelis get to keep their country, and the room suddenly goes quiet.  This is the real problem.  No Israel, No Peace.  (See we pro-Israel folks can have our own catchy little slogans)

That is the problem. You cannot settle a property line with someone who says your house should be torn down.

Israel has been an independent country since 1948 and a member of the United Nations since 1949. Its people have families, jobs, schools, arguments with their politicians, and plans for the upcoming Tuesday. Their country is not a temporary exhibit that stays open only as long as its enemies approve. The UN Charter bars threats or force against a state’s territorial integrity and political independence. Israel falls under that rule, too.[1]

And no, the Jewish connection to that land did not begin when the UN held a vote. Jewish history was made there. Jewish worship points there. Jewish communities lived there during centuries, including times when most Jews lived elsewhere. The League of Nations recognized that historical connection in its 1922 Mandate for Palestine. That document also called for protecting the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities, a part of the story that belongs in any honest account.[2]

What followed is painful and hotly contested.  In 1947, the UN recommended a Jewish state and an Arab state. Israel declared independence; war followed. Palestinians lost homes and communities. None of those facts can be waved away. Nor do they make it reasonable to tell the Jews of Israel, generations later, to pack up their country and leave.[3]  Just think how different the Middle East would have been today if the Arab neighbors and Palestinians welcomed the Jewish people with open arms. They didn’t; they welcomed Israel with cannon fire.

This is where Hamas’s language matters. Its 2017 document speaks of accepting a Palestinian state on 1967 lines as a formula for national consensus. Read further, and it still rejects the legitimacy of Israel. What kind of peace agreement is that supposed to be? Israel gives ground, and Hamas reserves the right to say Israel should never have existed at all.[4]

The rulers in Tehran have their own way of keeping this war alive, including support for armed groups hostile to Israel. Ordinary Iranians are not their government. But Iran’s leaders are responsible for what they sponsor and what they say. If they want to be taken seriously as partners in regional peace, they can commence with a sentence that should not require a diplomatic translator: Israel is going to remain a country.[5]

Americans say that recognizing Israel means signing off on everything its government does. Come on. We criticize Washington every day without suggesting America should cease to exist. Israelis criticize their government, too, often with a volume Americans would recognize. Argue over settlements. Argue over military decisions. Demand care for civilians. Those are serious arguments. “Your country has no right to be here” is a different argument altogether.

Recognition is possible. In 1993, the Palestine Liberation Organization recognized Israel’s right to exist in peace and security. Israel, in turn, recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people. The letters did not resolve Jerusalem, refugees, or borders—anyone who remembers the years since knows that. But at least the two sides were talking to someone they acknowledged would still be there tomorrow.[6]

I am not selling a magic phrase. Hamas could announce recognition at breakfast and still have to show, through its actions, that it means it.  Iran’s leaders would have to stop backing attacks.  Israelis and Palestinians would still face hard bargaining over security, rights, land, and the future of Palestinian self-government. There are no shortcuts through that work.

But there has to be a place to start. A ceasefire may stop the shooting for a time. An agreement that leaves one side waiting for a chance to erase the other will not hold.

So ask the question first. Ask Hamas. Ask Tehran. Will you accept that Israel has the right to exist in peace and security? If the answer is yes, prove it and come to the table. If the answer is no, stop pretending the next carefully worded communiqué is peace.

Also think about how different the world would be if the Arab Neighbors and Palestinians welcomed the Jewish people with open arms, perhaps baked a bundt cake and took over to them.  You know, be good neighbors.  No, they couldn’t do that; they didn’t welcome the Jewish people returning home; they tried to murder the state of Israel in its cradle.  Palestinians, Hamas, every other terrorist group, you brought this on yourself.

Endnotes

1. United Nations, “Admission of Israel to Membership in the United Nations,” Resolution 273 (III), May 11, 1949: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/210373?ln=en; United Nations, “Charter of the United Nations,” Article 2: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text
2. League of Nations, “Mandate for Palestine,” July 24, 1922, reproduced by the United Nations: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-201057/
3. United Nations General Assembly, “Future Government of Palestine,” Resolution 181 (II), November 29, 1947: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-185393/; United Nations, “History of the Question of Palestine”: https://www.un.org/unispal/history/
4. Hamas, “A Document of General Principles and Policies,” 2017, English text reproduced by Middle East Eye: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full
5. U.S. Department of State, “The Islamic Republic of Iran: A Dangerous Regime,” on Iranian support for armed groups: https://2017-2021.state.gov/the-islamic-republic-of-iran-a-dangerous-regime/
6. United Nations, “Israel–PLO Recognition: Exchange of Letters Between Prime Minister Rabin and Chairman Arafat,” September 1993: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-205528/

Jacob Silver writes on national politics and public affairs for Direct Line News.

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Jacob Silver

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