October 7th proved: The debate between Israel and the Palestinians is not about borders — David Ben-Basat
October 7th proved that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is not about territorial disputes, but about the Islamist refusal to accept the very existence of a Jewish state.
For decades, a simple explanation for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, centered on a territorial dispute, has taken root in large parts of the Israeli Left and Center. It was believed that if Israel gave up territory, the Palestinians would establish a state, and the conflict would gradually fade away. Based on this perception, the Oslo Accords were built, negotiations were conducted, and far-reaching plans were offered. However, the events of recent years, and above all the October 7th massacre, have undermined the assumptions upon which this perception rested.
Today, a much harder question is being asked: What if the conflict is not about where the border runs, but about the very legitimacy of the existence of a Jewish state in the region?
This does not mean that every Palestinian seeks to destroy Israel, and one should not turn a complex national conflict into a generalization about an entire public. But it is no longer possible to ignore the enormous weight that Islamist religious perceptions have gained in the Palestinian arena. Hamas does not hide its worldview: from its perspective, the struggle does not end at the 1967 lines, and the land is not just a territory subject to political negotiation, but part of a broader religious and historical doctrine.
The West has found this difficult to understand, as it tried to interpret the conflict using familiar concepts: borders, settlements, sovereignty, and self-determination. While these are important components, they do not explain the intensity of the hatred, the cult of the "martyrs," or the fact that after Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, the area became a military base for Hamas rather than a prosperous state.
October 7th was a defining moment. Israelis who believed that economic improvement and civil easements would reduce the motivation for confrontation discovered how dangerous it is to assume the other side operates by the same logic. The massacre was not directed against settlements in Judea and Samaria; Be'eri, Kfar Aza, and Nir Oz are located within sovereign Israel. For the terrorists who infiltrated them, even those places were "occupied."
This sobering realization is now shared by parts of the Left and Center. Perhaps the debate over the division of the land has for years hidden a deeper question: Is the Palestinian national movement capable of truly, not just tactically, coming to terms with the existence of the Jewish nation-state?
Qatar enters the picture. Joining the military campaign is another, no less sophisticated campaign: the war for global consciousness. For years, Doha has maintained an exceptional status: an ally of the USA and host to an important American base, while simultaneously hosting Hamas leadership and providing the Gaza Strip with enormous sums of money. Furthermore, it owns Al Jazeera, one of the most important tools of media influence in the Arab world.
Al Jazeera is not just a television station, but an international network capable of setting the agenda. In a world where a 30-second video on social media can influence more than a thousand-word article, the first headline and the first image have colossal significance.
This campaign is conducted professionally. Images of destruction in Gaza are shown repeatedly, often disconnected from the context of fighting an armed organization operating from within a dense civilian environment. The message is simple and emotional: Israel is the strong side, therefore it is the aggressor; the Palestinians are the weak side, therefore they are the victims. Within such a framework, there is almost no room for complex questions about who started the war, how Hamas acted with chilling cruelty, or the responsibility of a regime that has invested enormous resources in military buildup.
This is one of the great achievements of the Palestinian and Islamist campaign: turning a complex conflict into a simple moral story. Israel, by contrast, often continues to conduct public diplomacy as if it were a press conference from the 90s. By the time it publishes an investigation or proof, the narrative has already reached millions of people.
The struggle is not against Islam or every Palestinian. It is against a perception that denies Israel's right to exist and sanctifies violence. This distinction is essential if Israel wants to convince the world.
Sobering up should lead to giving up illusions. A political settlement can only exist when both sides want to live side by side, not when one side sees an agreement only as a stage on the way to another goal. Before asking where the border will run, one must ask a fundamental question: Is there a genuine willingness among the Palestinians to accept the State of Israel as a legitimate fact? The October 7th massacre provides, unfortunately, a negative answer, and therefore the debate is not about territory, but about the very existence of the State of Israel.
The author is the CEO of Radius 100FM, an honorary consul, president of the Israeli Radio Communication Association, and a former Galei Tzahal broadcaster and NBC television reporter.
