“I am a peacenik, not a pacifist”, my late father, the novelist Amos Oz, used to say. “Pacifists turn the other cheek because they think that war is the worst thing in the world. I don’t turn the other cheek, because for me not war but aggression is the worst thing in the world. And aggression must sometimes be defeated by force.”
Like him, I belong to the moderate Israeli left. After the mega-massacre of 7 October, I still believe that it is necessary to reach a border-determining agreement with the Palestinian Authority (though never with Hamas), pending a two-state solution.
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