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Israel Is Always Rolling the Rock Up the Hill — But Is That a Bad Thing?

Israeli protestors take part in a rally demanding the immediate release of the hostages kidnapped during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, and the end of war in Gaza, in Jerusalem September 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

Sometimes, truth is counterintuitive. For Israel, insights of classical mythology could help to understand the country’s survival options.

From ancient Greece, Jerusalem could learn that Olympian gods had condemned Sisyphus to roll a huge rock to the top of a mountain — and the stone would fall back of its own weight. By rendering this judgment, the deities imposed a punishment of interminable and useless labor. Simultaneously, they revealed something paradoxical about human life in general:

Useless labor need not be meaningless. Amid tragic circumstances, such labor can even be heroic.

As a metaphor, Israel is Sisyphus. Foreseeably, for the Jewish State, the gargantuan rock will always roll back to its point of origin. So why should “Sisyphus” push?

For Israel, there is no comprehensive military solution to its multiple security problems. Accordingly, in the heroic fashion of Sisyphus, Israelis will need to accept the burden of incessant conflict and avoid continuously contrived remedies (e.g., the childishly-imagined “Abraham Accords”). But what then?

For Israel, though difficult to understand, the burden of perpetual conflict is not the “worst case.” That case is not to endure one war or terror attack after another. Rather, it is to try to work its way free from the penalties of an absurd geopolitics by knowingly enlarging the absurdity. A pertinent example of this self-defiling contradiction would be for Israel to wittingly carve “Palestine” from its own still-living body.

Let us return to the elucidating Greek myth. Israel should recall that Sisyphus is not a pathetic figure. He is a heroic and tragic figure. This is because he labored valiantly, against all odds, and in spite of an all-too-conspicuous futility.

Today, 20 years after Ariel Sharon’s Gaza “disengagement,” hopes for “Palestinian demilitarization” endure. These are inherently vain hopes. For the moment, the theatrical genre portrayed by this durability can be described as “farce.” Resembling the bleak and minimalist poetics of Samuel Beckett, the unraveling “play” is meaningful but still preposterous. True tragedy contains calamity, but it may also reveal greatness. In the final analysis, such greatness means heroic attempts to endure misfortune without losing hope.

The Jewish people have always accepted an obligation to ward off disasters “as needed.” Formally, at least, Jews have understood that all humans have “free will.” Saadia Gaon included freedom of the will among the central teachings of Judaism, and Maimonides affirmed that human beings must stand alone in the world “to know what is good and what is evil, with none to prevent him from either doing good or evil.”

For Israel, free will should be oriented toward life — to the blessing, not the curse. Israel’s highest obligation should be to strive in the direction of individual and collective self-preservation by using refined intelligence and disciplined acts of will. Where such striving would be limited to narrowly-tactical remedies, the outcome could never rise to the dignifying levels of tragedy.

In the ancient Greek vision of “high tragedy,” there is clarity on one key point: The tragic victim is one whom “the gods kill for their sport, as wanton boys do flies.” It is precisely this wantonness, this caprice, that makes a situation authentically tragic. Otherwise, it would merely display pathos.

In proper theatrical terminology, there is tragedy but there is also farce. In farce, matters may end badly, but sometimes there is a last-minute rescue by deus ex machine, a “god in the machine.” By definition, of course, no “god in the machine” could rescue a Jewish state. To recall the specifically Jewish commentary of Rabbi Yania: “A man should never put himself in a place of danger, and say that a miracle will save him, lest there be no miracle….” (Talmud, Sota 32a and Codes; Yoreh De’ah 116).

Aristotle understood, in Poetics, that true tragedy must elicit pity and fear, but not pathos. Pathos is unheroic suffering. Moreover, the Greek philosopher identified tragedy with characters who are “good,” who suffer only because they commit grave error (hamartia) unknowingly.

The promise of meaningful Israeli peace with a persistently murderous adversary, whether Iran, “Palestine,” or others, has always been a delusion. Nonetheless, for Jerusalem, protracted war or terror could hardly represent a coherent policy choice. Quo Vadis?

Like Sisyphus, Israel must learn to understand that its “rock,” the agonizingly heavy stone of national survival, will never remain securely at the summit. Still, it must continuously struggle without tying collective survival to transient tactical victories or some imagined condition of “total victory.” Truth is exculpatory. Israel must prepare to labor against the ponderous “rock” for no other reason than to endure.   

For Israel, true heroism lies in recognizing something far beyond normal understanding: Pain and uncertainty are not necessarily unbearable; sometimes, they must be borne with full faith and equanimity. Failing such tragic awareness, the government and people of Israel would continue to grasp at tactical victories and illusory remedies. The most illusory remedy of all is “total victory.”

Israel is not Sisyphus, and there is no reason to believe it must endure without personal and collective satisfactions. Even if finally made aware that the struggle toward a permanently-receding summit may define “success,” the Jewish State could still learn that tragic struggle would be heroic.

To survive into the future, Israel’s only real choice will be to keep rolling the rock upwards, not surrender to any vacant political or diplomatic promises. On all the official maps of authoritative Palestinian decision-makers, not just Hamas, Israel has been sentenced to cartographic disappearance. On these maps, ipso facto, Israel has already suffered a virtual extermination. The best way to keep such extermination figurative is not to seek “total victory,” but to struggle heroically for sequentially achievable goals.

Unlike Sisyphus, Israel and its people can still enjoy palpable achievements and multiplying satisfactions. Like Sisyphus, Israel should recognize that though its life will require perpetual struggle, the struggle itself could be ennobling.

Prof. Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is the author of many books and scholarly articles dealing with international law, nuclear strategy, nuclear war, and terrorism. In Israel, Prof. Beres was Chair of Project Daniel (PM Sharon). His 12th and latest book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; 2nd ed., 2018).

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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

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