Avida Bachar lost his wife, his 15-year-old son, and one of his legs in Hamas’s massacre on Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7, 2023.

Like many other left-wing Israelis, he also no longer holds left-wing views about his Arab neighbors. But Bachar went a step further than many others, realizing that his former political views were not only faulty but came at the expense of his fellow Jews. Bachar even said that it’s fortunate that the October 7 massacre happened at Be’eri and not in Gush Etzion, saying: “I would have said, ‘Why do they live there?’ I might have said, ‘They deserve it.’ I would have said all the worst things in the world.”

In an interview with 103FM on Monday, Bachar addressed the Peace Council’s plan for the Gaza Strip.

“I look at what is happening close to my home [on Kibbutz Be’eri],” Bachar said. “Close to me means four kilometers from the fence. Hamas continues to build up its strength. They are talking here about some kind of agreement that supposedly leaves Hamas disarmed. That is not going to happen.”

“We lack the determination to understand that we simply don’t want them there. That’s all. We need to reach the point where we are determined that we don’t want them there, and we should say it every day.

“We need to start pushing with all our strength and tell the world to take them, because they cannot remain here. I want October 7 to be remembered as a Nakba for them—that they no longer have the land, that it is no longer theirs, that it’s over.

He added, “So there is a Yellow Line. In the next massacre, chalila, they’ll drive another three minutes, or a minute and a half, on the way to Be’eri and the Gaza border communities. And tomorrow it could happen in Tel Aviv as well. That’s the real problem. We aren’t getting anywhere.”

He addressed the understandings between U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Gaza. “President Trump respects determined people. What do the Iranians have? Insane determination. I wish we had the determination to tell the world that the Arabs in Gaza cannot remain there. Not even one.

“If we were determined, it would happen. If we don’t believe in our ability to bring about this change, then what will happen? The entire world wants it to remain in Israel’s hands, and Israel isn’t doing anything about it. It gets massacred again and again, and I’m tired of being in this middle ground.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)