Nati Bar-Sef

My Answer to Charlie’s Letter to Benjamin Netanyahu An Honest Israeli Answer to Charlie Kirk Charlie, This isn’t a letter to Israel. It’s a confession of failure. You promised your donors you could deliver a pro-Israel generation. You didn’t. Now you want us to do the job you were paid for. Israel is an American interest. As an American who claims to care about America, it is your job to explain that. Why is Israel important to the United States? The facts are simple — see the short list attached below. You complain that America’s youth are turning against Israel. That was your job, not ours. If you can explain a million times what a woman is, you could have explained Israel too. You didn’t — maybe because it’s not as simple as saying “this is black, this is white.” Israel has strong intelligence, but it still missed October 7. Does that mean we can’t be trusted? And what if Iran actually got a nuclear weapon? Suddenly your “woman has a v, man has a p” cultural war looks like child’s play compared to the real one. Don’t worry, I’ll explain the intelligence issue later. You warn us that without better messaging, the U.S.–Israel alliance will collapse. No — alliances are choices, not religions. We once debated whether to side with the USSR or the U.S. It was our decision, with consequences. Nothing makes us “Team America.” We want to survive. America has thrown countless allies under the bus: Druze, Kurds, Iranians, Afghans, and more. Do you think we are blind? We’re not naïve enough to believe we’ll be treated differently. Now to the claims of “ethnic cleansing” you hear all the time. Yes — Israel drops leaflets, orders evacuations, distributes food, and takes great lengths to save Gazan lives. But it won’t go out of its way to explain itself endlessly. Gaza was given chance after chance. At some point every Israeli child learns the truth: Hamas is Gaza and Gaza is Hamas. That’s reality. Make your own conclusions. Not everything is sunshine and rainbows. Are you fluffy Westerners ready for brutal reality? You compared the October 7 intelligence failure to Iran’s nuclear program — asking how Israel can be trusted on the latter if it failed on the former. That framing itself shows you don’t understand. And if you still don’t after hearing experts, maybe that’s because some things are too sensitive to share. But I’ll let you in: one is an existential bomb (Iran’s nukes — no room for error). The other is a ticking bomb (Gaza) that was always coming. We stopped dozens of October 7ths before. We didn’t have the legitimacy to finish the job because every guarantee the West — and first and foremost America — gave us was betrayed. Even after October 7, when Israel faced its greatest threat, Biden seized weapons shipments. So imagine the world before the massacre of 1,200 Israelis. Gaza was and is radical, very radical. It was only a matter of time — and the international community made sure it would happen. Not so diplomatic, eh? You want the truth? Do you really? And beyond this, there are the boring technicalities: it takes more than a meme to understand the difference between departments, threats, and strategy. But memes are all people have the attention span for. It’s easy to sell a slogan calling for the genocide of 15 million Jews — a simple, easy-to-digest “solution.” This is literally what we are up against. How do you explain those who side with it? The only explanation is they must believe Jews are incredibly evil. Flip it around and it’s clearer: Islam has designated Judaism as its enemy for 1,400 years. By your own letter, we are fighting against sharia together. So, take their darkness and mirror it. A version of their “from the river to the sea” aimed at Islam itself. Put morality aside for a moment. From a virtue-signaling standpoint, calling for the destruction of a small minority is the easier sell. That’s why it works. And by the way — did any Western outlet report on the girl at the UN who signaled the “cutting the moustache” gesture against the Druze protesting Jolani’s speech? The gesture is the equivalent of a Nazi salute. And Jolani? If things went his way… Slogans work when the path doesn’t matter. That’s my opinion. Honest enough? It’s disturbingly easy to sell a slogan that demands the destruction of a small group — it’s simple, emotive, and requires no moral accounting. That’s why such lines spread: they bypass nuance and collapse responsibility into a shareable slogan. Mirror that impulse at scale and you see the moral and geopolitical absurdity: slogans work precisely because people don’t have to think about the consequences. We are doing everything we can here to fight back. Israelis are not the best at letting a catchy slogan represent us. There is diversity in thought, even among people who share the same political side. That opinionated mentality makes it offensive when we’re reduced to an easy-to-swallow pill for an American audience. It is what it is. Israeli society is like that. I can speak for myself, not for others. Netanyahu, if you’ve noticed, often emphasizes when he is speaking only for himself, outside the realm of facts. You don’t trust governments? Fine. But then why would anyone trust Israel’s government “explaining” things to you? If Americans don’t trust their own, they won’t trust ours either. Charlie — you didn’t write this letter because you care about Israel. You wrote it because your machine broke. You couldn’t hold your base, you couldn’t give your donors what you promised, and now you want Israel to supply the slogans you failed to invent. Israel doesn’t fight wars to keep your donors happy. We fight to outlive everyone who bets against us. P.S. The obsession with Israel is real. We are a tiny nation. Even if every one of us worked full time debating the demon-possessed anti-Israel mobs, it would never be enough. So yes, you want us to lead so you don’t have to think for yourself. That goes against our religion. Sorry. Benefits of Cooperation with Israel * Intelligence: Israeli intelligence has saved countless American lives. * Technology & R&D: Joint missile defense, cyber, counter-UAS, and medical research feed directly into U.S. security and industry. * Stability: Israel deters Iran and its proxies, anchors the Eastern Mediterranean, and secures critical sea and air routes. * Military Value: America has a battle-tested ally in the region that asks for zero U.S. soldiers on the ground (unlike Qatar). * Economic Exchange: Innovation partnerships fuel U.S. high tech, agriculture, and energy. The Price if America Loses Israel * Iranian dominance across the Middle East unchecked. * Regional collapse — no stabilizing force against Hezbollah, Hamas, ISIS offshoots, Houthis. * Terrorism expansion — no frontline stopping jihad from reaching Europe and America sooner. * Energy insecurity — threats to Red Sea lanes and Mediterranean gas. * Loss of trust — if America abandons Israel, every ally from Europe to Asia will know U.S. promises are worthless.