By Collen MakumbirofaIsrael AdvocacyMay 2026

The people of Israel are not aggressors. They are not driven by a lust for war or a desire to dominate their neighbours. What they are doing — what they have always been doing — is defending their right to exist. There is a profound and deliberate difference between those two things, and it is a difference the world must not allow itself to forget.

“The violence tearing through the Middle East is not Israel’s war of choice — it is Israel’s war of necessity.”

Enemies Who Refuse Every Peace

Armed militias operating in Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza, and Syria are not political movements with legitimate grievances open to negotiation. They are ideologically driven extremists whose founding purpose is the annihilation of Israel and the erasure of Jewish life from the region. These groups do not merely oppose Israeli policy — they oppose Israel’s very existence.

The Hamas charter declares openly that Israel must be driven from the river to the sea. This is not a diplomatic position. It is a genocidal programme written in plain language.

This is why genuine peace remains so elusive. When one side sits down to negotiate and the other side uses every pause in fighting to rearm, regroup, and re-target civilian communities, then ceasefire is not peace — it is merely a preparation for the next massacre. Israel cannot make peace with those whose definition of peace is a world without Israel.

A Wound That Bleeds Across the World

The consequences of this unrelenting violence do not stay within the borders of the Middle East. The entire world feels the tremors. Energy prices rise, shipping routes are disrupted, economies are strained, and the spectre of a wider regional conflict keeps global markets and governments permanently on edge. What happens in Gaza or the Red Sea does not stay there. Every family filling up a car at a petrol station is, in a small and unwitting way, paying a price for this conflict.

A People Who Have Known Persecution Too Well

We must remember who the Jewish people are and what they have endured. For centuries, Jews were expelled, scapegoated, ghettoised, and massacred across Europe. The Holocaust — the deliberate industrial murder of six million Jews in Germany and across occupied Europe — stands as one of the darkest chapters in all of human history. Israel was born in the shadow of that horror. It exists so that the Jewish people will never again be left without a refuge, without a homeland, without protection.

To stand neutral while Jews are once again being targeted and killed is not sophistication. It is not nuance. It is moral failure. The world said “never again” — and it must mean it.

A Spiritual Debt the World Owes

For those of us who are Christians, there is also a dimension of faith that cannot be separated from this conversation. The Messiah — Jesus Christ — came to the world through the Jewish people. Our salvation is bound up with this nation, this lineage, this people. To turn our backs on them in their hour of need is to be indifferent to a debt we can never fully repay. We must pray earnestly for the safety of Israel, for the protection of Jewish lives, and for genuine, lasting peace in the Middle East.

May God grant wisdom to leaders, protection to the innocent,
and may peace — true and lasting peace — come to the Holy Land
and to all who call it home.

A Personal Stand at Personal Cost

Personal Testimony

Standing up for Israel has cost me. I have lost friendships. I have lost allies and sympathisers who disagreed with my position. I carry that loss, but I do not regret it. We are not called to be popular — we are called to be truthful and to be just. Human life is sacred. Every human being is made in the image of God, and no ideology, no fanatic religious movement, and no campaign of deliberate hatred should be allowed to extinguish that life unopposed. I refuse to be neutral in the face of planned massacre. Neutrality in such moments is not peace — it is complicity.

The lies being spread about Israel and the Jewish people are not simply political disagreements — they are a contagion, and silence only allows them to spread further. Speak out. Stand up. Support those who advocate for the truth about Israel’s right to exist, to defend itself, and to live in peace.

To support Israel Advocacy and join the conversation, contact the author directly:
makumbirofa@protonmail.com

— Collen Makumbirofa