I Believed in Peace & Got a Severe Shock on Oct 7

For decades, Yoni Ben‑Menachem believed that genuine peace with the Palestinians might be possible, yet the October 7 massacre shattered that hope and forced him to rethink everything he thought he knew about the Middle East and his Arab friends.

We follow his personal journey from optimism and professional excitement to profound disillusionment, and it explores what he believes Israel must learn from October 7.

From Hopeful Journalist to Middle East Skeptic

As an orientalist, Middle East expert, and former head of Kol Yisrael, Yoni Ben‑Menachem spent his career studying Arab societies, interviewing leaders, and reporting from the field. Early on, he genuinely believed he was witnessing the beginning of a new era of coexistence.

• He was the first Israeli journalist to interview Yasser Arafat, an achievement that left him inspired and hopeful.
• In those years, he spoke on air about a “Peace Train” heading toward reconciliation, convinced that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) could live side by side with the Zionist state.
• His belief in peace was not naïve wishful thinking, but a conclusion drawn from extensive contact with Palestinian leaders and people on the ground.

Yet, slowly, reality began to clash with that optimism, and the gap between promises and actions grew impossible for him to ignore.

Oslo, Arafat & the Birth of Disillusionment

The turning point for Ben‑Menachem began with the arrival of the Palestinian Authority in 1994 and the subsequent years of terror and corruption. What started as a diplomatic breakthrough soon revealed what he now describes as a deeply corrupt and violent system.

• Once the Palestinian Authority entered Gaza and Jericho, its operatives quickly took control of local Palestinian businesses, demanding as much as 50 percent of revenues.
• He learned the term “Hawa,” used in Lebanon for similar shakedown methods, and saw how corruption and intimidation techniques used in other Arab countries were imported into the territories.
• By 1996, after waves of terror attacks, he concluded that Arafat was using a “revolving door” system: arresting terrorists under pressure, then quietly releasing them, a pattern later associated with Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) as well.

A key moment in his disillusionment came after his famous interview with Marwan Barghouti in Ramallah, when Barghouti assured him the PLO could live in “full coexistence” with Israel. Looking back, Ben‑Menachem feels he was lied to and that he “swallowed it all,” a mistake that has haunted him since.

Leaders, Decisions & the Price of Misreading Reality

Ben‑Menachem also reexamines Israel’s own leaders through the lens of these years, particularly Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, and Ariel Sharon. He believes their decisions shaped the path that eventually led to October 7.

• In his view, Shimon Peres was the driving force behind the Oslo Accords, pressuring Rabin and “failing the Jewish people” by promoting an agreement that did not reflect the true intentions of the Palestinian leadership.
• He insists that Rabin, had he lived longer, would have eventually broken the Oslo agreements once he fully grasped the terror and duplicity involved.
• He recalls Rabin calling him personally during the kidnapping of Nachshon Waksman, urgently asking whether Palestinian Authority forces were truly searching for the hostage, because Rabin had warned Arafat that failure would end the deal.

These experiences convinced him that Israeli leaders, under internal and external pressure, often misread the region and placed dangerous trust in unreliable partners. That misreading, he believes, exacted a heavy price in blood and security.

Ariel Sharon, Disengagement & Deep Regret

Ben‑Menachem had an unusually close view of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, both as a journalist and as a confidant. He and fellow journalist Uri Dan pushed Sharon to oppose disengagement from Gaza, warning it would be a historic mistake.

He describes a powerful private meeting with Sharon on the very morning of the Gaza Disengagement:

• Sharon summoned him to the Prime Minister’s Office at 9:00 a.m., where they sat together in silence, watching live broadcasts from Gush Katif as soldiers evacuated Jewish communities.
• The atmosphere was heavy, and Sharon appeared deeply pained, his eyes fixed on the screens showing shouting, tears, and soldiers torn between duty and conscience.
• After a long silence, Sharon finally explained that the Israel Defense Forces simply could not hold the Gaza Strip without suffering constant casualties, and that his trauma from the First Lebanon War and accusations of being a “murderer” weighed heavily on him.

According to Ben‑Menachem, Sharon believed that continuing to hold Gaza would guarantee more dead soldiers and civilians, a price he was no longer willing to accept.

Yet Ben‑Menachem still sees the Disengagement as a “huge mistake” that exposed Israel to even greater danger.

Looking at events after October 7, he is convinced that if Sharon were alive today:

• He would clearly connect the Disengagement to the October 7 attack.
• He would “quickly destroy all of Hamas” in Gaza and push for mass emigration of terrorists, just as he once expelled Arafat and his fighters from Beirut.
• He would likely support returning Jewish settlements to Gush Katif and even expelling Arabs from the Gaza Strip, turning it into Israeli territory inhabited by tens of thousands of Jewish settlers.

For Ben‑Menachem, the Disengagement now stands as a symbol of how painful compromises, made with the hope of peace, can backfire catastrophically when the other side is committed to war.

October 7 & the Collapse of Personal Trust

If politics and policy had already eroded his faith in peace, October 7 destroyed something even more intimate: his trust in individual relationships with Arabs he had known for decades. He describes the days after the massacre as a period of “terrible turmoil” in his relations with Arabs, including close friends.

Two phone calls left an indelible mark on him:

• One Arab friend phoned from an Arab village and warmly invited him and his family to come live there for as long as needed, believing his village would be safe amid rocket attacks.
• Another friend from Judea and Samaria, whom he had known for forty years, called him in tears, apologizing as a Muslim for what had happened and expressing deep shame over the massacre.

Yet that second friend also gave him a warning he will never forget:

• The friend told him, “Never believe an Arab.”
• When Ben‑Menachem protested that they had been friends for four decades, the friend replied, “Yes, do not believe me either. Listen carefully. In the head of every Muslim, there’s a small ISIS terrorist. That terrorist can suddenly jump out, and we cannot control it.”

Ben‑Menachem was shocked, struggling to reconcile years of personal closeness with this stark, chilling message. Those words, he says, are now “carved” in his mind and shape the way he understands trust, loyalty, and danger in the region after October 7.

Lessons from Sharon’s Father & Old Warnings

To make sense of these experiences, Ben‑Menachem often returns to earlier voices who warned against trusting Arab intentions too easily. Two figures loom large in his thinking: Ariel Sharon’s father and Rabbi Hanan Porat.

• Sharon once told him how, as a boy working in the fields of Moshav Malal, he and his father labored alongside Arab workers.
• Whenever young Arik turned his back, his father would slap him on the neck, leaving it red by day’s end.
• When Arik finally asked why, his father replied, “Never turn your back on an Arab. Even if they work with you, in one unguarded moment, you can be hit in the head with a rake.”

Rabbi Hanan Porat, another influential figure, told Ben‑Menachem that he did not hate Arabs but simply did not believe them. For Porat, mistrust was not about personal animosity but about recognizing an underlying, unchanging hostility and danger.

Over time, Ben‑Menachem came to see these warnings as tragically accurate. He now echoes former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s statement that “the Arabs are the same Arabs, and the sea is the same sea,” insisting that “nothing has changed, and will not change” in the basic dynamics of the Middle East.

Gaza, Hamas & What Must Happen After October 7

For Ben‑Menachem, the lessons of October 7 and the preceding decades lead to a harsh, uncompromising conclusion about Gaza and Hamas. He believes Israel has not dealt with Gaza correctly and that hesitation only increases danger.

His core positions include:

• Israel must destroy Hamas completely in Gaza, not negotiate partial solutions or accept its continued rule.
• From his experience, he does not believe Hamas will ever willingly return all the hostages, even if Israel were to meet its demands and leave Gaza in its hands.
• Every day of delay brings more casualties, intensifies international pressure, and leaves Israel exposed to threats from Iran and its proxies.

When asked what Israel should do with the Gaza Strip in the medium and long term, he argues:

• At a minimum, Israel should resettle the northern Gaza Strip with Israelis, because “settlement brings security.”
• Ideally, with a comprehensive resettlement plan, Gush Katif should be rebuilt and expanded, turning Gaza once again into an area of Jewish presence rather than an enemy stronghold.

For him, territorial concessions have produced only terror and “worthless bits of paper” in the form of agreements that the other side does not honor. He therefore champions a principle of “Peace for Peace, not Peace for Land,” rejecting the idea that giving up territory leads to genuine safety or reconciliation.

No New Middle East, Just Old Realities

In the post‑October 7 world, Ben‑Menachem listens skeptically as commentators discuss normalization, prosperity, or Israel “drawing the new architecture of the Middle East.” To him, such phrases sound like a “new joke,” disconnected from what he sees on the ground.

• He argues that Israel must stop basing policy on wishful thinking about a “new Middle East” and instead recognize that fundamental attitudes toward Israel have not changed.
• Regional agreements and peace conferences, in his view, mean little if core hostility, incitement, and terrorism remain embedded in ideology and education.

This is why he returns so often to Shamir’s quote and to the conviction that “you can’t change the Middle East.” For Ben‑Menachem, real security will come not from paper agreements but from strength, clarity, and the willingness to destroy those who openly seek Israel’s destruction.

A Personal Journey Marked by October 7

Ultimately, Yoni Ben‑Menachem’s story is not just about geopolitics; it is about a man who once truly believed in peace and now feels that October 7 confirmed the darkest warnings he once dismissed. He carries gratitude for Arab friends who showed kindness, but he also carries their own warnings about the dangers that can erupt without notice.

The massacre on October 7 did not create his doubts, but it crystallized them into a firm conviction that:

• Israel must stop turning its back on enemies who publicly declare genocidal intentions.
• The dream of trading land for peace has failed and must be replaced with a policy of strength, settlement, and an insistence on peace that does not endanger Jewish lives.
• Above all, Hamas must be destroyed, and Israel must never again be caught unprepared on a day like October 7.

Important Interview with Yoni Ben Menachem

Highlights:

• I went through the most terrible turmoil on October 7th.
• Arik Sharon’s father told him, Never turn your back on an Arab.
• Regarding my relations with Arabs. I’ve had lots of Arab friends. One of them, a friend of forty years, told me, Never believe the Arabs. I answered, Are you telling me I can’t believe you? He says, Yes, don’t believe me either. Listen to me carefully. In the head of every Muslim, there’s a small ISIS terrorist. This ISIS terrorist can suddenly jump on you. We cannot control it.
• I stand by what Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said. The Arabs are the same Arabs, and the sea is the same sea. Nothing has changed, and will not change. You can’t change the Middle East.
• Peace for Peace. Not Peace for Land. So far, we’ve foolishly offered to give away the Land our sons fell on. And what do we get? Terror and worthless bits of paper with agreements that the other side breaks.
• Nothing has changed, and will not change. I am very, very sad that we are not dealing correctly with the Gaza Strip. We must destroy them.
• Settlement brings security.