More than a century ago, in November 1923, Ze'ev Jabotinsky published his seminal essay The Iron Wall in Rassvyet. This text was not a simple political analysis: it was an act of historical lucidity, a declaration of revisionist Zionist realism that resonates today with undiminished force under the firm and visionary leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu. While Israel's enemies continue to propagate the myth of an "Israeli-Palestinian conflict", Jabotinsky had already understood everything: there has never been a Palestinian people. The Arabs of the region, late inventors of this post-1964 identity manufactured by the PLO to mask their eternal refusal of the Jewish right to sovereignty, have never accepted and will never voluntarily accept the return of the Jewish people to their ancestral land. Only an Iron Wall – an unshakable Jewish force – can shatter their illusions and pave the way for real peace.
Jabotinsky, father of revisionist Zionism and spiritual mentor whose private secretary was none other than Ben-Zion Netanyahu, the father of the current Prime Minister, was never under any illusions. He wrote with cutting clarity: “The Arabs of the Land of Israel will never voluntarily accept that Palestine becomes a country with a Jewish majority. […] Let the reader review all the examples of colonization in other countries. He will not find a single one where it was done with the agreement of the natives. Emotionally, he claimed, his attitude toward Arabs was one of "polite indifference" toward all peoples. Politically, it was based on two intangible principles: the moral and practical impossibility of expelling anyone, and the solemn commitment to equal rights for all inhabitants once Jewish sovereignty was assured. But he added, without ambiguity: “Our immigration action in Palestine must stop, or continue without stopping at the position of the Arabs; so that our establishment can develop there under the supervision of a power which is not dependent on the local population, protected by an iron wall which this population will never be able to force. »
This Iron Wall was not a metaphor for hatred, but a shield for survival. Jabotinsky knew that the Arabs, like any indigenous people facing legitimate and historical colonization, consider the land their exclusive “national home.” Their opposition was neither negotiable nor temporary: it was existential. Hence his prophetic conclusion: “The only way to reach a future agreement is to renounce the attempt to reach an agreement today. » Once the Iron Wall was erected – an independent Jewish army, an inflexible national will – Arab moderates would eventually understand the uselessness of resistance and would agree to negotiate guarantees of good neighborliness.
One hundred and three years later, this doctrine is not a vestige of the past: it is the backbone of Israeli policy under Benjamin Netanyahu. The Likud, direct heir of Jabotinskyan revisionism, applies this iron realism on a daily basis. Faced with the terrorist hordes of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and their Iranian sponsors, Israel has never given in to the sirens of the illusory “agreement”. The repeated military operations in Gaza and Judea and Samaria, the construction of security barriers, the strict control of the territories liberated in 1967 and the historic normalization with the Arab states via the Abraham Accords demonstrate that the Iron Wall works. Sunni Arabs, tired of Palestinian adventurism, are finally beginning to deal with a strong Israel rather than a fiction invented to delegitimize the Jewish state.
Netanyahu's detractors, those eternal dreamers of the capitulation camp, repeat over and over again that the Iron Wall prevents peace. They are completely wrong. Jabotinsky predicted it: “All Zionists want this iron wall. » Discussing agreement before it becomes impassable is only “empty phraseology” and duplicity. Today, thanks to the firmness of Netanyahu – who embodies the spirit of Jabotinsky better than anyone – Israel is stronger than ever. The economy is thriving, the IDF dominates the battlefield, and the Arabs of Judea and Samaria know that any new intifada will break at this Wall.
The Palestinian historical fraud – this artificial identity forged to transform Arab refugees into “indigenous people” – crumbles a little more every day under the weight of the truth. There has never been an independent Arab “Palestine”; there was a Jewish land conquered by successive empires, then liberated by the Jewish people returning home. Jabotinsky understood this in 1923. Netanyahu is putting it into practice in 2026.
The Iron Wall is not a wall of separation: it is the guarantee of a future where two peoples can, one day, live side by side – but only when the Arabs have definitively given up on destroying the Jewish state. Until that day comes, Israel will continue to build, defend and triumph. Because, as the visionary from Odessa wrote: behind the Iron Wall, Zionism will win. And under Benjamin Netanyahu, he is already winning.