October 8: The war Israel still has not learned to fight - opinion

On Wednesday, October 7, like many Israelis, my wife and I made the long drive from Jerusalem to the Nova music festival memorial. We wanted to offer support to families whose tears, understandably, have not dried up three years later.

We met the ZAKA commander who led teams recovering human remains from the devastated festival grounds. With extraordinary dignity, he described what his teams encountered and carefully showed us what was appropriate to see.

A crowd gathered. Fighting back tears, he asked everyone to stand together, united as one nation.

On our drive home, his words stayed with me.

Because as Israel approaches another election, we are doing something we do extraordinarily well.

We are fighting among ourselves.

Who knew what exactly, before October 7? What did Netanyahu know? Which agencies and/or intelligence officers failed? Who ignored the warnings? Why are these accusations only appearing now before the elections? Why, three years later, are we still fighting over a credible commission of inquiry?

These questions demand answers. Accountability is essential. But instead of allowing October 7 to strengthen our common purpose, we risk turning its memory into another political battlefield.

Meanwhile, we are overlooking something potentially more consequential.

October 8.

Two dates. Two different wars.

October 7 was a catastrophic failure within a world Israel understands.

Israel knows armies, terrorism, intelligence, deterrence, and military technology. We built an extraordinary defense ecosystem: the IDF, Mossad, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), defense industries, reserves, intelligence organizations, and alliances.

That ecosystem failed catastrophically. But we understand how to repair it.

October 7 revealed the failure of an ecosystem Israel already knew it needed since its inception.

October 8 revealed something entirely different.

An ecosystem we had never adequately built.

Before Israel’s military response in Gaza could explain the international reaction, anti-Israel demonstrations and narratives were already spreading.

The vocabulary of colonialism, apartheid and resistance was ready. Campus organizations, activists, influencers and digital networks were prepared to mobilize.

This did not require one giant conspiracy.

It required an ecosystem.

Foreign governments fund academics who produce ideas. Activists translate them. Organizations create campaigns. Influencers generate content. Algorithms amplify it. Demonstrations produce images. Media broadcast them. Politicians respond.

And the cycle accelerates.

Sinwar’s victory beyond the battlefield

Yahya Sinwar did not launch October 7 expecting Israel to remain passive.

He knew Israel would retaliate. He accepted the prospect of devastating consequences for Gaza while seeking a confrontation that could ignite additional fronts.

In effect, he launched a suicidal strategic gamble, sacrificing Hamas’s military position and exposing Gaza’s population to catastrophic consequences in pursuit of a larger objective.

Sinwar and his colleagues were killed. Hamas suffered enormous military losses. But we should not confuse military defeat with defeat on every battlefield.

Sinwar achieved a consequential victory in the battle for international perception.

Whether he anticipated every dimension of the international response is debatable. What is undeniable is that a preexisting pro-Palestinian ecosystem was capable of exploiting the war at extraordinary speed.

And where were we?

Still explaining. Still correcting. Still reacting.

A September 2026 Marquette Law School national poll found that 59% of Americans now view Israel unfavorably, compared with just 29% favorably. Only 18 months earlier, Americans were evenly divided, 43% to 43%.

It is a dramatic deterioration in Israel’s standing among the American public. The consequences are for the political and social environment in which American Jews must live, and for Israel’s ability to manage current American government support.

Not all this change can be attributed to propaganda. Israel’s decisions, the war’s humanitarian consequences, and changing American attitudes matter. But that makes our strategic failure more urgent, not less.

We failed to build a sufficiently competitive ecosystem before the crisis arrived.

Israel’s decisions do not stop at Israel’s borders

There is another dimension Israelis cannot afford to ignore.

When Israel acts, Jews in New York, London, Paris, Toronto and Sydney often experience the consequences.

Israel’s policies and military decisions become subjects of international debate. But increasingly, anger directed at Israel spills into a cover for antisemitic hostility toward Jewish students, synagogues, businesses and communities with no responsibility for those decisions.

Our adversaries exploit that vulnerability.

Their opportunity is to transform opposition to Israeli policies into opposition to Zionism, and opposition to Zionism into hostility toward Jews who identify with Israel.

The result can drive a wedge between Israel and Diaspora Jewry.

Some Diaspora Jews become increasingly uncomfortable defending Israel. Others fear that distancing themselves from Israel means abandoning a fundamental part of Jewish identity.

This is precisely the fragmentation our adversaries planned to exploit.

We cannot expect Diaspora Jews to defend every Israeli government decision.

But we must recognize that Israel’s security, Jewish identity, and the safety of Jewish communities worldwide are increasingly interconnected.

The battlefield of October 8 has no geographic borders.

Stop fighting fire with water

For decades, our preferred response has been hasbara (public diplomacy).

A lie? Correct it.

A hostile documentary? Challenge it.

A viral accusation? Provide the facts.

I call this fighting fire with the purity of water.

Water is necessary. Truth matters.

But what happens when the fire is a wildfire? Worse, what happens when it sits above a gas field, continuously replenishing the fuel?

Governments like Qatar, ideological movements, donors, media networks, and digital platforms continue supplying energy.

We extinguish one flame. Another appears.

We need to stop asking only where the fire is and start asking where the valves are.

The lesson from Bill Gates

Bill Gates and the global vaccine initiative Gavi (originally the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization) provide an unexpected example.

They did not simply purchase more vaccines. They examined why the entire system wasn’t delivering the desired results.

Then they identified catalytic leverage points: financing, procurement, market incentives, manufacturing, and distribution.

They didn’t need to own the ecosystem.

They needed to change how it functioned.

The Jewish world should be asking the same question.

We don’t lack money, leadership, institutions, intelligence, or talent.

We lack persistent interoperability.

Religious and secular. Left and Right. Israeli and Diaspora. Jews supporting Palestinian statehood and Jews convinced it threatens Israel’s existence.

We are, as the Bible observed, a stiff-necked people.

Perhaps our mistake has been pursuing unity where interoperability is what we need.

Unity says: We agree.

Coordination says: We will work together.

Interoperability says: We can disagree and still make one another stronger.

NATO demonstrates the principle. Its members disagree politically but maintain common standards, intelligence relationships, operational capabilities, and mission-critical responsibilities.

Why shouldn’t Israel and Diaspora Jewish institutions develop a similar hybrid approach?

Shared threat intelligence. Early-warning networks. Coordinated research. Trusted non-Jewish partners. Cultural engagement. Digital capabilities. Investment in approaches that demonstrate results.

Not another organization competing for the same donors.

An architecture that makes existing organizations more effective together.

And one minimum common mission:

Whatever else divides us, we will cooperate to protect Jewish lives, Jewish identity, and Israel’s right to exist securely.

Preventing the next October 7

The danger is not confined to Israel.

The next October 7 may not resemble the last. Its perpetrators, weapons, and targets may be different.

A mass-casualty antisemitic attack could occur in Israel, New York, London, Paris, or elsewhere. We cannot predict where. We can recognize why preparedness must be global; the recent Fly Dubai hijacking is a case in point.

Our enemies are adapting. Are we?

October 7 demonstrated that Jews can overcome extraordinary divisions when catastrophe strikes.

But why must we wait for catastrophe?

The ZAKA commander’s appeal for unity should not fade when the memorial ceremonies end.

We owe the victims remembrance. We owe ourselves accountability.

And we owe future generations something more.

October 7 showed us what happens when an ecosystem we built fails.

October 8 warns us what happens when the ecosystem we need has not yet been built.

If we truly want to prevent the next October 7, perhaps it is time we finally learned how to fight October 8, by building our ecosystem.

The writer is a global strategist and a strategic adviser at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. Follow him on X: @jeffkahn2020