This Is What ‘Never Again’ Means

By Abe Greenwald

Friday, June 13, 2025

 

Last night, in announcing that Israel had begun “Operation Rising Lion” to disable Iran’s nuclear program, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the following: “Eighty years ago, the Jewish people were the victims of a Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazi regime. Today, the Jewish state refuses to be a victim of a nuclear Holocaust perpetrated by the Iranian regime.”

 

Zionists sought to create the modern State of Israel for several reasons. One is deeply rooted in the Jews’ eternal longing to return their biblical homeland. Some reasons were practical, having to do with Jewish security. The early Zionists wanted to establish a country in which they wouldn’t have to worry about their fellow citizens systematically turning against them. There also needed to be a state where Jews fleeing such situations could find a safe home. And after the Nazis killed one third of the world’s Jewish population, it became clear that Jews must have a militarily strong country to ensure that there would never again be a Holocaust.

 

But the threat of another Holocaust has been hanging over Israel’s head for more than 20 years, ever since it was revealed that Iran was working to develop a nuclear weapon. Every American president since then has vowed that he would not tolerate a nuclear Iran. But despite multiple diplomatic efforts and an empty agreement struck by the Obama administration, Iran stayed the course. Throughout, Israel worked to stall Iran’s progress through sabotage and the targeting of Iranian nuclear scientists.

 

None of it ultimately was enough. As of 24 hours ago, Iran was months away from having a nuclear weapon. So Operation Rising Lion was a necessity. What we saw last night, and what will continue in the coming weeks, is what “never again” means. It doesn’t mean convincing the masses that Israel is a nice country full of nice people. It doesn’t mean “winning the PR war.” It doesn’t mean showing bottomless restraint against enemies. And it doesn’t mean pleading for protection from others. It means Jews destroying those who are trying to kill them.   

 

Golda Meir described Israel’s nuclear capacity as varenye, a fruit preserve that Eastern European Jews had kept close at hand in the event of a pogrom. The pogrom came to Israel on October 7, 2023. It turns out, Israel didn’t need to respond with nuclear weapons. Rather, it launched a fierce military campaign and multiple ingenious operations to destroy the surrounding Iran-backed armies that sought to snuff out the Jewish people.

 

Almost two years after Hamas’s attack, October 7 is starting to look a lot like December 7. The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor set in motion a war that would level imperial Japan like no country has been leveled in the history of man. Similarly, it seems that Iran and its terrorist proxies sealed their own fate when they decided to wage a multifront war on Israel.

 

Jew-hatred has swelled into a popular global campaign since October 7. But despite the pro-terrorist mobs and shootings and fire bombings and international bullying of Jews and Israel, I’ve looked on at events with a sense of equipoise. I’ve been enraged and saddened and perplexed like every other Jew during this period. But there has always been something counterbalancing the negative. This was my faith—my certainty—that Israel understood with exquisite clarity what “never again” means, and it would go to any length required to ensure the survival of Am Yisrael. It does, and it is. And that’s all that matters.