Blood Without Vengeance: The Murder of Tze’ela Gez and Israel’s Illusion of Control

The murder of Tze’ela Gez has once again exposed the grim truth: life in Israel - particularly in Judea and Samaria - is a game of Russian roulette. The tragedy has confirmed what we already know: in Israel, vengeance and deterrence do not exist.

The State of Israel, even when led by governments claiming nationalist credentials, has repeatedly proven incapable and unwilling to exact revenge for Jewish blood spilled on its soil. At best, it reacts - occasionally with force, but always with restraint. At worst, it simply absorbs the blow, chalks it up to the “complex reality,” and returns to business as usual.

This is not a new phenomenon. Since Menachem Begin came to power in 1977, the Likud-led governments have adopted a reactive posture. Rare exceptions exist - like Israel’s recent preemptive actions in Syria, or the 1982 Lebanon War launched under Begin after years of cross-border terrorism. But these moments are anomalies, not norms. Israel does not believe in solving its deepest problems. It manages them. And in doing so, the state has effectively outsourced the security of its citizens to the goodwill of an enemy that neither fears nor respects it. Nowhere is this more evident than on the roads of Judea and Samaria. There, one finds memorial signs and posters of the fallen - Tze’ela’s face will soon be among them - silent testaments to a cycle of grief.

Even when Israel responds, it does so in surgical fashion - targeting “militants,” avoiding demographic shifts, and refusing to disrupt the very ideological and educational infrastructure that breeds these atrocities.

The state continues to distinguish between terrorists and the civilian population that incubates them, clinging to an outdated and dangerous moral calculus.

And so, Tze’ela Gez was murdered not in a moment of government failure - but as a symptom of its long-standing policy of co-existence with a murderous enemy.

Her blood, like that of so many before her, is absorbed by the soil without consequences. A headline for 48 hours.

This is the result of a legacy of inaction - from Oslo, to the retreats of the Yom Kippur War, to the October 7th massacre, where the illusion of eternal “never again” was shattered before our eyes.

As long as Israel continues to manage rather than solve, to retaliate rather than preempt, and to mourn rather than act - we will continue to bury our children while reciting empty promises of “never again.”

We only have ourselves to blame.