Mustapha Ezzarghani

 Stop telling Israel to “choose peace” while you refuse to confront Hamas and the Iranian regime that make peace impossible.

I am a Moroccan Muslim. And I will say this clearly: the hypocrisy has gone too far.

There is a comfortable illusion spreading across the West — that this war is the result of “both sides,” that it can be solved with dialogue circles, that peace is just a mindset waiting to be activated. That illusion collapses the moment you face reality.

Reality has a sound.

It sounds like Hamas rockets.

It sounds like Israeli sirens.

It sounds like families running for their lives.

And yet, people sit comfortably thousands of miles away blaming Israel for defending itself, while refusing to name the forces driving this violence.

Let’s be honest.

This is not a symmetrical conflict.

On one side, you have a state — Israel — trying to protect its citizens. On the other, you have Hamas, an organization that openly calls for the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews. Behind Hamas stands the Iranian regime, funding, arming, and spreading this ideology across the region — from Gaza to Lebanon through Hezbollah, to militias in Iraq and beyond.

So when you say “choose peace,” I ask:

Who exactly are you asking?

Are you asking Hamas to abandon its charter of destruction?

Are you asking Iran’s leadership to stop exporting violence?

Or are you only asking Israel to stand down and absorb the attacks?

Because too often, the answer is obvious.

I come from Morocco — a country where Jews and Muslims lived together for centuries. I believe in coexistence. But I also know history. Nearly a million Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries in the last century. That did not happen because of “miscommunication.” It happened because hatred was legitimized.

And today, we are watching the same pattern being ignored again.

Many peace activists will show you images of coexistence — Arabs and Jews walking together, sharing spaces, living side by side. These moments are real. But they avoid the harder truth: coexistence cannot survive when one side is taught that the other must disappear.

You cannot build peace with Hamas while it glorifies October 7.

You cannot negotiate peace with a regime in Tehran that calls Israel a “cancer” to be removed.

You cannot “activate peace” while ignoring indoctrination, terror networks, and state-sponsored violence.

This is not about feelings. This is about reality.

Evil is real. And history has taught us what happens when the world refuses to confront it early. From Nazi Germany to today’s Middle East, the pattern is always the same: denial, appeasement, and then tragedy.

Peace without confronting evil is not peace. It is surrender.

And no nation — not Israel, not any country — can be expected to surrender its right to exist.

Some wars are tragic. Others are necessary. When a country is attacked, when its civilians are murdered, when its existence is openly threatened — defending itself is not warmongering. It is survival.

I say this as a Muslim: peace — salam, shalom — is not the absence of war. It is the presence of justice, truth, and security. It comes after you confront what is broken, not before.

I have friends in places like Iraq who live under the shadow of Iranian-backed militias. They are not talking about “activating peace.” They are hoping the world will finally confront the forces that have trapped them for decades.

So no — do not lecture Israel about peace while ignoring Hamas and Iran.

Real peace will come.

But it will only come when the truth is spoken clearly, when responsibility is named honestly, and when the world finds the courage to confront those who stand in the way of peace.

Until then, slogans mean nothing.