Renaming the war to “War of Revival” is not nation-building—it’s escaping responsibility and accountability
The Israeli cabinet just voted to rebrand the war that began on October 7, 2023—from the utilitarian “Swords of Iron” to the lofty “War of Revival” (Milhemet HaTkuma). Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu framed it as a heroic arc, a “direct continuation of the War of Independence.” Many Israelis hear something else: an attempt to sandblast accountability from living memory.
Words matter. Names fix events in the public mind. The Yom Kippur War is remembered not only for the surprise attack and early losses but also for the ultimate turnaround—and for Golda Meir’s acceptance of responsibility and resignation after the Agranat Commission’s interim report in April 1974. That is part of why the name has moral weight; it carries the full story, victory and failure, sacrifice and accountability.
By contrast, “War of Revival” is marketing. It pulls the camera away from origins the current government would prefer we forget: a catastrophic failure to protect Israelis from an invasion and massacres on a Jewish holiday, compounded by years of corrosive polarization and anti-democratic overreach that split society’s attention and trust. The new name tries to jump-cut from disaster to redemption—skipping the hard frame where responsibility lives. Even ministers inside the coalition criticized the choice or refused to endorse it.
There was a better, truer option on the table all along: the Simchat Torah War. Like the Yom Kippur War, this name binds the event to the day it desecrated. It refuses abstraction. It fixes in memory that the attack came on Simchat Torah, when families were dancing with the scrolls and communities were most vulnerable. Editorials and public discussion have used the term for the past two years precisely because it preserves that moral and historical specificity.
Some will argue that names should inspire, not indict. But inspiration without truth is spin. The work of a healthy democracy is to remember fully. The Yom Kippur War naming did that: it encoded surprise, loss, and the transformation that followed—including a reckoning at the top. Golda Meir didn’t hide behind a title; she stepped down within days of the commission’s interim findings—a political “earthquake” that taught a generation that leadership is answerable to the public. That accountability became part of the war’s name.
Can anyone honestly say we have reached a comparable moment of responsibility today? This war is worse by nearly every humane metric: the scale of Israeli civilian slaughter on day one, the length of the campaign, the regional spread, and the absence—so far—of a strategic success the public can recognize. Dressing it up as “revival” does not make it so. (Even the government’s own trajectory shows the discomfort with plain language: for two years it used “Swords of Iron,” while media, soldiers’ families, and many citizens called it what it was—October 7, the Simchat Torah War.)
Name-changing also has consequences beyond rhetoric. It shapes how medals are inscribed, textbooks are written, and commemorations are designed. The cabinet decision explicitly links the new name to the decorations that will soon be awarded. When the medal bears “War of Revival,” the state is literally minting a storyline—one that vaults past the police and intelligence breakdowns, the failure to secure border communities, and the slow, defensive politics that followed. That is memory management by committee.
Times of Israel readers know the comparison that haunts this debate. The Yom Kippur War was traumatic and, in military terms, ultimately successful; its name keeps the shock and the day at the center. That name forces us to remember how we were surprised and who owned the consequences. If we allow Simchat Torah to be airbrushed into Revival, we risk teaching the next generation a curated myth: disaster as prologue to destiny, rather than a call to repair statecraft and civic trust.
This is not pedantry; it is policy. A country that names honestly is a country that reforms honestly. Keep the name Simchat Torah War. Let it hold the contradictions: the desecration of a sacred day, the courage of defenders and rescuers, the agony of hostages and their families, the hard debate about aims and end-states, and yes—the leadership failures that intensified the toll. Only then can revival, if it comes, be earned rather than declared.
In 1974, the system forced an accounting. It is not too late to demand one now. Start with the truth in our mouths. Call this war what it is—and remember why we must never allow it to happen again: the Simchat Torah War.
Richard Diamond is a retired technology executive, lifelong student of Jewish philosophy, and frequent writer on the intersection of theology, ethics, and public life. He brings decades of leadership experience, historical insight, and personal commitment to Israel’s future to his thoughtful explorations of contemporary Jewish challenges.