German Chancellor Olaf Scholz gives a joint press conference with former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on March 2, 2022. Gil Cohen-Magen/Pool via REUTERS

Eighty years ago, the remaining Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto rose up in revolt against the genocidal Nazi forces that were in the process of liquidating the Ghetto and transporting its inhabitants to extermination camps.

Aside from a small number of smuggled pistols, hand grenades, and primitive incendiary weapons (like Molotov cocktails), the few hundred Jewish fighters were minimally armed and largely defenseless. But they held off a German force of more than 2,000 men — armed with artillery, mortars, machine guns, and armored vehicles — for almost a month.

I couldn’t help but note the irony when Reuters recently announced that the German government had decided to purchase the Israeli Arrow 3 missile system for billions of dollars. The system is designed to safely intercept incoming enemy ballistic missiles armed with unconventional warheads outside the earth’s atmosphere, a protective need recently highlighted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

That same week, it was also reported that Israeli military sales for 2022 amounted to a record $12.55 billion dollars (about 8 percent of total exports). Moreover, as a result of the Abraham Accords, a surprising 25 percent of the sales were to Arab countries: the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco.

It was also just announced that Israel is in talks to sell its highly regarded tank, the Merkava (Hebrew for chariot), to two countries, one of which is in Europe. This would be the first time that Israel has sold the tank to another state. The Merkava, which first came into service as Israel’s main battle tank in 1979, was developed in part to provide a tank that best suited Israel’s needs, but also, in order to avoid being dependent on an external source.

Why do the Israelis need such a sophisticated array of weaponry? After all, aren’t Jews widely considered to be the “people of the book” because of the Jewish affinity for books and learning? Are we now going to be known as the “people of bullets”?

The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has a long and complex history, and I hope that some day there will be an acceptable two-state solution. But terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah are not interested in a two-state solution. Nor is the government of Iran. That was made clear when news sources reported recently that Iran has developed a new hypersonic missile that billboards in Tehran boasted (in Persian, Arabic, and Hebrew), can reach Tel Aviv in just 400 seconds.

And don’t forget the three wars of annihilation Israel survived in 1948, 1967, and 1973, let alone the smaller wars after this.

I think it’s appropriate to go back to the Warsaw Ghetto, to the words of Gela Seksztajn, a 36 year-old Jewish-Polish artist who died in the Ghetto during the uprising. Many of Gela’s paintings, documenting people and life in the Ghetto, as well as her will, were buried with the secret Ringelblum (Oneg Shabbat) Archives, and discovered after the war. Her will reads as follows:

As I stand on the border between life and death, certain that I will not remain alive, I wish to take leave from my friends and my works. … My works I bequeath to the Jewish museum to be built after the war. Farewell, my friends. Farewell, the Jewish people. Never again allow such a catastrophe.

Eighty years ago, Europe — especially Eastern Europe — was the home of the largest Jewish population in the world. Today, it is Israel. Anyone who has spent time in Israel is aware that it is a vibrant, democratic, and flourishing society and an amazing economic success story. It is easy to forget the existential threats it has to contend with.

The Jewish people prefer to be the people of the book. But we refuse to be anyone’s victims, ever again.

Jacob Sivak, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is a retired professor, University of Waterloo.