Micah Lakin Avni, the founder and CEO of Peninsula Group, a publicly traded Israeli commercial finance company, spoke with Arutz Sheva - Israel National News about what the future holds for Israel.

“We all right a historic juncture, not because we will need to write the horrible history of October 7th, but in the way we were in 1938 - will there be a Jewish people 10 years from now? Will there be a 100th anniversary of Israel?” says Avni.

According to Avni "we are facing two existential threats right now. The first, of course, is jihadist attacks - there have been nearly 50,000 such attacks in the last 40 years, both in Israel and around the world. It is a trend that threatens the entire Western world. Until we internalize that, all our other efforts will be misguided, and fail.

“The second threat is polarization and divisiveness. On October 6th, we were at each other's throats. We need to internalize the unity that was so prevalent in the first days of the war, and if we don't, we can still fall apart even if we are victorious.”

Avni, whose father, Richard Lakin, was murdered in a terror attack in 2015, added: “I understand that much of the country, including the leaders, may still be in shock now. I know what it's like to undergo a personal trauma, and it can make you want to avoid facing reality. Even so, we need to reach a point of treating each other as brothers and sisters, and face the reality of all those around us who want to destroy us.”

He also shared what his own tragic experiences have taught him about fighting terror: “In the days between the Hamas attack that injured my father and his death, as I looked through the internet to see what was happening in the world, I saw that terrorism was running rampant on social media. Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, and more were raising money, and publishing videos, and the social media companies were doing nothing about it. Arutz Sheva - Israel National News came to interview me about it, and from there, we created mass media pressure on mainstream social media platforms to do something about it. They hired thousands of people to take on the problem, and you can no longer find any presence of terrorism on these platforms. I was a small piece of this, but I was certainly a leader in thinking about it.”

Avni explains: "When I look at what is happening now, I see this as something like the years before the Holocaust. This is not just the worst terror attack we've ever had, it is a historic moment when, if we do not recognize the problem and come up with a solution, we will be destroyed.

“The first step is to say the problems out loud. It will be difficult, and unpleasant, and cause much hardship, but if we don't say these existential problems out loud we will be destroyed. That is why I am glad to hear Arutz Sheva - Israel National News talk about it - that is part of the solution.”

“The second part of the solution," he continues, "is to be a light onto the nations. Jihadism is affecting us first, but not exclusively - it is spreading into Europe and America. We cannot wait for what other nations will do - we need to take the first step and show the way.”

“Our success here is based on Jewish values. When we put the values first, we become the light onto the nations and are respected by our allies. When we give excuses, when we put other things first, we fall apart and our allies stop respecting us.”

He gives a single, drastic first step for putting values first: “All 120 members of Knesset, all our senior political officials, all our military leaders - they all need to be replaced. They are concerned only with how much air time they get, and not leading the country. We need to find new leaders, and there are tens of thousands of them in the country - when the state failed on October 7th, citizens of every kind stepped up instead. Real leaders have avoided politics, saying that they don't want to get into such a disgusting field, but that is what we need. There will eventually be elections, and the people will get to choose who the next group of leaders will be. People have told me that I am crazy and that things will always be this way - but they don't have to be. We have elections, and you can choose who the next leader is going to be. Do you want to choose the same leaders again, or do you want to make a change?

"After that, we need to go back to treating one another as brothers and sisters. Most of our issues could be resolved if we communicated respectfully and openly. This is particularly true on social media- Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok are all pushing us towards polarization. We need to face them and demand a change."

He concludes: “The last part is also the first thing we said - we need to be a light unto the nations. We can see our soldiers, from every part of Israeli society, coming together around shared values. That should be our mission as a nation - going together around our values, and becoming the leaders needed for everything to work out.”