Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli rejected Netanyahu’s proposed name “War of Revival” for the Israel-Hamas war, calling it unsuitable and suggesting “War of Genesis” instead.
Diaspora Affairs and Combatting Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli (Likud) stated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desire to propose “War of Revival” as the official name for the Israel-Hamas war is “unsuitable for various reasons,” in a post on X/Twitter on Saturday.
Chikli, admitting that his views may constitute “an unpopular opinion,” proposed “War of Genesis” as an alternative name, and gave several reasons why he believes it to be a better choice.
“Technically, the name is taken. The War of Independence is also called the War of Revival at the initiative of David Ben-Gurion,” he argued.
Chikli also argued that the name is inappropriate, as “revival” is a “weighty word with deep meaning in Jewish history, representing the transition from a two-thousand-year exile that culminated in the terrible Holocaust to the renewal of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel,” he said in his tweet.
“We should leave to the fighters of 1948 and the leaders of the Yishuv, led by Ben-Gurion, what belongs to them.”
Israeli army on the southern border with Gaza. October 16, 2025. (credit: Tsafrir Abayov/Flash90)
Many options for names
Netanyahu has been wanting to change the name since December 2023, and proposed names such as “Genesis War,” “Gaza War,” and “Simchat Torah War.”
Hostage families have protested the name change, arguing that “there is no revival without the return of all the hostages.”
Chikli also said in his post that the name “Swords of Iron,” the war’s current title, “truly misses the magnitude of the event.”
Other ministers in the government have also criticized “Swords of Iron,” expressing dissatisfaction with the name.
“Personally, I would choose the War of Genesis because this name expresses, in my view, the intensity of the difficult and prolonged war we went through and the profound change it brought to the reality around us,” he said.
The government will vote on the name change in its upcoming meeting on Sunday.