"Once the return tide starts, it will be impossible to stem it, and it will prove our undoing"
About this Quote
The genius of "return tide" is its fatalism-with-a-clock. Tides are natural, predictable, and indifferent to human pleading. By choosing that metaphor, Sharett frames the coming shift as both inevitable and timed: you can act before it turns, but not after it gathers momentum. "Stem it" quietly concedes the limits of power even for people who usually speak in the language of control. The line also performs a kind of political discipline. It is built to stiffen spines, to justify preemption, and to make hesitation look not merely mistaken but suicidal.
Sharett’s era was defined by demographic pressure, border anxiety, international scrutiny, and the constant fear that one concession would become precedent. Read in that context, "our undoing" is less melodrama than a strategic forecast: once a reversal begins - in migration patterns, territorial claims, diplomatic legitimacy, or internal cohesion - it won’t arrive as a single catastrophe. It will arrive as a flood of small, irreversible shifts that retrospectively make early caution look like the last moment of freedom.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Sharett, Moshe. (2026, January 17). Once the return tide starts, it will be impossible to stem it, and it will prove our undoing. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/once-the-return-tide-starts-it-will-be-impossible-78497/
Chicago Style
Sharett, Moshe. "Once the return tide starts, it will be impossible to stem it, and it will prove our undoing." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/once-the-return-tide-starts-it-will-be-impossible-78497/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Once the return tide starts, it will be impossible to stem it, and it will prove our undoing." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/once-the-return-tide-starts-it-will-be-impossible-78497/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.





