@yankel-berel you wrote:
was r akiva so badly mistaken ?
or is rather katan badly mistaken ?
The answer has been well discussed in rishonim and achronim that, yes, R’ Akiva was “so badly mistaken” in what he did, leading to the greatest slaughter of Jews in our history, perhaps greater than the recent Holocaust. AND, this was as per R’ Akiva’s belief that moshiach had already arrived allowing him to breach the three oaths!
Don’t take my word for it, rather look at one of the recent Gedolim, Rav Henkin ztz”l:
In Rav Henkin’s Lev Ivra (Sh’eilos Hazman, pp. 95– 96), he cleverly turns part of this Zionist narrative on its head. “Even though the Gemara says the students of R. Akiva died in an epidemic, people are wont to say (מרלגא בפי העולם) that the students of R. Akiva were involved in the war of Bar Kochba.” He then brings the Gemara in Brachos (48b) that says, “The day those killed in Betar were buried, Chazal made the blessing of hatov v’hameitiv — hatov, that they did not putrefy, and hameitiv, that they were buried.” R. Henkin asks: Why would Chazal invoke a blessing of hatov v’hameitiv on a tragedy of such enormous proportions? His answer: The Bar Kochba war was a violation of the Jewish principle of non-violence. After the Bar Kochba war, the militant tendencies of even those who were in favor of fighting the Romans were “buried.” Usually, violence begets violence, war begets war. In this case, however, the Jews, even the militants, learned their lesson from the tragic results of the wars against the Romans, and their militant aspirations came to an end. They learned that they must keep the Three Oaths that Hashem made them swear. Their militant aspirations were finally put to rest. They also understood that the tragic fate that was meted out to them was because of their own behavior, not due to any injustice by Hashem. Thus, after Betar, they did not “putrefy,” meaning they did not develop putrid hashkafos, and they were “buried,” meaning the militant aspirations that caused the tragedy to begin with were put to rest. Therefore, they declared “hatov v’hameitiv.”
R. Henkin goes on to say that this attitude of eschewing military action lasted until the new revolutionary Jewish movements, such as the Bund and the like. But, he says, at least those revolutionaries did not want to consider themselves Jews. Unfortunately, the Zionists constantly declare themselves Jewish nationalists and “guardians of the [Jewish] people,” and have chosen to “be like all the nations and glorify wars.”
from Shapiro, Rabbi Yaakov. The Empty Wagon: Zionism’s Journey from Identity Crisis to Identity Theft