The Yom HaZikaron service last night in memory of the fallen was raw. Parents spoke about their children who they had buried less than even one year ago and their grief filled the air and caused the participants to weep with the collective sorrow that this country is now struggling not to sink beneath . For such a small town, Eilat has its share of heroes, those fallen in battle to protect the country and those whose lives were stolen by terrorists.
The number remembered last night and today is exactly 1600 more than last year, 766 soldiers and 834 civilians in one year ; in a country of less than 10 million !
Note that more civilians than soldiers have died in this conflict ! The average age of those perished is heartbreakingly young!
The losses of innocent life in Gaza is just as tragic, but Israel cannot sacrifice her children to protect the children of Gaza if the adults charged to protect those children, chose and actively supports this tracherous path. It is very clear that many adults in Gaza support Hamas and its methods, and they are totally responsible for the terrible plight of their children today. We have testimony from our hostages about the behaviour of civilians towards them, with one being recaptured after escape by civilians and even handed back to Hamas !
This war stops tomorrow if the hostages are released, and Hamas lays down their weapons. Co-existence is totally possible when one side is not hell bent on genocide . Israel is trying not to harm civilians even at a cost of their own soldiers but Hamas continue to fight a war that takes no regard for civilians, neither their own or ours.
The IDF have no choice as Israel is fighting for her very survival, and like a cancer , even if only a tiny percentage of Hamas survive they will metastasise and resurrect their military capabilities and their charter to destroy all the Jews has not altered, in fact, they have reiterated their intentions to repeat October 7th.
One may ask why are so many choosing to continue to live here,when the price to preserve the country is so cruelly high and we have had countless wars and terror attacks since our independence 76 years ago.
Sometimes, when it is all sunshine and simchas (celebrations) we can forget, and sometimes when it is all difficult bureaucracy with terrible traffic and people cutting in the queues we can briefly wish we were in a more civilised neighbourhood of the world. But we have days, like last week’s Yom HaShoah, and last night’s Yom HaZikaron that bring us sharply back to a cold reality.
We cannot hide from history or from the tragedy of Nazism in the Second World War nor the way the Muslim countries turned on their Jews overnight seeing nearly one million flee empty handed to the land of Israel or any western country they could find refuge.
We still have that generation here to tell their stories and we are always listening. Of course the pogroms in Russia feel less relevant in our minds, as now they were over a century ago, but we know that our grandparents arrived on foreign soils as poor immigrants from a brutal Russian Empire. The children here are encouraged to remember- each child will explore his or hers roots when they do their “shoresh” project before their Bar or Bat Mitzvah.
And if we had forgotten even momentarily why Israel is so imperative to preserve, then Eurovision was a great reminder of how Europe once again allows anti semitism to be openly voiced. For a while it was cleverly disguised as only anti Israel, but now it has shed its masquerade and is openly, proudly and loudly Jew hatred.
Imagine a country being brutally attacked by barbaric savages, girls raped, civilians burnt and beheaded and babies slaughtered and kidnapped, and in a short 7 months in what is thought as as a civilised country people are demonstrating in favour of the attackers !
This may seem like a crazy nightmare that we cannot wake up from, but it is the reality that we are seeing screened into our living rooms and splashed across social media, from the US campuses to the streets of London and now at the Eurovision Song Contest, which surely is supposed to be a vehicle for peace and unity.
So as it is said Yom HaShoah reminds us of the price of not having a state and Yom HaZikaron reminds of the price of having a state. As they say in Israel ,אין לנו ארץ אחרת We have no other Land.
During the services last night sirens sounded in both the north of the country and around the Gaza envelope . Surprisingly, this week, Hamas managed to strike Ashkelon and injure three people. It just shows that we have still not succeeded in destroying their capability to strike us and if any one is not safe then no one is safe.
Despite the international press and President Biden screaming for more aid to enter Gaza, Hamas are still targeting the areas where the aid enters to bring about more condemnation of Israel. The US and the UK who were going to man the aid pier have now deemed it too dangerous for their soldiers and are hiring mercenaries to distribute the food.
The Genocide claim failed, the famine claim failed and now even the anti Israel UN have had to admit the numbers of civilians killed in Gaza is around 50% less than was being reported. Let’s hope the western media reports their mistakes as enthusiastically as they jump to report anything that casts Israel in a bad light. In the fog of war no one knows for sure the ratio of civilians to terrorists killed but the IDF are not purposely targeting civilians, the opposite in fact, they are dropping leaflets and phoning people who are in dangerous areas imploring them to leave and go to the safe corridor.
Iran who stepped out of the shadows three weeks ago when they attacked Israel with hundreds of missiles and drones have now taken off the rest of their mask and are talking nuclear breakout !
How very sad that the much hated Prime Minister Netanyahu might after all be 100% correct about Iran’s intentions and the golden boy Obama and his poodle Biden, who both appeased Iran might need to face the fact that once Iran has a nuclear weapon, the balance of power around the world really shifts.
In the light of this announcement it is unlikely that Israel will sit on her hands. The war is far from over, the hostages are no nearer to being released but this country is holding solid and the unity and love and solidarity is wrapping its arms around all us as move tonight into the strangest Yom HaAtzmaut .
May the day pass peacefully.
Kind Regards
Carolyne Davis