700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700
700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700
This number is staggering. Who, in their wildest imaginations could have thought or believed that we would be living in October 700, 2023?
700 days of war, 900 soldiers dead, 1200 people killed on one day, 251 hostages taken – 700 days ago and today, 700 days later, beyond anyone’s hardened thoughts and imagination, we still have 48 hostages held in captivity by the same barbaric terrorists who committed the atrocities of October 7.
And it is 699 days past the date that the government and the prime minister responsible for the abandonment didn’t take full responsibility and resign in shame with their heads bowed knowing that they enabled the barbarians to do all that they did on that day and since. And it is this same government of shameless self-interested politicians who do nothing while 48 of our hostages remain in Gaza. There is no shame, no responsibility, no head bowing, no major efforts to bring them home as though the hostages have all the time in the world.
These petty politicians continue to act as though it is October 6, that nothing has changed and October 7 was just an annoying blip on their radar and it’s over. They can continue with their pettiness of budget and power grabbing to reach their personal and party goals of taking the biggest piece of the pie that they can. The country is there to serve them, not the other way around.
If we were to say to them “700”, many would ask ‘700 what?’ They are so removed from what we, the entire country, are going through that they have no awareness of the pain, the trauma, the suffering of millions of us who feel the pain of the Hostages’ families, we can’t sleep through the nights, our minds are occupied with the horrors that the hostages are going through and the traumas of the soldiers. Each and every thing that we do in the day is filled with thoughts of the hostages. We go out to eat at a restaurant and think “how can I allow myself to enjoy this while the hostages are starving?”, we wash dishes and think that the amount of water used to wash this pot is more water than the hostages are getting to drink in a week, we go to the doctor and think that for 700 days, the hostages who are sick and injured are not receiving any worthy medical care or even being checked. We go about our days in a strange type of new normal where nothing is normal and nothing should be normal, and all of our thoughts are about the hostages, their families and the soldiers being sent to fight a war that should have ended long ago.
700 days, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700, 700
And our prime minister removes from the negotiating team all those whose first and only thoughts and actions are to get the hostages home. Instead, he replaces them with his yes men, topping the list to run the negotiations is his closest advisor, Dermer who would never do anything that his boss doesn’t want done. Dermer, who in the early months of the war, went around Washington telling everyone that the hostages are all dead. Dermer, who in 6 months in the position hasn’t brought a single hostage home. Dermer, who said to the father of a soldier hostage who was reported killed and his body is being held by Hamas, “What do I care about 20 hostages (referring only to the living)? If there were 6 million, that would be another story.” For him, just like his boss, 20 lives are a small price to pay for Netanyahu’s political survival.
It was reported by a close advisor to Netanyahu, not Dermer, that Netanyahu is prepared to deal with another 200 bereaved families. So, 20 truly means nothing to him and the dead hostages, even less.
Arthur Miller wrote the play ‘All My Sons’ where the protagonist, Joe manufactured airplane parts for the fighter planes in WW2. He knowingly shipped faulty parts because it would have been financially devastating to replace them and 21 pilots crashed and died as a result. He, too refused to take responsibility and shifted all blame to his hapless partner who went to prison. His son, Larry upon finding out about his father’s culpability and refusal to take responsibility, takes his own life and the play ends with Joe then killing himself. Before his final exit and the gunshot sound, Joe said “Sure, [Larry] was my son. But I think to him they were all my sons. And I guess they were, I guess they were.”
Joe never really took responsibility for his actions and his family paid terrible prices for it.
We have a Joe leading this country and he never ever takes responsibility for anything that goes wrong. It is always the fault of someone else. When something good happens, he is the first to jump into the spotlight and take credit for it all.
And opposed to Joe’s son, Larry who can’t live with himself due to his father’s knowing actions that caused many to die, our Joe has a son who lives in luxury in Miami on the taxpayers’ shekels and creates never ending conspiracies blaming and accusing everyone and anyone who opposes his father. There is no guilt, no culpability, no responsibility, not on his part and of course, not on his father’s part. There is only them and what is good for them. The country should willingly pay whatever price for them to continue living in this way with his father being crowned for life.
We are not living in an Arthur Miller play. We are living in the real life of Israel where we are on day 700 of a never-ending war, with 48 hostages rotting away in Gaza, with most of the nation calling for an end to the war and a return of the hostages as the number one priority for our country. But for the one person who has the power to make it so, he chooses to go against the best interests of the country and the people in order to remain in power and reinvent the history of the past 700 days (and the years before).
700 days, 700 days, 700 days, 700 days, 700 days, 700 days, 700 days, 700 days, …….
I’ve never met them,
But I miss them.
I’ve never met them,
but I think of them every second.
I’ve never met them,
but they are my family.
