At the Hostages Families headquarters. One Year On

I didn’t want to write this column on the first anniversary of the massacre of the Round Gaza communities and at the beginning of the second year of the “Iron Swords” war (this very name alone awakens all kinds of semi-fascist demons). Still, it’s hard not to remember that phone call I received on October 8, 2023, which amounted to one word: “Come.”

So I came. I came to the diplomatic department of the newly established headquarters of the hostages’ families. I came and was immediately engulfed by compassion and commitment, and met with so many volunteers. This, along with the tremendous pain and the unanswered question of how could this happen to us. I rediscovered the Israeli spirit on which I grew up and raised my daughters. I came and found that there was no government in Israel and that someone had to raise the flag.

I found myself helping to connect hostages’ families with foreign missions in Israel and delegations from abroad. I remember ambassadors and diplomats from many countries, including some with whom our relations are not always the best, sitting in our room with tears in their eyes over the fate of those taken hostage. The chilling verse from Jeremiah, chapter 22, verse 10, echoed in my mind: ” Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him: but weep sore for him that goeth away: for he shall return no more, nor see his native country.” However, I told myself that this would never happen and would not occur.

The failure of the Israeli government hit me hard. As someone who served in the IDF for over five years and in the Foreign Ministry for over 38 years, the situation for me was absurd. I was used to going up the wall and presenting Israel in all its glory and splendor. I was used to repeating to myself (just to myself, of course, quietly and secretly, so that nobody else would hear…) the words of the prophet Isaiah to the king of Assyria, besieging Jerusalem: “The virgin daughter of Zion mocked and despised you, tossing her head as you flee.”  (Isaiah, chapter 19, verse 21). Or, in modern phrasing, who are you, Yahya Sinwar, to raise a hand on us, kidnap our citizens, rape our daughters, and behead our people?

I found some comfort in the massive mobilization of reserve soldiers (including my daughter and son-in-law, who rushed to report to their units). The “Brothers in Arms” created a civilian alternative to the dysfunctional government. They dashed to battle, “wonderfully terrible and great, and rushing for help,” in the words of the 1948 soldier-poet Haim Guri. They contemptuously ignored the hateful remarks of certain government ministers over the past year. The same ministers like Yariv Levin or Shlomo Kar’i called the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators against the judicial coup “Kaplanists” (falling on the name of Kaplan Street, a significant site of demonstrations) and even “traitors.”

It was these Kaplanists who flew their planes over Gaza and pierced Nasrallah’s tunnels in Beirut. The prime minister may have determined that it was possible to go on without a few squadrons but that it was impossible to exist without a government; I wanted to tell him that without the pilots and the female tank fighters or the bulldozer operators – he would not have a country to rule or a “Zion Wing” well-appointed airplane with leather armchairs where he and his wife could indulge themselves on the arduous way to a weekend in New York City. The claim that it was the protest that motivated our enemies to attack Gaza and Lebanon is false and demagogic. It is precisely the opposite; it was the regime coup that weakened us, while it is the protest that made our reservists rush to the front lines and the fences.

I am proud to play a tiny part (within the diplomatic section of the families’ headquarters) in the civilian mobilization, looking after the country and its values. In the words of Hillel the Elder, “Where there are no people, try to be a man.” In our current situation and crisis, where there is no government, try to do everything you can for the homeland, including within a civilian headquarters of volunteers.

I was further reassured by the mobilization of the Diaspora Jews, especially in the communities in the United States. As someone who served in (or vis-à-vis) the United States for more than twenty years, I was seriously concerned that the Jewish support for Israel would be reduced due to Israel’s sharp turn away from its original enlightenment into the areas of the extreme and dark right-wing, under the government of Messrs. Smotrich, Levin and Ben-Gvir. After all, most of the world’s Jewish community is liberal, and how can they continue living with an Israeli government that constantly abuses them and their values?

A prominent community leader once said to me: “How long do you think we can continue to support governments that reject us as Jews? How can we continue advancing Israel’s interests on Capitol Hill and in the administration? Why is my political and financial support for Israel desirable, but when I get to the Western Wall, they scold me and throw fecal diapers at me?” I’m glad I’ve been wrong so far. This terrible day of reckoning and the division of Jewish people may yet come, but so far, it has not happened.

I found somewhat reassuring evidence in the dozens of delegations of Jewish organizations and communities that kept streaming into our headquarters in Tel Aviv to express solidarity and offer political and financial support for the State of Israel on the day of anguish. Together with them, we flowed into the Hostage Square and joined our voices in prayer for the return of the hostages to their families.

I hope with every fiber of my heart that we will not have to mark the second anniversary of the October 7th disaster and that, together with the released hostages, we will be able to look at this horrendous event as another disaster from which the Jewish people emerged by pulling itself out of the quagmire of divisiveness, malice, and stupidity that brought us to the catastrophe from which we were just rescued.