Shattered Certainties: Grappling with Security
There is no doubt that in the past year and a half, as my life collided with war, I find myself today with more questions than answers—not just about my life in general but also about my home, Israel. I am not ashamed to admit it: after a year and a half, I still haven’t resolved the most crucial question in my mind: how could October 7th happen?
When I made aliyah, one of the few certainties I held as firmly as daylight was the question of security. Internal security, external security. I saw Israel’s security as an indestructible monolith, like a mega-robot from Japanese cartoons—unbreakable, equipped with superpowers. No one escapes Israeli security checks. To me, Israel represented ultimate safety—as a human being, as a woman, and as a Jew.
And yet, even this certainty is crumbling in my hands.
Abdel-Aziz, a 29-year-old Moroccan with a U.S. green card, passed through security checks at Ben Gurion Airport despite raising suspicion due to omissions in his information and stressed body language. Three days later, yesterday, he carried out the terrorist attack on Allenby Street.
I still haven’t come to terms with what went wrong on October 7th, and now I see this failure as well.
Can someone help me understand what is happening? I feel lost, exposed to risks, and threatened—not just from the outside but also from within.
How much longer will we have to endure all of this?
I know well the mechanism of shirking responsibility; it’s never anyone’s fault, and no one ever takes responsibility for anything. Once again, I appeal for a change in mindset. Because while it’s true that the Shin Bet isn’t Almighty God and doesn’t have superpowers, it still allowed a person who raised suspicions to slip through.
We are mentally exhausted, so I can understand lapses in clarity, even in elite security units. But I return to my grandmother’s point: this country exists to be a refuge for us as Jews.
Let us also remember that we live in a world dominated by marketing and branding. Israel’s self-branding is security. We already lost half of it on October 7th; let’s not lose it entirely.