Two Years

For two years, I have largely stayed away from posting on Facebook.

I have purged many “friends” — the ones who didn’t have the bandwidth to utter even the most banal of condolences when we were slaughtered, yet had an opinion about genocide or ethnic cleansing in one of the most difficult combat situations for a Western army since Vietnam.

I’m grateful for everyone who posted videos, stood in support, sent messages. It’s hard for me to express how much it meant to us. These two years showed me the importance of peoplehood and allyship. The Haredim in Israel, giving blood in droves. The North American Jews sending tons of tactical gear. The prayers in shuls around the world. The Iranians standing shoulder to shoulder with Jews in Toronto and Paris exposing the Islamic totalitarians driving this mess.

There is this image etched in my mind, while we were still shell shocked, the army was gearing up. Soldiers were making their way from the north where there are a lot of Druze villages. When they’d pass through those villages, the villagers would come out in droves, waving flags,  throwing refreshments and embracing the soldiers.

The week of October 7th I remember walking along the main street of our little town. The death notices for the young people cut down in the prime of their lives began to be plastered along the street. Shiva announcements for funerals that we did not attend still rattled and in shock.

I remember thinking that I was wrong — that the disengagement was a mistake, that Oslo was a mistake. Instead of seriously taking concerns of entangling ourselves with ideologues it was hand waved away. When the settlers kicked out of Gush Katif said something akin to “today the south tomorrow the center”, we dismissed them as extremists. Dismissing those objections was not only careless; it was cruel.

I used to have this lazy, flippant analysis of the Middle East: there will never be peace here. If you look at how they act against their supposed brothers, imagine what they would do to us — over 600,000 killed in Syria, almost 400,000 in Yemen, ISIS, the use of chemical weapons, medieval barbaric cruelty. The week of October 7th, that easy analysis proved true. I remember the realization of how they deeply, unapologetically hate us. I remember a YouTube star and citizen of Israel who teaches Arabic online putting a freed bird on her Facebook profile as the corpses of her fellow citizens were burned and their homes destroyed.

I remember thinking to myself that I finally understood the settlement enterprise as policy. Given that Gaza — an almost-state under “embargo” — could hit us this hard, an actual Palestinian state would carry out crimes a thousand times greater given the power. So, were I Israel and I wanted to prevent a contiguous Palestinian state and limit that power along my borders, I’d also throw as many settlers there as I could to Swiss-cheese their territory until the North American Jewish cavalry comes to tip the demographic battle in our favor.

I remember the tragic irony of the “Would You Hide Me” posts on Instagram. Zelensky understood that he needed ammo, not a ride, but North American Jews didn’t understand a basic matter of survival: they would need to take up arms, not go hide in the basements of the very people who stood silently by as barbarians were led to our gates. Please don’t get me wrong: I appreciate all the people who reached out to their Jewish friends and acquaintances saying they would shelter them in the case of a pogrom. The truth of the matter is, you — our Judeophile allies — are the ones who need hiding in this case. Jews have a safe haven. The forces that are coming to get the Jews will certainly come after those offering them shelter first.

For years, in a way that can only be described as criminally negligent voyeurism, the officials entrusted with keeping us safe watched and did nothing as Hamas planned, practiced, and perfected their crimes. The writing was on the wall for all who wanted to see it. The Gazan “freedom march,” or whatever delusional name they gave it, was reconnaissance in force: see how many people we can throw at the barriers, see how the Israelis will respond, find the weak points, scout the troop numbers and locations. They made a movie about their great victory; the steps of the attack were practiced and shown to their masses. They lit up thousands of Israeli SIM cards — enough to raise an alert but not an alarm. We lost this war on October 7th — not because Hamas was great, but because those entrusted with our security were negligent.

Before I moved to Israel, I would go to Israel events, flag in hand, representing 5,000 years of culture, identity, pain, and hope. In all the funerals we attended, I clutched my flag, heartbroken. We as a people are a bridge. We move forward while maintaining who we were and where we are from. It’s hard to just fit in when you keep your parents’ language, their religion, their heritage. It is never easy to be a Jew — we pay the ultimate price over and over throughout our history simply because we refuse to forget. But it’s that very identity that keeps us here. That thing that makes Jews coalesce and come together, to marry beyond our sects — Sephardi, Ashkenazi, Former Soviet, North American, Persian, Haredi. We are one big tribe. In the coming months there will be a reckoning for those responsible, and I hope we remember the unity we shared these last two years to bring proper, selfless good governance worthy of this amazing people who gave everything.

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Authors note: I posted a slightly different version of this on Facebook shortly after the last living hostages came back home.