Broken hearts
After the sun sets on Sunday evening, the memorial ceremony will get underway at the Western Wall and the El Malei Rachamim prayer will be chanted. The names of the fallen will be shown on screens, heartbreaking songs will be sung and tears will be shed. In all of the wars, 23,085 Israelis have met their deaths, most of them too young to have known love, become parents, make a home and fulfill their dreams.
Every Israeli knows fallen soldiers and is familiar with the stories of others. Israelis have seen the scorched earth left behind by human loss, the broken hearts of wives, children and parents. Doubt always creeps into the heart. Perhaps this death wasn't necessary? Why was it my loved one who had to die? Did someone else's error cause the death? Doubt leads to anger, which is justified. This anger is viewed with great understanding. It is rational and fitting.
From the murder of a Jewish blacksmith in Nahalat Reuben (now Ness Ziona) in 1888 considered to be the first act of Arab terror against Jews in the land of Israel up to the most recent Israeli soldier to fall in battle, violence directed toward Jews in this land has taken many lives. This violence prompted pre-state Jewish communities to defend themselves. After the state was established, the Israel Defense Forces took over that task. The Jews have never been the initiators of violence and war here, something that must be reiterated today.
When the time comes for historians to sum up the long and bloody conflict over the land of Israel, they will find mistakes, errors and even malice on the Jewish side. But they won't be able to deny the reluctance of the Jews to initiate rounds of fighting. At most, they will be able to claim that the Jews reacted too broadly and disproportionately to the violence of the other side.
From the Jewish bus that was attacked near Tel Aviv shortly after the passage of the U.N. Partition Plan on Nov. 29, 1947, to the rockets launched from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel last week, the violence has always been started by the Arab side. Former Prime Minister Golda Meir once wisely said that we could never forgive the Arabs for forcing us to fight and defeat them. But in fact, we must also not forgive them for the violence they have always initiated before sitting down at the negotiating table.
In recent times, it has been preached to us that we shouldn't make ourselves out to be martyrs, that we shouldn't feel like victims. Excuse me, but we are the victims of Arab violence, even if in certain wars we erred by carrying on the fighting too long. Not even the most pretentious historian can erase the historical fact that we are the primary victims of violence in this conflict.
It's true that we shouldn't feel sorry for ourselves. However, we are sad that 23,085 of us have been killed, and we know that we owe our lives in a sovereign Jewish state to the sacrifices of the fallen. We can only hope that there will be no more deaths.
טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו