Before my son Elie went to war for the first time, there were days of uncertainty. Would his unit be sent to Gaza to help quell the mounting number or rockets being fired at Israel? Would his unit be sent to the north, where Nasrallah (may he rot in hell and may his name be erased for all eternity), was promising to set the north on fire.
I sat down before my computer, but couldn’t think. And so I did then, what I still often do, I began to write. I wrote What I Want and What I’ll Do.
Today, it’s harder. I know what I want, but not what I will do…
I want to remember a time before pain, before fear.
I want to remember a time when the land sang and we danced to its tunes.
I want to remember a time when my sons didn’t know war and my grandchildren didn’t tremble.
I want to remember when I believed the world had changed, that the hatred that drove my grandparents from Poland and the Ukraine had evaporated into nothingness.
I want to remember a time when my brain didn’t struggle to focus on simple things that I need to do.
I want to sleep a whole night through.
I want to turn my phone off, not set it to silent radio/tv just in case.
I want them all to come home and I want to go back to how blind and stupid we were on October 6.
I want to know that never again, really means never again.
I want to hold my grandchildren without my soul crying for two little boys.
I want…so desperately, I want.
They chose the path of war, so we will set the scenery around this path. Our scenery will include our air force that will knock out their launching pads; our scenery will include our navy and tanks. We’ll eliminate the tunnels they use to sneak into our land and those they use to smuggle weapons and terrorists to harm our people. We will change the scenery of Gaza, so that their training camps will no longer exist.
The world may forget that it was Hamas and Islamic Jihad who chose rockets and mortars and missiles with which to attack us; they may fail to recognize that we use our air force, our tanks, our ground forces and our artillery to protect. For once, Israelis are united in one simple reality. We cannot afford to bend to the world’s will, if that means our children live under rocket fire, if that means people are forced to run for shelter with mere seconds to alert them.
We are, above all things, a nation that chooses life. Today, we choose to protect the lives of our citizens. Maybe deep down, what I want is to hide inside myself, but what I will do is what every Israeli is doing today – having faith that we are bringing a better reality to our country by taking its safety into our hands. Our soldiers have our faith, they have our prayer, and they have our love.
What I will do today is what every Israeli is doing. I will hold on to my faith that we are trying to bring a better reality. I hope that’s true. That post was written four wars ago. Israel called them operations but for me, they were wars.
It’s time to make this the final war. Today, I read a letter written by David Ben Gurion after the Six Day War. He wrote it to an American Jew who was very supporting and clearly hoped that Israel had, in 1967, finally fought it’s last war.
David Ben Gurion responded to Retired General Julius Klein, “I am not certain that the six days war was the last war we have to fight and win. Unless the U.S. and Soviet Russia are coming much nearer to each other and stop sending arms to the Arabs – I am afraid there will be no peace in the Middle East, between the Arabs themselves and between Arabs and Israel.”
Until the world stops sending the wrong message to Hamas and Gaza, again and again, there will be wars. Until that happens, never again will never really mean what we want it to mean and we will all remain wanting. Wanting peace, wanting an end to wars we didn’t start in a land we will never leave.
