Holy Times Desk :

 

Israely ambassador says that, During this last year we’ve regained something else. Something much more important. We regained the trust in ourselves and in our society. The statement of the ambassador was exactly highlighted by the Holy Times.

One year ago, October 7th has shaken our being. It took few hours to grasp the terrible atrocities happening in our southern border. Even after we saw the shocking  first pictures of murder, kidnapping and burning of our people, and the celebrations in Gaza as hostages were being dragged out of vehicles  while mobs shout and hit them, we couldn’t yet understand the magnitude and scope of the catastrophe.  

 

How come this happened? why weren’t we able to stop it? How come human beings behave worse than animals? Animals kill for prey.  But these terrorists were killing and boasting about it. They are worse than animals. They were under written directives to terrorize and show-off about it.   An entire generation of Hamas indoctrinated terrorists were out for a hunt, determined to kill, rape and mutilate. 

 

Only after a day or two we began to understand what happened to us. It became unbearable. The following weeks and months, as more of the terrible scenes and stories of abuse and torture kept coming, we entered into a situation of constant anxiety. Nights without sleep, nightmares. 

 

While that is the sense of the general public, it is hardly imaginable how the surviving victims felt. The wounded, what menu of abuse the hostages are going through, what about their families,  and the bereaved families of those who were brutally murdered , or those killed in the battlefield. Unimaginable degrees of suffering. 

 

And yet, despite the paralyzing trauma, we knew we had to take swift actions. Do what we didn’t want to do. What was clear we’ve been refraining from  doing for years while our enemies were planning our annihilation.  

 

Approximately 50 years ago, when we were subject to a surprise attack on October 6th  1973, it was mainly the IDF forces which took the blow. The national trauma kept haunting us for years after the war, affecting the psyche of an entire generation.

However despite the fact that the Israel Defense Forces are a citizen’s army, the basic promise  of the State to

protect civilians was kept then, even when it was at a tremendous cost. 

 

50 years later, the 7th of October 2023 was much worse. Not because more people died on that day, and keep dying as we speak. 

It was because at the national level, the basic contract between citizen and state was breached. We, the government of Israel and the IDF failed in our most basic and essential mission: to defend our citizens. 

 

So even long after we defeat our enemies, it’ll take Israelis a very long time to regain trust in our state institutions.  

 

However, there are also some good news. 

During this last year we’ve regained something else. Something much more important. We regained the trust in ourselves and in our society. 

Because what we’ve seen coming from our midst was no less than spectacular. Tens of thousands of Israelis came back from abroad to join the fight for our defense. People usually escape from war zones. In our case,  it was the opposite way around. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers and even millions came out not only to fight, but also give a hand to the needy: to the victims and their families, to the residents of the south and the north, to the soldiers. They volunteered to work extra hours to keep the economy going, to keep the farms functioning, the factories running in extra shifts and more. 

 

The most amazing thing to watch is our young generation. We failed them. But they outperformed beyond any expectation. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a show of remarkable resilience. 

 

Dear friends: Rest assure that Israel will prevail. We will defeat our enemies. We will bring back our hostages. We will work hard to learn from our mistakes. 

Israelis know that after almost two millennia of exile, we have come back to our homeland to stay. We don’t have anywhere else  to go. We will live in our land as a free, democratic and sovereign nation. 

We will continue not only to survive. We will continue to thrive as one of the most successful countries on earth. We will continue contributing to humanity in almost every field. And we will continue to push for a secure peace with our neighbors. We know that in order to achieve that we have a lot of work ahead of us: Defeating the terrorists and their sponsors and installing the security, political and economic building blocks which are the prerequisites of peace in our region.

 

We are grateful for the support of the Government and People of India, who know all too well the struggle against terrorists, and that partners with us, and our neighbors, to build a better future. 

ה׳ עוז לעמו יתן, ה׳ יברך את עמו  בשלום 

May God grant courage to its People, May God bless its People with Peace. 

 

Thank you all for coming.