One Year Later:
I am writing these words on October 7, 2024, one year after the most terrible massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. It was a massacre in which more than 1,200 men, women, and children were brutally raped and murdered, in which Israeli towns were razed to the ground. It was a massacre in which 251 Israelis were taken as hostages into Gaza.
One year later, we are now actively fighting a two-front war, 101 hostages remain unaccounted for, more than 700 soldiers have been killed in action, nearly 11,000 of them have been seriously injured, and more than 60,000 Israelis remain homeless. How does our situation today compare to our situation one year ago?
Yotam Zimri is one of my favorite pundits. He writes a weekly column in the Hebrew newspaper called “Makor Rishon.” Zimri has a way of merging humor, cynicism, and optimism without mangling the facts and in a way that comes across as genuine. In this week’s column, he states unequivocally that regardless of potential causes for despondency that appear in the previous paragraph, the following must be realized. If one looks at the situation from a national perspective, things are far better today than they were one year ago, a day before the October 7 Massacre.
Last year, we believed that our strategic security situation was under control. We were on the cusp of signing an agreement with Saudi Arabia. We were certain that our enemies were deterred and that “quiet” on the other side of the border was equivalent to “safety.” This year, Israel is more secure than it has been in decades. Israel has utterly destroyed Hamas as a fighting organization. Israel is well on its way to doing the same to Hezbollah. Israel has inflicted considerable damage on the Houthis in Yemen, and it appears to be planning to do the same to Iran. Israel has not yet won this war, but at least Israel is now acting like a country that wants to win this war.
Last year, we were arrogant, too sure of ourselves and of our capabilities. We were convinced that our “small and smart” army could defeat any enemy. This year, we learned a lesson in humility. We now understand that an army must be large, powerful, and brilliant in order to protect its citizens and to impose its will upon the enemy.
Last year, we were certain that there was no longer any requirement for infantry. Our defense posture was based on far more glamorous things, like intel, AI, and air power. This year, we understand how much we owe to the hundreds of thousands of infantry soldiers who walked through dangerous urban combat zones in order to storm, to conquer, to free hostages, and to tear Gaza limb from limb. We saw how these soldiers experienced trauma and loss, sending video clips to the home front to pick up their spirits. Last year, “reserve duty” was something we “once did.” This year, many people have served more than 300 days in emergency reserve and still ask their commanders, “So, when are you calling us back already?”
Last year, we believed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, when he equated Israel to a “spider web.” This year, we are proving to our enemies that our strategy has always been to win wars quickly and decisively and to prevent protracted wars of attrition. In cases where this is impossible, the “Eternal Nation” will willingly spend a year or two winning an historic victory.
Last year, we were too frightened to touch a tent that Hezbollah had erected next to the border. We were terrified that it would lead to a disastrous war. This year, we have no qualms dropping 60 tons of explosives on the Dahia neighborhood in Beirut in order to remove from power the person who ordered the erection of that tent.
Last year, we believed in ourselves a little bit too much. This year, we are rebuilding our belief in ourselves brick by brick, slowly, carefully, with a heaping tablespoon of self-doubt that enables us to better ourselves and to sharpen ourselves. To paraphrase a quote made by a rabbi nearly 2000 years ago, “If we are not for ourselves, then who is?”
Last year, we were a divided nation. Too much abundance and too much good had caused us to rot from within and to whittle away the social norms that held our society together. While it is true that this year will not be the year in which the wolf lies down with the lambs – after all, we are a contentious people – it has become evident that people are beginning to understand the enormity of the moment. We are living in a time in which, assuming we play our cards right, 300 years from now people will look back and ask how it felt to be living in such auspicious times.
Zimri concludes: “Yes, we have paid a terrible price over the past year. We have lost nearly 2,000 of our brothers and sisters. We have seen things that the human eye was never meant to behold. We felt the same insecurity that our grandparents felt in Auschwitz, in the Warsaw Ghetto, and in the forest on the run from the Nazis, but in our own country. For the first time, we were concerned about the very future of our country – we still are. Nevertheless, this year I will know that through all that we have been through, the death, the suffering and the fear, we are still far better off than we were last year when we were blinded by an imaginary quiet and a false sense of security. Let us pray that next year we will be joined by another 101 of our brothers who are not here with us today. We must believe. Anything can happen. After all, we live in biblical times.”
Let me add another layer to Zimri’s words. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not convincingly won a war since 1967. Since the late 1990s, Israel has been content to manage the conflict rather than to win it. We have not only begun to doubt the utility of fighting and winning a war, we have begun to doubt our capability of winning that war. And yet, Israelis remain arrogant. We need a little more self-esteem and a little less humility. Is it even possible to reconcile the two? Dr. Abraham Twerski, a rabbi and a world-renowned psychiatrist, specializing in substance abuse, suggested the following definitions:
Self-esteem comes from knowing what one has accomplished. Humility comes from knowing what one has not yet accomplished, although he has the potential to do so. One should be proud of who he is and where he is, but he should always remain cognizant of all that still needs to be done. Humility does not spring from self-abnegation. It springs from self-confidence.
Last year, we were taught a lesson in humility. We found out that we knew far less than we thought we knew about our enemies and about ourselves. Over this past year, we were taught a lesson in self-esteem. Israel is methodically taking apart Iran’s “Ring of Fire” that surrounds us, rendering Iran a “spider’s web” and changing the Middle East for the better and forever. Not only is Israel becoming a better place, new vistas have been opened for international cooperation both economic and military. Israelis will perform a lot more reserve duty than we once did, but our children will live in a country that is truly secure and a country with more allies than ever before. It almost sounds biblical.
So how did we merit living in such “biblical times”? I’m not sure exactly what we did, but whatever we did, we did it together.
Good Things,
Ari Sacher
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