{"id":12905,"date":"2024-01-10T19:48:26","date_gmt":"2024-01-10T17:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/?p=12905"},"modified":"2024-02-27T14:04:48","modified_gmt":"2024-02-27T12:04:48","slug":"returning-to-sites-of-the-massacre-hard-yet-necessary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/returning-to-sites-of-the-massacre-hard-yet-necessary\/","title":{"rendered":"Returning to sites of the massacre, hard yet necessary"},"content":{"rendered":"

We should do whatever it takes! \u2013 to see the evil that so many Gazans unleashed upon us on October 7.<\/span><\/h3>\n

For 89 days, I hesitated. I wanted to protect my soul from blood-splattered floors, from embers that had once been humans, from\u00a0evidence of rape<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 GoPro-ed, then broadcast worldwide by sickos. Then, as more celebrities visited and the selfie-fest-amid-the-ruins began, I feared being what one friend called a \u201cterror tourist,\u201d a voyeur, empathy-signaling amid my people\u2019s pain.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

But last Wednesday, when I visited Kibbutz Kfar Aza, I realized I erred. We \u2013 meaning every civilized person \u2013 should fly thousands of miles, endure hours of waiting \u2013 whatever it takes! \u2013 to see the evil that so many Gazans unleashed upon us on October 7.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Let them see that \u201cus\u201d includes men and women, young and old, dark-skinned and light-skinned, religious and non-religious, Jews and non-Jews. And let them see that \u201cus\u201d includes all who cherish life; who respect civilization\u2019s rules; who know you don\u2019t rape, maim, behead, and torture innocents, even if you hate your neighbors.<\/p>\n

An eerie beauty\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The oddest thing about wandering these kibbutzim along the\u00a0Gaza border<\/a>\u00a0area is how beautiful they remain. These farming collectives made the desert bloom. Each hut testifies to those touches that make life worth living \u2013 while reflecting the peculiar art of being a kibbutznik.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Your old-fashioned LP record marks your address, standing out amid the look-alike houses. You arrange old couches outside to hang out together into the night. Upgrading, you get a washer-dryer \u2013 but keep it outside your small house too.<\/p>\n

Seeing these refinements \u2013 let alone that Zionist symbol, an orange tree, juxtaposed against burned houses, bullet holes, and photos of the missing and dead \u2013 is devastating. Each ruined home, each life destroyed, and each horrific story told demonstrates the gap between our good and their evil.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Our guide, Yossi Landau, helped found ZAKA, those mostly ultra-Orthodox volunteers who collect blood, bodies, and body parts after calamities. The Hebrew acronym for Disaster Victim Identification, ZAKA, also stands for Zeh Keiruv Achim \u2013 this brings us together \u2013 which ZAKA has been doing since 1995.<\/p>\n

Haunting memories<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Yossi explains that Jews collect spilled blood because \u201cyou can live without a limb or without an eye, but you can\u2019t live without blood.\u201d Those words resonate particularly painfully after\u00a0October 7<\/a>. That day, Yossi scrambled from his home in Ashdod, fought terrorists in Sderot, then spent a month supervising ZAKA\u2019s gruesome task. While describing the Hamas savagery he witnessed, he usually spoke quietly, clinically.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Suddenly, he wonders, in anguish, when he recalls seeing the corpses of a brutalized family, whether it was worse if the children saw their parents die first or if the parents saw their children die. No one should ever have to contemplate such questions \u2013 let alone endure such monstrosities.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Recalling that scene, where two parents and two kids were each bound together and suffered unspeakable horrors, he and 11 other volunteers entered the house cautiously, having been warned. There wasn\u2019t \u201cjust a pool of blood, but a lake of blood,\u201d Yossi recalls. Silently, instinctively, they just sat down in the blood, absorbing it.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

\u201cWe then sang songs of hope,\u201d he says: \u201cVehee Sheamda,\u201d the Passover song affirming that our enemies keep trying to destroy us, but God keeps saving us from their bloody hands; and \u201cAni Ma\u2019amin,\u201d the gas chambers\u2019 anthem, affirming our faith that the Messiah will come, soon.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Intellectually and politically, the hardest site for me was a lovely grassy area in the heart of Kfar Aza. Hanging on a simple red-roofed building, a sign picturing seven kibbutzniks proclaims: \u201cThis is where the heroic members of the civil guard were killed while defending the kibbutz.\u201d The Hamas invaders waited across from that building \u2013 the armory \u2013 then ambushed the kibbutz\u2019s guards.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Painful reminders<\/strong><\/h3>\n

THIS SITE represents October 7\u2019s many levels of failure. First, just as the government tolerated Hamas\u2019s bombardments and then built safe rooms that couldn\u2019t be locked because they \u201conly\u201d expected rockets from Gaza, the government tolerated Bedouin thievery and then forced everyone to lock their guns in the armory. Why did they always dodge the underlying problems?<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Alas, few objected because everyone \u201cknew\u201d we had an impregnable fence, unbelievable intelligence, and a third-rate foe who would give us warning time to arm if we ever needed to defend ourselves.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Finally, succumbing to international pressure, the government let so many Gazans work at the kibbutzim. The Palestinians amassed perfect intelligence, learning how our defenders would react \u2013 and where the armories were located. Any \u201cday after\u201d analysis, which addresses specific operational and intelligence failures, without probing governmental incompetence and arrogance, will be as successful as Israel\u2019s NIS 3.5 billion Gaza fence.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

Back home, while planning to return to learn more, especially to see Sderot and Ofakim and understand the resistance that saved those cities, I still struggled with \u201cwhy go.\u201d I turned for wisdom to my late professor, Elie Wiesel. In his 1986 Nobel Peace Prize lecture, Wiesel explained the survivors\u2019 need to remember, record, and testify.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Prof. Wiesel was not na\u00efve. Although knowing that remembering couldn\u2019t prevent evil, he appreciated the twin powers of memory. \u201cRemembering is a noble and necessary act,\u201d he taught. \u201cIt is incumbent upon us to remember the good we have received and the evil we have suffered.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Visiting the South, you cannot forget the evil that every victim suffered, that we suffered. Touring the kibbutzim, you cannot forget the good that the kibbutznikim and their neighbors created. And witnessing the destruction, you vow that we cannot stop fighting until every Israeli can return home in safety, resume their lives, and keep building and beautifying. Each of our affirmations of life defeats the Palestinian death cult, which seeks to deprive us of our joy.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

The writer, a senior fellow in Zionist thought at the Jewish People Policy Institute, is an American presidential historian and the editor of a three-volume set, Theodor Herzl: Zionist Writings, the inaugural publication of The Library of the Jewish People\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Published by Jerusale Post<\/a><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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