Last week, we stopped for two minutes as a siren blared out its plaintive call of remembrance for those who were murdered in the Holocaust – the culmination of two millennia of world-wide anti-Semitism.
And this week, those same sirens will blare two more plaintive calls of remembrance for Israeli soldiers who have been killed in the line of battle, and for Israeli citizens and our friends who have been killed in terrorist attacks – the work of those who believe the Holocaust's job is not yet done.
For every one of the people taken from us by our enemies, for every life cut short, for every life deprived of its full meaning through the loss of a loved one, we stand in honor and in memory.
And then, with the honor and memory of the fallen still fresh in our minds and our hearts, we celebrate what they gave their lives for us to have – our own independent, strong, vital, powerful, productive, spiritual identity and a place to let all of that blossom forth.
Israelis know better than any other nation how to celebrate – with strength, with vigor, and with a heart dripping with tears over what our celebration has cost. And those tears give our celebration that much more meaning, because we are also celebrating for them – for those who can't be here to celebrate with us.
This year, for the first time since I was old enough to drive, I am not displaying an Israeli flag on my car or on my home. This is not because the celebrations are any less meaningful to me, for they are not. The State of Israel in the Land of Israel is no less miraculous, no less powerful, no less a manifestation of the return of the Jewish nation to our G-d-given homeland, than it has been in previous years. And certainly I will join in the celebrations in my community and across the nation.
But for me, this year's Remembrance Day is far more powerful than it has been previously, for there is far more to remember.
This year, I remember 1118 people who have been murdered by our terrorist enemies in the past five years. I stand with their families in mourning over the incredible loss their lives represent.
This year I remember 24 communities that a year ago were flourishing outposts of humanity in a region of inhumane animals bent only on killing. This year, those communities no longer exist – torn out of the ground by a Jewish government in an action that, had it been committed anywhere else in the world, would have been condemned as an anti-Semitic pogrom. 8000 people were left homeless by a Jewish government pledged to their protection. Most of them remain without new jobs. None have permanent housing, many do not even have adequate temporary housing, and few have been given the promised compensation, nine months after the lives they had worked so hard to build were destroyed.
The places where those homes once stood are now used by terrorists as training grounds and as launch sites for missiles aimed at other Jewish communities, as the murderous campaign of our terrorist neighbors continues unabated.
This year I remember a time when the Israeli government represented an end to such pogroms around the world. When the thought of Israeli military reprisal was enough to scare off potential attackers and when the use of that military meant certain defeat for anyone not wise enough to be scared off. Now, the IDF is hamstrung by inept leaders and cowardly politicians more interested in appeasement than in victory.
Last month, though, Israel elected a new prime minister – a man quoted within the last year as saying, "We are tired of fighting. We are tired of being courageous. We are tired of winning. We are tired of defeating our enemies."
Ehud Olmert should listen very carefully to the sirens this week. The kind of attitude he described to a group in New York last June raises some serious questions: If he is tired of fighting, what would he rather have us do, simply give up and be killed? If he is tired of being courageous, what would he rather have us do, return to the meek and powerless existence that resulted in our deaths at the hands of pogrom, inquisition and Holocaust? If he is tired of winning, what would he rather have us do, lose? If he is tired of defeating our enemies, what would he rather, that they defeat us?
As one of the primary driving forces behind last summer's expulsion plan, Ehud Olmert has already set in motion policies to achieve exactly these aims. And last month we elected this man prime minister. He is liable to think that his election means a public mandate for him to achieve the further return of the Jews to an oppressed and degraded nation. That is not something I can wave from my car or my home.
The sirens we hear this week are plaintive. They are the entire nation – the very land itself – crying over what we have lost. They don't exist anywhere else in the world. But this year, they have another reason to cry. They are crying out a warning that it can happen again. And as long as that is true, we have not truly won anything.
Copyright 2006. All rights reserved. Yehuda Poch is a journalist living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission of the author only.
