There is much talk about how the tragedy of the past week is a redux of the Yom Kippur War of 1973. It's also symbolic, as they both took place 50 years apart, almost to the day. Indeed there are quite a few similarities: The intelligence lapses; the operational shock; the painful first strike by the enemy; the High Holidays; the emergency military call-up in the middle of Shabbat. It is as if one trauma dictates the interpretation of the second trauma.
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The memory of the past indeed shapes the perspective on the present. That's natural, perhaps necessary, as a means of dealing with the chaos and shock. It had been less than ten hours since the event began when one commentator announced that this time too, there would be no escape from the domestic political consequences. Because if we go from October 2023 to October 1973, we can cut straight to the findings – and perhaps, straight to the conclusions. Cynicism does not stop at the trauma threshold.
But the shock of the tragic Simchat Torah reminds me also – and perhaps even more so – of what I felt on September 11, 2001. It may be a generational and cultural issue. Just like back then we are now glued to the TV screens and reports to keep updated on an event that continues to roll and unfold beneath our feet. It's not just a terrorist act that we follow it as breaking news as the IDF hunts down the perpetrators. Rather, it's an event that has multiple dimensions as we try to process the situation on the go, seeing people on live television experiencing horrors. Trapped; taken hostage; captured; calling their loved ones as try to evade the terrorists under the mattress and in the dark shelter, whispering into the phone so that the evildoers who had entered would not notice, saying what they believe are their final words because their fate has been sealed unless some miracle happens. But no miracle is performed, and no soldier is there to rescue them.
Our soft underbelly was exposed, as was our helplessness. That's the shock. And the fact that the situation continues to unfold and we are told that we are "under attack." In the present tense. The present continues. In a live broadcast. And then the casualty numbers just grow exponentially, and accumulate, and gather, and the shock solidifies on the faces, in the streets, on the roads. And it's palpable in the air. Something we haven't experienced with such intensity. An order of magnitude of a calamity.
I put aside the blame game for a moment. It's a failure, and we'll investigate it. Definitely. And heads will roll. Everything is correct. But in the realm of national experience, in the realm of consciousness, in the realm of shock, it's closer to the events of September 11th, and in that, October 2023 (slightly) differs from October 1973, and closer to September 2001. It's something that cannot be fully processed, comprehended, or "investigated" at the level of military or political logic. It's something that emerges from a darkness of cruelty and brutality that is just beyond disbelief, that cannot be fully fathomed.
The clock is ticking, some rumors are confirmed, and from time to time, the horror is revealed. Like then, when the Western world as a whole and America, in particular, had to face some kind of total evil, we have to do that now, without overlooking the operational failures and the responsibility of various parties. What sets this event apart is that we get to gaze into the eyes of the villain. It's an event that uproots the ground from beneath our feet, undermining all our attempts to understand it, to dissect its complexity, and to comprehend it.
Suddenly, it looks like what we subscribed to – our overarching paradigm – was upended when jeeps and motorcycles rolled through the fence and indiscriminate shooting began against civilians, the elderly, and children. This was just pure murder; not a strategic accomplishment and a tactical achievement – it was primarily barbaric murder.
This shock is that much greater when we realize what it means: that the very party with which we hope to reconcile, with whom we aspire to at least reach an arrangement, that we very much want to believe will be deep down a rational and sensible actor – who ostensibly puts the welfare of its people first – is actually a retaliatory murderous entity defined by bloodlust.
We need to remember this well, especially when some of us are too loose in using terms like "evil government" or "evil regime" or "fascists" or even "apartheid" in relation to the Israeli government and its soldiers. Not to mention foolish comparisons, truly foolish comparisons, between the Israeli government and the most threatening evil regimes that humanity has known in recent generations.
Perhaps from now on, it will be clearer to us, at least, how true evil behaves, and what the face of pure evil looks like. Maybe after we collect the pieces – which we undoubtedly will – this shock memory will regain some proportion. Maybe we will remember who we stand against and which side we are on. All of us.
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