Five words for when the war ends

When the war ends or, as is more likely, when it drags out for a while as a war of attrition, the five most important words that we will all have to say to each other are: “I’m sorry, you were right!”

If we can do this as a nation, we will have learned the lessons of a war that threatened our future here and rightfully scared the living daylights out of Jews everywhere.

Who needs to say these words and to whom?

Those of us who supported the pullout from Gaza in 2005 need to tell those who warned us of what might happen “I’m sorry, you were right! You warned us that if we pulled everyone out of Gaza and destroyed the 21 Israeli settlements there that, ultimately, we would be faced with an enemy within spitting distance of our southern flank.

 We thought that the Gazans under the leadership of the Palestinian authority would take that land and possibly convert it into the Singapore of the Middle East. Sadly, we were the dreamers and you were right, it did become an enemy on our southern flank and October 7th was the result.”

Those of us who were in favor of the Oslo Accords when they were presented for a vote in 1993 need to say “I’m sorry, you were right!” to those who warned us that the accords would result in the death and maiming of Israelis by an enemy on our eastern flank; they were accurate in their predictions. We later had to build a wall in order to minimize the damage, yet terrorist attacks continue until today.

Those of you who came into power with a right-wing coalition in November 2022, and pursued a framework of judicial reform that caused the biggest political rift in the history of Israel need to say to those of us who objected, “I’m sorry…..you were right!” Your pursuit of that reform in the face of nine months of civil unrest projected weakness to our enemies who then took the opportunity to attack us while we were otherwise engaged. You made a mistake and you are obligated to acknowledge it.

On this same subject, the leadership of Israel’s Supreme Court in the years prior to 2022 also needs to say to all of us, “I’m sorry, you were right!” Their arrogating power to themselves to regularly override the prerogative of the elected representatives of the people to make laws was, in itself, a festering wound that culminated in the push by the Right last year to “take the country” back at they liked to say.

They were as guilty of acting without consensus over the years as the current government was in 2022. They are both to blame and need to recognize it.

While it is true that in this period of conflict, there is a lot of discussion of what will happen with Gaza, who will rule there, who will be in charge of security issues, how Israelis will be able to feel safe living in the Gaza border communities, and how best to move forward, these are administrative issues similar to those faced by any nation that gets drawn into war and comes out victorious. They are important questions to be sure, but they don’t deal with the soul of Israel.

For us to move forward as a nation, we will need to heal our collective souls and ensure that we do not slip back into the kind of civil strife we experienced in the first nine months of 2023. Our challenge will be to take the unity that developed almost instantaneously on October 8 and internalize that, as the norm among our people both here and abroad for they too have been traumatized by the events of October 7.

How do we do this? How do we make this happen?

I believe that we need to start speaking this way now and hear these words from our senior political, religious, and commercial leadership, led by the president of Israel. President Isaac Herzog needs to use his office to set the tone for our communal effort to heal our collective soul and underscore the fact that a country our size and a people so relatively small in numbers, cannot, must not, and should not ever again allow itself to be split by civil strife.

We are a smart people in a nation that has used that intelligence in so many ways to make the world a better place. It is time we took those “smarts” and used them to ensure that this country will become a safe and secure haven for the Jewish people. We do not ever want to see a “next time.”

It was David Ben-Gurion who said: “Suffering makes a people greater, and we have suffered much. We had a message to give the world, but we were overwhelmed, and the message was cut off in the middle. In time, there will be millions of us – becoming stronger and stronger – and we will complete the message.” Today, there are millions of us here, and it is time to complete the message. It is in our hands to do so, and we dare not miss the opportunity.

The writer has lived in Israel for 40 years, is CEO of Atid EDI Ltd., an international business development consultancy. He is also the founder and chair of the American State Offices Association, former national president of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel (AACI), and a past chairperson of the board of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies.