Smotrich’s visit to Nir Oz offers hope of unity, Netanyahu should follow suit - editorial

The daily news is becoming too painful to follow. Almost every day, we’re inundated with photos and heartbreaking stories of newly fallen soldiers… their faces so young, innocent and full of promise and potential for the future, now buried in the ground. Many of them just children, really.

Their families talk lovingly of them and their shortened lives, and as their funeral processions inch out from their homes, neighbors, some waving Israeli flags, line the streets in a silent vigil. 

It’s become one of the defining and lasting images of the year of the Israel-Gaza War, which has since spread to Lebanon as well.

It’s unclear how much more anguish and death the residents of Israel can endure, as not only the death toll continues to rise, but there appears to be no progress toward the release of the 101 hostages still being held by terror groups in Gaza.

Wednesday’s video released by The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which shows hostage Alexander (Sasha) Troufanov, in captivity since October 7, 2023, appealing for his and the other hostages’ release, has only added to the sense of helplessness that has engulfed much of the country.

The rising anger and animosity toward an Israeli government that is apparently unable to achieve its goals of ending Hamas’s rule in Gaza and securing the hostages release is splitting Israel even more than the pre-war judicial upheaval travesty. 

The mutual distrust between those who demand a cease fire at any cost and those that are insistent at continuing the war until “total victory” is decaying any sense of unity the country experienced during the war’s first months.

Israelis are strong and resilient, but there’s a limit to the pain we can absorb without an inkling that there’s light at the end of the dark tunnel.

Thankfully, a ray shone through a bit on Wednesday, providing a modicum of hope that there’s more that unites Israelis than divides us.

A ray of hope shines through 

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionism Party) paid an emotionally charged visit to Kibbutz Nir Oz, “ground zero” of the October 7 Hamas massacre. 

The terrorists killed or kidnapped 117 out of its 400 residents, and there are 29 hostages from the kibbutz still being held. Only seven of the 220 homes in the border community were untouched by the violence of that tragic day.

Earlier this week, the kibbutz voted to rebuild its shattered community, once a bucolic paradise.

Smotrich toured the site of the atrocities perpetrated and met with relatives of the hostages as well as former captives who were released last November. 

He was treated with respect by the kibbutz members, who had every reason to be angry with him. Smotrich has been seen as one of the main proponents of defeating Hamas as a priority over a deal to release the hostages and a halt to the war.

 “He was a different person from when he came in to when he left,” Yehiel, a kibbutz member told Kan Reshet Bet on Thursday. “You could see that seeing what happened at Nir Oz affected him deeply.”

Smotrich responded to the open arms of the kibbutz by reaching out to them.

“I thank you for opening your door and your heart, this isn’t taken for granted,” he said. “This isn’t trivial, I’m not sure that in your shoes I would have been able to invite, welcome and look in the eyes someone who after all is among those responsible for a horrific failure,” he said.

 “On a personal level, I’ve been living it, and for a year I’ve been going to sleep with this and getting up in the morning with this,” Smotrich said. 

“This is a different experience to yours, but [I’ve been living] with the feeling of responsibility and guilt, and mainly with the commitment to fixing whatever we can.”

It takes courage on both sides to reach out and attempt to understand the other side, and that was what the members of Nir Oz and Smotrich did.

The finance minister called the kibbutz’s decision to rebuild a “real, meaningful victory.” 

But a smaller victory was the visit, showing that a country in trauma can acknowledge its disparate viewpoints and embrace each other in a display of compassion and strength.

Will Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu follow suit?