Why We Watch...When it Doesn't Help

"I don't understand why you're watching this. It doesn't help anyone," David says as he hears the reporter speaking. 

And yet, I know that he's seen these pictures and worse. The army called him in on Saturday, on Shabbat. On a day when we don't answer telephones, he answered the army's call. On a day we don't drive, he got in the car and began driving home. He'd gone for the holidays to one of the northern most cities in Israel to enjoy the day with friends. At night they danced and during the day, they prepared.

He drove home but by the time he got home, I was sitting in front of the computer crying. I didn't make the connection. How he got home in only an hour and a half from a place close to three hours away. Jewish law places prime importance on life, on saving lives. 

And so soldiers regularly do what they have to do to protect. Ambulance drivers drive, doctors, nurses and so many others work to save lives all week, and on the Sabbath too. So, my son who was raised not to answer the phone, not to drive, did both. 

In the end, the army made him wait until two days ago. He drove hours to be mobilized and hours back when, overwhelmed with volunteers, they didn't yet have a place for him. And so he came back and now is registering to do security work here in our city until he is called.

And I sit. I can't defend Israel except, perhaps, with words. And so I force myself to see the pictures. The first shown from the beautiful little village of Netiv Ha'asarah, which was established in 1982. It lies only 700 meters from Gaza and is...was home to approximately 70 Israeli families. The name means "Path of the Ten" - the 10 were IDF soldiers who died in a helicopter crash in 1971.

Twenty-one members of this small village were butchered by Hamas.

Why do I watch? The reporter, in a broken voice answers, "It was important for us to come today and to show you what really happened here, what people experienced and what people will have to do to come back, if they will come back."

They burned people here, burned buildings. It breaks us to watch these pictures. We are all broken inside, knowing we have no time now to fix ourselves. There is work to do before we rest.

Hamas must be destroyed so another reporter doesn't stand in another village and report of what once was. So that my children will never sit here, as I sit here, waiting for the next alert, the next invasion, more terror.

Israel is united that it ends here. What "it" is depends on Gaza. Our goal is to end Hamas and if Gaza rises up to defend Hamas, it may well be the end of Gaza as we know it today. Israel was changed forever on Saturday, October 7, on the holiday of Simchat Torah.

Our message to Gaza is that you cannot possibly be stupid enough to think your world won't change now that you forced this change upon us. Since the day I began dreaming of living in Israel when I was 13-years-old, I knew that there are answers to Hitler, to all the Hitlers in the world. 

I was born on November 9 - the anniversary of Kristallnacht, when the Germans told the world what they would do. But no one believed and so they did what they planned - murder, death. And our answer was Israel. Israel was the sole reason, I have told many, why the Holocaust won't happen again.

Now we must show the world and Hamas, what happens when you murder Jews. We are not Jews with trembling knees. This is what Menachem Begin told Vice President Joe Biden; this is what Israel will show Gaza while President Joe Biden sends American aircraft carriers close by.

"It doesn't help anyone," said my son. No, it doesn't help anyone. And he is someone who helps people. A medic and first responder. It doesn't help because there is no one left to help. For this, Hamas will pay to the end of eternity, and beyond.

And moments ago, Gaza fired yet again on Netiv Ha'assarah.