Last night we had a sliver of light in the darkness.
We rejoiced at the brave rescue of one of the hostages, Ori Megidish, 19 years old, from a Gaza tunnel, by the IDF. A young girl who was taken, is now back with her family, back home.
Together with the 4 hostages released last week by Hamas (a mom and daughter, both US citizens who were visiting family in Israel and a couple of days later, 2 elderly women, aged 80 and 85), that makes 5 hostages out, 238 (by latest count) to go.
A ray of hope… Still so much more to do.
I haven’t written for a week because I didn’t know what to write. As time goes on, it becomes harder for me to balance a seemingly impossible situation with trying to carry on as “normal.” How do you get “used to” this situation?
As I write this, a siren goes off. We know the drill. 90 seconds to bomb shelter. Wait for the booms that shake the foundations of our house to subside. Carry on.
With every day that passes, more things pop up on the news, stories I haven’t yet seen – both of terror and unbelievable courage. It’s hard to understand and hard to wrap my head and heart around. Interviews with people who survived. Interviews with family members of hostages. Conversations with people whose loved ones died. Every single one, heartbreaking.
And here’s what I want to say today, in case anyone is not sure.
I stand with Israel. I stand by our right to defend ourselves from monstrous attacks. I stand by our right to defend ourselves against rockets deliberately aimed at civilians, at our cities. I stand by our right to protect our borders – look what happened when we weren’t on the ball.
And I stand for peace.
But let’s not get confused. There’s a time for peace and unfortunately, a time for war. The losses are always devastating but there has to be a response to what we’re going through, since 7 October.
I’m so distressed to see the hatred being spewed towards Israel. I’m distressed to see Jewish people living outside of Israel, scared for their lives, scared to wear their Star of David necklaces or their yarmulkes, for fear of being attacked. I’m distressed to see Jewish people feeling threatened for no reason other than that they’re Jewish.
For the haters, I only have one question. And this question has really been sitting with me since the beginning because I hadn’t seen a journalist brave enough to ask it right from the beginning. Actually, in the last couple of days, there were 2 instances of this being asked and of course, no answer was provided.
Here it is…
What would you suggest Israel should do in response to 1400 brutally heinous murders and attacks, 238 hostages still sitting in captivity in Gaza, rockets continuing to fly into cities every single day and various attempted attacks continuing to be initiated?
How would you respond if it was your nine family members sitting as hostages for 3 and half weeks now?
What is an appropriate response?
That’s all I want to know.
I choose to trust our people to do what they know best to get our people out and our civilians restored to a level of safety.
To our supporters, I want to say thank you. Thank you for the courage to stick by us and our right to defend ourselves, although I do wish it wouldn’t need to be regarded as a courageous act. Thank you for the messages of support and love. Thank you for displaying the photos of our kidnapped all around the world – New York, Amsterdam, London, Geneva, Paris, Cape Town, Johannesburg and more. Thank you for the rallies in support of Israel.
Someone shared a post with me recently that came from an influencer who wanted to comment about the devastation in Israel. He was asked to do so by a friend of his. This is an influencer I follow and I appreciate his style and positivity. His post was a long ramble about anything but Israel and he highlighted that there are 27 “states of conflict” in the world and that we’re all in this together so we should pray for peace.
Yes. I pray for peace every day. That’s all we ever want over here in Israel and I’ll happily debate this with anyone who’s interested in facts rather than propaganda.
I wrote to this influencer, no reply yet:
Hi B
I love your posts. Your heart is in the right place. I love that you’re the one looking for positive angles to share. I love that you’re for peace. So am I.
AND
I live in Israel (also South African) and I found your post super-confusing.
Just one question, after 9/11 would you post a message of condolence to friends in the US, praying for peace or would you post about all the conflict in all the world, in general and how you pray for peace, in general?
Same question and I’ll get more specific, if your friend experienced a brutal rape, would you show empathy and give them a shoulder to cry on, or would you quote statistics about how many women get raped all over the world and say let’s pray for peace?
I bet your friend wasn’t asking you to post about the Israel-Palestine conflict but rather to show support and compassion for the brutal attack (and continued aftermath) that happened on 7/10/23 in Israel.
That’s all!
With love ❤️
So let’s not get confused. Israel is acting in the only way possible in this situation and still doing it in the most humane way possible.
A question I would pose to every human being right now is,
How are you showing up in this time?
Are you reaching out to people you care about, showing empathy, love and support for what they’re going through or do you choose to pontificate about history and politics and world strife?
I feel truly blessed to have so much support from people near and far. Business clients, colleagues and associates, some who I’ve not been in touch with for years, have reached out to see how we are. Friends from near and far and constantly in touch with messages of support. That means everything to me!
I stand with Israel.
Am Yisrael Chai 🇮🇱