3 November, 2023
On Monday 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 four 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, two elderly women, aged 80 and 85), that makes five hostages out; 242 (by latest count) to go.
A ray of hope… Still so much more to do.
I haven’t written for more than 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. Ninety 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 happened on 7th October and which has been continuing since.
I’m so distressed to see the hatred being spewed towards Israel and the Jewish people.
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 have only 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 a couple of instances of this question being asked and of course, deflected. No answer provided.
Here it is…
What would you suggest Israel should do in response to 1,400 brutally heinous murders and attacks, 242 hostages still sitting in captivity in Gaza?
What would you do when rockets continue to fly into cities every single day and many terrorist attacks still continue?
How would you respond if it was your nine or 12 family members sitting as hostages for three and half weeks now? Or your three- and six-year-old kids? Or any of the other 242 stories that go along with the hostages?
What is an appropriate response?
That’s all I want to know.
I choose to trust the people in charge 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, Sydney, Cape Town, Johannesburg, and more.
Thank you for the rallies in support of Israel.
Thank you for calling out those who’ve somehow lost their moral compass.
So… let’s not get confused.
Israel is responding in the only way possible to this situation and still doing it in the most humane way possible.
This has nothing to do with politics. Every action has a reaction and this is Israel’s reasonable response to the massacre on 7th October.
A question I would pose to every human being right now is,
How are you showing up during 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 of whom I’ve not been in touch with for years, have reached out to see how we are. Friends from all over the world are constantly in touch with messages of support. That means everything to me!
I stand with Israel. Am Yisrael Chai 🇮🇱
