Tuesday, March 18, 2025
Elder of Ziyon
Another Wall? Have You Lost Your Mind?!
This is why liberating
the hostages is not enough
A new wall has
appeared along the highway near Israel’s southern town of Sderot.
Since the war began,
the train has been forced to take a long detour to reach Sderot because this
stretch of track is visible from Gaza—leaving it vulnerable to anti-tank
missiles. Now, a wall stands to block the view, ensuring that terrorists in
Gaza can no longer take aim at the train—or at least not as easily. Walls don’t
erase reality. The terrorists know where the tracks are. They can check the
schedule online, just like any commuter.
With enough
determination, any wall can be breached.
This wall gives the
train something to hide behind. It offers the illusion of security, not real
safety. True security doesn’t come from barriers. It comes from eliminating the
threat—the people who wake up one morning and decide they want to blow up a train
full of Israelis.
If you get close
enough, you’ll see frustration and deep anguish scrawled across the wall in
spray paint: “Another wall?! Have you lost your mind?!”
Hiding behind walls
didn’t stop the Gazan invasion. In many cases, the bomb shelters families were
hiding in became death traps.
The Purpose of the War
When the full horror
of the October 7 invasion became clear—the torture, rape, burning,
slaughtering, and kidnapping of men, women, children, and the elderly—most
Israelis awoke from the Oslo dream of peace with our neighbors. We could no
longer afford illusions.
When people declare
their intent to kill us, meticulously plan to do so, and seize every
opportunity to act on those plans—we must take them at their word.
Most Israelis saw the massacre
and burned with rage that became ice-cold clarity: When we said NEVER
AGAIN, this is what we meant. Never again would we allow Jews to be
slaughtered, tortured, or used as playthings for sadistic monsters who revel in
human suffering.
On October 7, Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it clear: “We are at war—not an
‘operation,’ not a ‘round,’ but war.” Since then, he has repeatedly
outlined three war objectives—none of which can be compromised:
- Return the hostages—both the living and
the dead.
- Ensure Israelis can safely return to their
homes near Gaza (later expanded to include those displaced from the
northern border).
- Ensure that Gaza can never again be a
threat to Israel.
The Hostages—and the
True Measure of Victory
The plight of our
hostages has rightfully consumed much of our attention. Everyone—without
exception—agrees: we must bring them home. All of them, both the living and the
dead. We, the nation and our government, owe this to those we failed to protect
on that terrible day.
The Israeli government
has gone to extreme—and dangerous—lengths to secure the release of the
hostages. Hundreds of terrorists have been freed from our prisons, giving them
the opportunity to strike again. For Hamas (in Gaza and Judea & Samaria),
this is a victory that gives them enormous prestige, the ability to restructure
their chain of command and recruit new fighters (who believe that if caught by
Israel, they will be released in future ransom deals. The temporary ceasefire
has also given Hamas time to prepare for the next battle. The more time that
goes by, the more dangerous it will be for IDF troops.
The government made a calculated choice: to risk the future security of every
Israeli to rescue as many hostages as possible now. Truthfully, the supposed
future risk is not in the future. It is already here.
And with all that,
somewhere along the way, many lost sight of the bigger picture. Rescuing
the hostages is our moral duty, but it is not the measure of victory.
Israeli media is
flooded with voices—self-proclaimed experts, analysts with impressive titles,
and understandably distraught family members—arguing that returning the
hostages will be our triumph. that bringing the hostages home is the sole
objective. That there is no need for revenge. That the war must end.
These ideas are
unacceptable. Completely unacceptable.
The Writing on the
Wall
That graffiti—“Another
wall?! Have you lost your mind?!”—is a scream for real security.
It declares that it is
unacceptable for genocidal monsters to live on our doorstep.
Unacceptable to keep hiding behind walls.
Unacceptable and deadly dangerous to mistake the illusion of safety for real
security—when in reality, the enemy is always trying to breach our defenses, to
invade and slaughter.
That graffiti is a
warning. A warning that if we keep pretending, if we keep avoiding the root of
the problem, we will face another October 7.
The story of the Idan
family makes this painfully clear.
The Idan Family
The Hamas invaders
filmed their atrocities, broadcasting their glee as they tortured, burned, and
slaughtered.
The footage from the
Idan home is something I will carry with me forever. Watching Gali Idan, in the
worst moment of her life, gave me an awe-inspiring lesson in what courage looks
like.
When I first saw the
video, I didn’t yet know that Tzachi Idan had been taken hostage to Gaza—his
hands still soaked in his daughter’s blood.
On February 27, 2025,
Hamas returned his body as part of a ceasefire deal, along with the remains of
three other Israeli hostages: Itzhak Elgarat, Ohad Yahalomi, and Shlomo
Mantzur. Tzachi was laid to rest in Kibbutz Einat, next to his daughter,
Maayan.
The video from their
home needs to be seen. You do not see any of the violence or bloodshed on
screen. What you see is terrible enough - what the family experienced and their
response. There are abbreviated versions of this video online because, supposedly,
people cannot pay attention longer than a few minutes.
But pay attention we
should. Imagine being in their place – because it is only by the grace of God
that we were not.
18 year old Maayan was
shot in the head, in front of her parents, her then 11 year old sister Yael and
19 year old brother Shahar. Terrorists are in their home and none of them know
what will happen next. The Red Alert siren blares repeatedly, warning of
incoming rockets.
Gali, a ferocious
lioness, trying to protect the lives of her children. Tzachi, his hands soaked
with Maayan’s blood, trying to be a stalwart backbone for his family. The
children, trying to understand what they are seeing. Shahar quietly asking his
mother: Is it over? Is it over?
Watch and put yourself
in their place.
https://vimeo.com/1066650024?share=copy#t=0
The invaders took
Tzachi to Gaza. His wife and surviving children received intermittent signs of
life, a flicker of hope that he could be rescued—until they learned that he was
murdered in captivity.
After 510 days,
Tzachi’s body was brought home but that is not enough to make it safe for Gali
and her children to return home.
How can they?
They know the truth:
that their safe room became a death trap. That their sister was murdered. Their
father was taken and tortured by the same people who still live just across the
border. That those monsters are still there, still dreaming of the next October
7.
How can any Israeli
parent bring their children back to live next to Gaza—if Gaza is still full of
Gazans?
The war cannot end until
it is safe for the Idan family to go home. Until it is safe for all of us to go
home. And safety will only come when Gaza is no longer a threat to Israel.
Another wall is
insanity. Another wall is an invitation for another invasion, another massacre.
Liberating the
hostages is crucial—but it is not the measure of victory. Real safety for every
Israeli, ensuring our future, is.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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