The Chief of Staff held a situation assessment at the Air Force pit in Kirya with the commander of the Air Force, R. AMT and R. AMN April 14, 2024/IDF Spokesman
On Sunday morning, on the streets of the State of Israel, we will see a familiar and yet so foreign sight, like seeing a person or a place that is familiar to you, but you cannot in any way remember where from. Let me help: it's about national pride.
Yes, this vital resource, a stock that peaked in June 1967, even before most of us were born - and since then reaches small "peaks" - from Entebbe to Eurovision, from Miss Universe to the European Cup, from the Nobel Prize to the Fauda. This resource, it seems, has been in danger of extinction in recent years - and even more so since October.
There isn't a single Israeli - and it doesn't matter what his political opinion is - who didn't watch the horrors in the documentation of October 7th and didn't mutter to himself: "Where is the IDF?" The fact that we are invested in it not only with huge budgets but also with three years of our lives (well, well, who do I work for - at least most of us were invested that way until a few years ago), in the memories of our parents and in the concern for our children who were drafted in order 8.
A glimmer of this flashed for a moment when a soldier was released One - followed by two more abductees, from Hamas raids, but even these rare moments, flashes of peace in a sea of national depression that has turned into personal depression for many of us, quickly faded away.
The concept that succeeded
And here the sense of existential threat reached its peak: hundreds of aircraft and missiles were launched from Iran towards Israel, an unprecedented air attack, the doomsday we have been warned about for years - the one that the horror scenarios predicted would result in thousands of deaths, "tens of thousands" rushed to correct others.
Then the start-up Nation appeared, a light to the Gentiles, the arrowhead (literally) in an international arrangement that made it clear to everyone not only who the good guys and who the bad guys are, but also that the good guys win.
An entire nation went to sleep, no sleep, collapsed from fatigue knowing clearly that it would be awakened by alarms - and here is the dawn for the dawn of a new day, for a morning full of pride, with an unfamiliar fragrance, yet reminiscent of oblivion in the air. Parents who hugged their children in their arms, drank morning coffee and grumbled about the fact that there are no day camps in the kindergartens (the Iranian attack's version of "Why don't they open another checkout?"). The color returned to the face.
In such a moment of elation, one can suppress some doubts, silence The inner cynic that is inside each of us and reminds us that we definitely know how to repel any threat, provided that the time of the attack is coordinated with us and we are given a few days to prepare for it. And yet - even this inner skeptic choked in front of the pictures from the Air Force pit in Kriya, in front of the Air Force - this that did not come to the rescue (except in the form of several helicopters) and now an attack on a historic scale has been repelled.
There is a lot of talk about the concept that collapsed, who developed it, who is to blame for it becoming the axiom that "Hamas is deterred"? Well, there are concepts that stand the test of time. For years, the Air Force and its air defense system have been training for this day. And as we know from other areas of our lives - from a test at school to a presentation at work: when the exam or meeting is conducted exactly according to the script for which you have prepared in advance, you control every detail and present a perfect performance.
This is exactly what the ground obstacle and the sophisticated means of observation were supposed to do on the southern border, except that there they surprised us with a test on material we had not studied, but only the hard way.
Will do the right thing?
Along with the success and pride that followed, some question marks arose. I must admit that for the first time since they joined the government, I regretted that the Gantz sons and Gadi Eisenkot were not in it from the first day of the war. Why? Because they understood what every sane person grasped immediately after sobering up from the shock that gripped us on October 7: whatever you don't do in the first 48 hours, you won't achieve even in long months of war, which will inevitably turn into a war of attrition.
Whether it is moral or not is debatable, but on October 8 Israel had an international mandate to turn Gaza into a parking lot. The fact that we tried to break up this credit into payments instead of paying it off in cash cost us a crippling isolation, stuck in the middle between what Ben Gvir and Smotrich demand to be done and what the Americans will never allow.
Armed with this lesson, Gantz and Eisenkot came to the cabinet and demanded to strike Iran immediately. In response, Netanyahu did what he does best - and dissolved the decision until the moment when he received an explicit no from the US president. In other words, the possibility of returning to Israel, alongside an impressive defense capability, also the ability to deter, is gone. This allows the Iranians to celebrate now, if not the The damage to Israel then at least changes the parameters in the equation.
Well, others thought - if not a strong and painful reaction to the enemy, at least we will turn this moment of grace, in which the world is on our side again, into a political opportunity.
Memories of the 8th of October
Those who expect Netanyahu to do the right thing are like those who enter the barn at dawn and accidentally try to milk the goat.
The man who dreamed of becoming Churchill, the "Protector of Israel", makes us remember the British Prime Minister who preceded him, Neville Chamberlain (in cultivating Hamas in the hope that a biased Hamas would not dare to attack) and once really Churchill - but In his statement about the Prime Minister who was elected in his place, Clement Attlee: "An empty car stopped near Downing 10 and Clement Attlee got out of it." Yes, history has its own sense of humor, even if it is bitter and painfully sharp British humor.
If there is anything stranger than Netanyahu's inability to do the right thing, it is only the constant expectation that he will do the right thing, for some "real" Netanyahu to suddenly appear and show national responsibility and leadership.
Thus, in the last two days, the voices calling for taking advantage of the momentum and marching on a path that will realize the Saudi option, the one in the name of which the Prime Minister promised us a train from India to Eilat (remember? It was not long ago!), have increased.
The problem is that Israel is led by a prime minister who has reached a historic split between his personal-survival interest and the vital interest of the state. Both the "Saudi option" he could exercise already on October 8, form a coalition of moderate Arab countries against Hamas and Hezbollah, with broad international support.
Why he didn't do it, it seems no longer necessary to explain: Netanyahu is caught between the Saudi option that could have earned him a Nobel Peace Prize, and the Bangbir option, the one that guarantees him a chance of survival until the time of the next elections.
Here, too, a night of national pride is about to crash into a reality of sit back and do nothing: not an offensive response that will strike them with one blow and restore what is left of Israeli deterrence - and not a political initiative that will hurt them more than a military blow.
Between what will happen from this and what will not happen from this, at least we got one moment of pride, of a postcard from a country that once, in its past, chose to prioritize science over (or at least alongside) its art-theory, a souvenir from an air force that destroyed enemy planes while they were on the runways.
A warm memory of a country that once knew how to take its destiny into its own hands and initiate, whether in peacetime or wartime.
Israel that was and is no more.