21 years have passed since the first Qassam landed in my city, Sderot.
It happened on April 16, 2001, and has changed in many ways since then.
Last week we returned to the security rooms, and the wounds of the children of Sderot were reopened.
The next night, I looked at the newspaper headlines and rubbed my eyes in astonishment: there were those who explained that the one rocket was the result of "selling" Israel to the Muslim Brotherhood in the Bennett government.
It is hard to understand where those people were, when over the last decade we have absorbed thousands of rockets, put out hundreds of fires, buried the dead, lost corpses and captives and had to flee our homes for months, cumulatively.
Assuming that these are not completely detached people, that history began, for them, in June 2021, it seems that the security of the children of Sderot depends on a political position.
The suggestion of those people is, apparently, to go back to what we have experienced in the last decade.
As a resident of Sderot, I have mostly local and regional sentiments.
I would love any solution that would stop the cycle of horror.
When Netanyahu had the first ever discussion in the Security Cabinet in 2018 about the series in Gaza, I stood with my friends to support reaching solutions.
When Israel Katz was the only cabinet member to be interviewed and proposed a new strategy for the war against Hamas (building an artificial island in Gaza waters for a commodity port), his words were echoed in the "Hope instead of War" campaign.
These were flickers that did not lead to talk.
My children and I have been on the absorbing side for the past 21 years;
Hamas is a murderous organization that violates human rights in Gaza and Sderot.
But I was educated on Zionism that produces reality and not just responds, on creative Israeliness that does not freeze on the yeast but generates solutions.
The strong side can establish facts on the ground and replace a strategy that has not proven itself - the siege strategy announced by the Olmert government in 2007 - with an effective strategy.
The strategy must fit the new political climate, of the Abrahamic Agreements, and strengthen ties with Egypt.
Military personnel talk about this equation: rehabilitating infrastructure in Gaza and establishing a seaport, bringing Gazan workers in large masses into Israel and a series of joint economic projects for the benefit of electricity, water and health.
What is the value?
Quiet, and the return of Mengistu and A-Side and the bodies of Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin.
Such a move would require significant mobilization of Egypt, Qatar, the European Union and the United Nations. Not easy, but we have seen what efforts are invested in trying to mediate a huge war in Europe. Birth, the 21-year war against Gaza is null and void in the sixties. Those who try to portray Netanyahu's rule as preferable to the Gaza Envelope should remember that it is impossible to work for the entire public all the time.
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
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