After the evil and satanism in Gaza, a trail of blood stretches the length of the state's years.
From time to time, and in tragic cases of terrorist attacks, the famous eulogy of Roy Rothberg of Nahal Oz is celebrated. It was in 1956, when Roi Rothberg, a young man who lived in the Nahal Oz settlement, set out with his horse to expel a group of predators from Gaza who wanted to steal the crop. Roy was kidnapped and murdered. Then-IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan eulogized Roy, a eulogy about which the writer Amos Oz wrote that Dayan had risen almost to the rank of poet.
Even these days, many refer to this eulogy. I would like to shine a spotlight on the less quoted obituary sections. Dayan wrote: "Do not accuse murderers today. What do we have to say about their intense hatred of us? For eight years they have been living in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we are turning into an inheritance of the land and villages where they and their ancestors lived."
In the seven decades that have passed since Dayan delivered his eulogy, dramatic events have occurred, culminating in the evacuation of Gush Katif, which gave the residents of Gaza full control over this region. They were given flowering greenhouses on a silver platter, given an economic horizon and enormous potential. The evacuation was accompanied by huge financial grants from many countries, all with Israel's warm support. The world has thrown its hopes that the refugee camps will be destroyed, houses will be built, trees will be planted, and the residents of Gaza will enjoy prosperity and prosperity. The tables were reversed then – the evacuees moved to refugee camps, and before their eyes stood the destroyed settlements from which they were expelled, while the residents of Gaza received their bread as a free gift.
But hope alone and reality separately – Gaza's independence was channeled to the establishment of an army of evil and destruction. Funds were invested in corrupting tools. The luxury greenhouses were vandalized. Everything has been extinct. In democratic elections, Gazans overrid themselves of the rule of the Palestinian Authority and, by a large majority, favored Hamas rule over it. These Hamas supporters sought not their own good, but ours.
Had Moshe Dayan still been among us, he would have seen how wrong he was in removing responsibility from Gazans for the murder of Roi Rothberg. His view was rooted in the Diaspora thinking that the Jew should apologize for his existence, and that it was not the persecutor who was responsible, but the Jew. In his eulogy, he did not place the blame on the murderers from Gaza, but on us, for not protecting Roi. His security vision was: "Our children will have no life if we do not dig shelters, and without barbed wire and machine guns we will not be able to pave a road and drill water... This is the decree of our generation. This is the choice of our lives - to be ready and armed..."
This submissive worldview – as if there is a law of nature according to which hostile forces seeking our lives will grow around us, while we are condemned to burrow into bomb shelters – is now disappearing.
The people living in Zion are tired of entrenchment, and are asking and demanding that their leadership change the world order. No more forces and militias arming themselves and waiting for the right time to harm us. In the spirit of Golda Meir's words: Today's "Rothberg shepherds" were murdered because most Gazan mothers hate our children more than they love their children.
Had Moshe Dayan still been among us, he would have seen how wrong he was in removing responsibility from Gazans for the murder of Roi Rothberg. His view was rooted in the Diaspora thinking that the Jew should apologize for his existence, and that it was not the persecutor who was responsible, but the Jew
75 years of bloody experience with the Gazans leaves us with no option but to fundamentally change Gaza, in accordance with the rules of war and the laws of counterterrorism, and by the same standards as Western democracies that fought such a cruel enemy. Not as revenge, but as an act of defense and deterrence.
Dayan's obituary belongs to the Old World.
The October 2023 war challenges the passive defense concept, the failed policy of living by turning a blind eye to the terrorist organizations that are growing stronger alongside us. The sea in Gaza is the same sea. Gazans are the same Gazans.
But the people of Israel are no longer the same people. Suddenly a people gets up and feels that he made a mistake, and begins to go and struggle differently.
Something has changed in us, and for the better.
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