מבירא עמיקתא לאיגרא רמא
Mebira amikata leigra rama

From a deep ditch to a tall roof

Just as on 10/6/23 you could not imagine that what was going to unfold in a few hours was even possible, so too I am convinced that there is no one in Israel who thought on 10/7/23 that this would be where Israel stands on 10/7/24.

In the first month of the war, I received countless e-mails from people who seriously feared that this was the end of the State of Israel. After the terrible blow we received from Hamas in the south, there was a strong fear that Hezbollah would join the campaign and Iran would finish the job.
The Iranian axis seemed very threatening and the Israeli army seemed incapable of the task.

And here we are, on 10/7/24. Hamas’s military capabilities are almost eliminated, Hezbollah took unprecedented blows that left us all speechless, and Iran lifted us up for landing, at the ultimate point of time, from Israel’s point of view, to eliminate the Iranian threat.

The Iranian axis is disintegrating link by link and Iran stands naked. The master plan of Qassem Soleimani, commander of the legendary Quds force, is collapsing. He wanted to keep the war away from Iran and manage it through the many (and powerful) proxies of the Axis. Now, the house of cards is collapsing and the fire threatens to take hold of the Ayatollahs’ mantle, right on their doorstep. Very far from the original plan.

I will allow myself to say a sentence that may not be comfortable for everyone, but from a historical perspective, from a bird’s eye view, the events of October 7th strengthened the position of the State of Isrsel for decades to come.

Think for a moment what would have happened if the events had arrived two years later:
Hamas would have strengthened militarily, Hezbollah would have continued to grow stronger and Iran would have obtained a nuclear bomb. Israel would have remained stuck in its conception, without any legitimacy in the international community to act to thwart the growing threat. Hamas and Hezbollah would have breached the borders in a coordinated manner with Iran overhead with a nuclear threat.
The results would be terrible beyond imagination.
This was avoided.

Just as the Holocaust was a significant driving factor in the establishment of the State of Israel, so too were the events of October 7th in ensuring Israel’s security for decades to come. We didn’t choose it but that’s what happened.

It may sound like a cliché, but the heroes who gave their lives on October 7th and in the year that has passed since then are the silver platter on which the State of Israel was reborn.

Israel is now at the highest point it has been in recent decades in terms of power relations vis-à-vis its enemies in the Middle East. Both in terms of deterrence and in terms of de facto superiority on the battlefield. Israel competes in 7 arenas, almost alone, and it can handle them. It is true that it takes time. It is true that there is more work. It is true that there are still difficult days ahead of us, but we have the upper hand now and it is getting better and better as time passes. Long-suffering works in our favor. Our enemies, who boasted of their “firm stand” and did not believe we had the same steadfastness, discover to their surprise that they were wrong. Time amplifies the current Israeli achievement and establishes it. We will enjoy the fruits for decades to come.

At the same time, it is important to remember on this day that time does not play in favor of our brothers and sisters kidnapped by Hamas – our open and bleeding wound. A wound that prevents us from being whole.
We will remember the many hostages on this day and wish for their return soon. We will remember our dead, our wounded, their families. It is important that we remember how much we owe them. Forever.
And we will remember to win. Thanks to them and for them.
Because we have no other choice.
Together we are already winning.

From a deep ditch to a tall roof. In one year.