What Does Israel Need to Win?
Question: We are at war. Terrorists, Hamas, have entered Israeli territory. They captured the border kibbutzim and even entered our cities.
There are a lot of tragedies around. We hear blood-chilling stories—both stories of courage and stories of killing. All this is filmed on phones and posted on the networks. It is terrible!
There was a festival where 3,000 young people gathered in the south. Hundreds of them were killed. The number of deaths is already approaching a thousand. I am afraid to name numbers. There are thousands of wounded, and what is even more scary for Israel is that there are lots of captives. Once the whole country was talking about one captive. Now there are a huge number of them.
How should we relate to all this?
Answer: This is terrible! This is terrible. I understand the grief and the feeling of those who are now in captivity in the hands of those who hate us. They really do hate us. I felt this hatred. Of course it is terrible!
Question: We are talking with you on the third day of the war. There are still terrorists there who are fighting, and our guys are dying. Their names are published; they are from our most elite special forces, real heroes. Why do the best die first?
Answer: It is like that always and everywhere.
Question: What kind of law is this?
Answer: The fact is that war reveals the true structure of society. Therefore, those who belong to its best parts find themselves ahead. It is they who are sent first, who go and die.
Comment: That is, this is the hope of the country; these are the best ones.
My Response: The best ones that we have.
Comment: Just imagine! It takes years to raise such soldiers. And they go and die. This is, of course, very frustrating!
My Response: It is impossible to put it in words!
Comment: What we see now is all being filmed: how they kill and how brutally they do it all. They came to kill us, and it feels like they are animals.
My Response: Yes, of course, they are animals. They have been prepared for this, and they are fulfilling their “national duty.” That is what they think.
Question: That is, for the other side they are heroes?
Answer: Yes, definitely!
Comment: For all of them.
My Response: For everyone.
Question: Is it possible to kill and be considered a hero?
Answer: Absolutely all residents of Gaza are prepared to kill and in general sweep Israel away from its place.
Comment: And not just kill—kill like that! Just like that in a totally merciless way.
My Response: They do not consider it at all.
Comment: There are such ruthless, cold beings demanding our destruction in front of us.
My Response: Animals.
Question: Animals. Then what should our attitude be? What should we do? Now we understand this. What should we do?
Answer: We must totally destroy this territory because it will remain the source of all problems. There is nothing to be done about it!
Question: You said “destroy this territory.” What do you mean?
Answer: I mean that the several million people living in this territory simply need to be resettled. Not to allow this territory called Gaza to exist anymore. To keep such a flammable, explosive mixture at your side, and to provide for it, and to feed it above all. There is no such thing anywhere, and it is not acceptable anywhere.
Comment: If we leave it as it is and play our game again somehow…
My Response: Nothing will help, and in the future we will have to deal with this on an even larger scale.
Question: And what is going on in the north! There we have Nasrallah, Hezbollah, and Iran. What can we do with all this, with these instigators?
Answer: There is only one thing that can be done about all this—we Israelis need peace, unity, and understanding among ourselves, and then we will not have any problems with our neighbors. In general, all the problems in the world will disappear.
Question: Does it mean that you see this basis of everything to such an extent?
Answer: I am constantly talking and warning about this. Personally, I believe that this is the only way to deal with it.
The reason is that Israel exists within such a framework, under such terrible pressure from the outside world in relation to the fact that we are not bestowing to the world what we should bestow.
We must bring the world an example of unity between us in the first place. And if we choose all kinds of mutual hatred, internal demonstrations and other things happening with us, if we, in principle, are ready to kill each other internally, then naturally we will see a reflection of these relationships from the outside.
Our internal hatred, which flared up before the war, led to this war and to the way our enemies behave with us.
Question: To this ruthlessness toward us?
Answer: Yes. In principle, they are not enemies. We set them up this way through our attitude toward each other. So we do not need to talk much here. We only need to convince ourselves that we must love each other and then everything in the world will calm down, and there will not be a single person nor a single nation that would be against us.
Comment: Today the world sees these horrors, and all this is posted on the internet. These images are being sent everywhere, and yet I am sure it will not be long before everything is erased from the world’s memory.
My Response: If we forget about this within Israel, then we will have to feel how it is to be reminded of this again.
Question: So we should not forget about this?
Answer: Not only not to forget, we must correct it completely.
Comment: For this we must understand the basis of everything you are talking about.
My Response: The basis of everything is our hatred of each other.
Question: The question is whether we should rely only on ourselves or whether we should rely on some kind of help and regret on the part of the world? What should our attitude be?
Answer: We must not rely on anyone! Only on ourselves and on the Creator! Only in this case can we see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Question: In 1973 there were regular armies standing in front of us. They say that what is happening now is similar to the Yom Kippur war 50 years ago. By the way, it started almost the same day.
Then entire armies opposed us, but we won. Now these are terrorists who have entered our land. What has changed in us since then?
Answer: We neglected the opportunity to unite, to build ourselves, to build a normal state and a normal society. Everyone thinks about themselves. Everyone wants to have more and better than their neighbor. This is the difference between us today and what used to be before.
I do not think that everything is lost, but the point is whether we have achieved the kind of connection between us that will give us a feeling of the right attitude toward each other and security—that we are a single people and not one that is divided and is simply breaking into many different pieces.
Question: Can we say that at that time we were still, as it were, children of kibbutzniks—was there such a state then? And today are we already children of rich parents?
Answer: Yes, definitely!
Question: Terrorists easily penetrated the security structures on the border with Gaza. We built this wall, invested a billion dollars, and installed cameras and sensors.
In the end none of this worked, and there are a lot of questions about this both on the Internet and in interviews with people. How could this happen?! How could our intelligence forces, which are considered the best intelligence forces in the world, miss all this?
Why was the army so slow? Only six hours later, as it was reported, they entered the kibbutzim, and began some kind of action. For six hours people stayed there, hid, and locked themselves in their houses.
Where does all this come from? How could intelligence screw this up? Tell me, please, even in just an earthly way.
Answer: A war begins when it is clear that we do not know how to defend ourselves, that we have lost our strength. Then enemies begin the war.
Question: That is, then intelligence and vigilance are put to sleep, and war begins?
Answer: Yes, it is already coming from above. It is our problem, and there is a big showdown ahead. Unless it makes it still worse for us. Our internal enemies will dance on the ashes.
Question: Do you want to say that in this matter the Creator is, as it were, against us?
Answer: Of course, the Creator is against us. This is what the Torah says. If we are not united between us, then we are absolutely naked in front of the enemy, he will do whatever he wants with us, and the Creator will guide him. He will lead us to the next correct state not through ourselves, but through our enemies.
The fact is that almost everything we are doing does not bring us anything. We can create a fence only from our unity. Of course, I am not in favor of not building fences, but they are castles in the air. This does not help us at all. Neither intelligence nor the army, nothing can replace the nation’s unification. If this unification does not exist, the nation is naked. It faces its enemies without a weapon in its hands, without an ounce of courage or intention to hold on.
Question: What will happen to us? How do we build a real, warm, and safe world?
Answer: It all depends on how those several million Jews who live here can build themselves into a correct society. This is what the Torah says. I have been convinced of this for decades.
Question: So you cannot be moved! How can one hear this in this case? Should we expect more and more blows, or can we draw a conclusion from this? Such a thing has practically never happened to us, even during the Yom Kippur war.
Answer: Of course. Each subsequent war will be even worse. It will be even worse because, in principle, all this is happening to us in order to teach us how to live among ourselves. And this will give the world a new path of development.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/9/23
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