https://www.jns.org/never-again-3/
In an announcement on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi reminded the troops of their mission.
Referring to the siren during which the entire country stands in silence for two minutes to honor the “six million who were murdered in the ghettos and extermination camps, in the killing fields and the death marches,” he wrote: “For a moment, we will bow our heads and connect with the memory of our people who were persecuted and murdered simply because they were Jews. Then we will raise our heads, proudly carrying on their sacred legacy, and continue to take action to ensure that the national home that they longed for, but did not attain, will stand forever.”
The latter, he stressed, “is our duty, our mission, our promise.”
Given the current circumstances, crafting the otherwise standard annual message must have been cringe-inducing for Halevi. Under his watch, the military not only was caught off guard by the Oct. 7 massacre, but didn’t arrive on the scene of the carnage for at least eight hours.
By the end of that Black Sabbath, more than 1,200 corpses—sexually abused, shot, burned, beheaded and mutilated—were left strewn across southern Israel and another 250 were abducted to Gaza. The desperate cries for help from those who ended up losing their lives still echo, haunting the surviving witnesses and shaking the rest of the country’s confidence.
While penning the announcement to “IDF servicemen, soldiers, commanders and civilian employees,” did Halevi’s thoughts stray to last year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day—the theme of which was the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising—when he assured us that the IDF was “strong and will continue to maintain Israel’s security”? After all, less than six months later, thousands of Hamas terrorists stormed the Gaza border fence and subjected Israelis to atrocities that would have made the Nazis envious.
Faced with no choice but to mention the above, he stated, “These days, we are in a war where, at its onset, we failed in our mission and lost many—civilians, soldiers, civilian rapid-response-team members and security and rescue personnel. Entire lives were cut short in their prime in a war that was also thrust upon us by a wicked enemy who rose up to destroy us.”