During the most troublesome times experienced in the State of Israel, when everything was wrapped in darkness and gloom, our state leaders, from across the political spectrum, always displayed 'on-the-ground' leadership by going out to be with the people on the street. In 1973, when she began to grasp the full extent of the terrible tragedy at the start of the Yom Kippur War and even seriously contemplated suicide, Prime Minister Golda Meir didn't bother about reactions from the Left or the Right and decided to go into the field and meet the soldiers. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, who during that war talked about the imminent destruction of the "Third Temple", flew down to the front and met face-to-face with the troops he had committed to battle.
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On the occasion of the most harrowing terrorist attacks by suicide bombers, ministers and prime ministers would go to see the charred remains of the buses and see the bodies strewn on the ground at the site of the attack. They stood there amid a cacophony of curses and insults. The entire force of the people's anger was vented at them, and they remained standing there, absorbing it all and taking it in without complaint. They knew that this was the sort of reception they would receive – but they came anyway.
Because that is the essence of leadership – the test of genuine leadership is not in its decision to revel in success, to bask in the glory of the honor of a specific title, the perks of the job, but above all to lead – "Watch me and do the same", the words of the Biblical judge Gideon form the underlying motto that every commander is taught from day one at the IDF Officer Training School. To be there when the going gets tough, when everything is surrounded by blackness, to be part of the people and not to be distant or removed from it. To sense the public, to accept all the anger and animosity with understanding and affection as these are your citizens. To go down to the Gaza belt communities and to see the scale of the destruction and the massacre or to visit those places where the residents who underwent an inconceivable and unspeakable trauma have been evacuated, to hug them, to listen to them attentively and yes, to willingly absorb and digest even the harshest of criticism. Just to be there. To be.
To attend the funerals, knowing that newly bereaved parents, having been cast at the bottom of the ultimate pit of despair, will scream at you. Because you sent them, you were elected to lead them, so be there, look them straight in the eyes that seek to offload their nightmare, stand in front of lips pursed in pain and hands clenched tightly into fists of pain and anxiety.
Until just a few days ago, those same leaders would gladly run to the TV studios, they eagerly sought to be interviewed about anything and everything, they forced their way through the studio doors, into every website and newspaper, to babble on about this and that. And now, all of a sudden, you can even hear a pin drop. All the prattlers and loudmouths who love to pontificate, all those who jump at the chance of being on camera have now fallen silent, apart from a few recorded statements and messages to a public that simply does not buy any of it.
And no, the TV studios are not where the people need their leaders, they are needed in the field – the staging areas with hundreds of thousands of reservists, the thousands of hospital beds filled with the wounded (although there are a few "righteous" who have indeed been to visit them), and the presence of publicly elected officials at the numerous funerals, whatever price they must pay for this. To be with the people and to be there for it.
Let there be no mistake, we will win this war despite the lack of leadership as we have an innate inclination for survival, a robust fighting spirit, and a sense of justice and belief in our state, in who we are, for ourselves, and for the sake of our children. The entire bedrock of polarization and rift has crumbled – we are a unified and good, kindhearted people, with a homefront that supports and bolsters the front and families that hug those overwhelmed by the tidal waves of loss and despair, whose lives will never be the same again. The State of Israel too will never be the same. It is not possible to even begin to digest what we as a nation have been going through over the course of this last week.
After the guns of war fall silent and after we have buried our dead and mourned them, we will not forget these days in which the state leadership was conspicuous by its absence when it chose to keep its distance from the population. They will run back to the TV studios and will look for a scapegoat to blame, apart from themselves of course. But we will remember precisely who was there at the moment of truth.
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