1.
The nature of history is that it erases pettiness and hatred, the small-mindedness of any given era, leaving only the great deeds and the leaders who embodied them. Years from now, when our descendants, hopefully, sit beneath their vines and fig trees, and our generation is a distant memory, Benjamin Netanyahu will not belong to just one political camp, but to the nation as a whole, even to the descendants of his harshest critics.
2.
In their own time, Saul and David were seen by parts of the nation as divisive figures. When Absalom rebelled, David understood his son was determined to destroy everything to seize the crown, and he temporarily withdrew across the Jordan to regroup. He climbed the Mount of Olives with his followers, barefoot, weeping, his head bowed in grief.
On the way east of Jerusalem, David passed Bahurim, a town in the tribal lands of Benjamin, the tribe of the former king, Saul. The people there, including Saul's supporters, had never forgiven David for taking the throne and transferring it to the tribe of Judah. From the village came Shimei son of Gera, a prominent Benjaminite and relative of Saul:
"He came out, cursing as he came. He pelted David and all the king's officials with stones… and all the troops and the special guard were on David's right and left" (2 Samuel 16:5–6). Shimei did not limit his contempt to David alone, but extended it to all who stood by him:
"Shimei said as he cursed, 'Get out, get out, you man of blood, you scoundrel! The Lord has repaid you for all the blood you shed in the household of Saul… The Lord has given the kingdom into the hands of your son Absalom. You have come to ruin because you are a man of blood!'" (2 Samuel 16:7–8).
Terrible, grievous words from a prominent figure of the former Elite against David and the legitimacy of his reign. To Shimei and his faction, David had "stolen" the monarchy from the former elite, exploiting Saul's death and manipulating Abner, Saul's army commander, to sway the northern tribes. As we know, Joab, David's own commander, assassinated Abner. There was deep animosity between the camps.
3.
From today's vantage point, these two leaders shine forth as the figures who stood at the cradle of our first republic in the 10th century BCE, each contributing to the nation's founding. David did not create the nation alone, he inherited the foundational structures established by Saul: governmental institutions, national leadership, and, most importantly, public consciousness that we are one people with one army and one leadership.
In other nations, such as Britain, leaders like Winston Churchill had fraught relationships with political rivals, both within and outside their parties. After the war, Churchill was not reelected to lead his nation, despite his victory laurels. But all that faded. "Their love, their hate, and their envy have long since vanished" (Ecclesiastes 9:6). The details became the domain of historians; only Churchill's image remained as the man who, at the critical moment in history, stood firm against Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany and ultimately rallied the Allies to join the war.
4.
The extraordinary reversal we witnessed over the past week, against our most formidable enemy, the one responsible for what we've endured over the past two years, caused even bitter rivals to reconsider their views on Netanyahu.
With that in mind, I conducted a social experiment and posted four words on social media: "You're the head. Thank God." I was not referencing the shame of Oct. 7, but rather this decisive campaign against Iran.
Whoever authorized this operation knew the dangers. He also knew that in case of failure, opponents would queue up to destroy him. In such moments, leadership is tested by the ability to transcend personal interests and carry the historical burden as if it were weightless.
For 40 years, Netanyahu prepared for this moment. From the depths of the Oct. 7 catastrophe, we climbed the steep walls of military and diplomatic peril, fearful for the nation's fate as multiple fronts opened. First, the decision to focus on Gaza while keeping Hezbollah on a low flame in Lebanon. Then the decision to enter Rafah despite almost universal opposition. Finally, the decision to confront Hezbollah head-on, launch the beeper operation, eliminate Nasrallah, triggering the fall of Assad's regime, and effectively collapsing the Iranian axis, which had been poised to ensnare us.
When Iran's options ran out, it sprinted toward the bomb as a last resort. The use of ballistic missiles against civilian populations, one fell a street away from my home, causing severe damage, demonstrated that if the ayatollahs had a nuclear weapon, they would have used it on the Jewish state in a suicidal impulse. Hence the rare national consensus around the legitimacy of the strike on Iran.
5.
Alongside widespread support for the four words I posted, some Netanyahu critics responded with vehement rejection. Clinging to their negative image of him, they hurled scathing accusations, at him and at me, for daring to challenge their orthodoxy.
Letting such hatred dictate one's perception of reality, refusing to rise to the greatness of the moment and weigh matters rationally for the sake of the nation, is to wallow in the shallows of Oct. 6, camp against camp, while our enemies see no such distinctions and seek to harm us all.
I was reminded of the 19th-century Eastern European shtetl as depicted in Sholem Aleichem's incisive literary works. Even then, some Jews obsessed over emotional pettiness and factional feuds while, just outside their doors, the footsteps of the Messiah could be heard. Our people have awakened from a long national slumber and recalibrated its course toward the land of our ancestors, while many chose to dwell on petty quarrels that left no trace, except for their recurrence throughout history, sometimes as tragedy, sometimes as farce.
6.
A day after Oct. 7, I wrote that we are living a biblical event. My historical antennae felt as if they might explode.
When our nation was exiled in the early 6th century BCE, the prophet Ezekiel called this state "a desecration of God's name": "And when they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned My holy name, in that people said of them, 'These are the people of the Lord, and yet they had to go out of His land'" (Ezekiel 36:20).
Our sages explained that the nations claimed that the God of Israel lacked the power to save His people and His land. Christianity and Islam interpreted our political and societal humiliation as proof of their own divine legitimacy, God, they argued, had abandoned the Jewish people. Such weakness repelled allies and invited predators to pounce on a wounded nation.
But the prophet teaches us, from across the generations, what sanctifying God's name truly means: "I will show the holiness of My great name, which has been profaned among the nations… For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land… You will live in the land I gave to your forefathers… The ruined cities will be rebuilt and the desolate land will be cultivated instead of lying desolate" (Ezekiel 36:23–24, 28, 33–34).
The people of Israel return home after a long exile. Along the way, they encounter nations, ethnic groups, and terrorist organizations that seek to halt this historic process. The establishment of the State of Israel, the ingathering of exiles, and the resettlement of the land are all expressions of sanctifying God's name.
But perhaps the most powerful expression is the rectification of our former helplessness in exile, the dire state in which our enemies could harm us with impunity. The rebuilding of devastated communities on Simchat Torah (Oct. 7) and the fierce assault on our enemies are also part of this new era:
"Behold, the people rise up like a lioness, and as a lion lifts himself up" (Numbers 23:24). The Lion of Judah has awakened from his long slumber, reclaiming his inheritance, and woe to anyone who stands in his way.
