Guest Column

In a special column, the Serb member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina writes Israel Hayom about the shared memory with the Jewish people, the parallel struggles, and the need to withstand international pressure while preserving sovereignty and identity.

Against the backdrop of three years of war, it feels as if someone pressed pause on our lives. The question is, how can we keep living, choosing, and building until this is over?

The Air Force remains Israel's spear, but the country's lifelines – trade, energy, communications – run through a Mediterranean that Ankara is working to close.

History shows that when Jerusalem has folded under American pressure, it has earned contempt, while when it has insisted on its sovereign security needs, it has earned respect. Now, as Hezbollah threatens the north and President Donald Trump pursues a deal while expecting absolute obedience, Israel's leaders must not repeat the mistakes of the past. If history is our guide, Israel has no choice but to act independently in the fateful campaign for its future.

Trump’s order is not perfect. It requires oversight, transparency, responsibility, and caution. But it does one thing right: it moves the system forward.

Just a few minutes stood between a deadly disaster and property damage, but luck and timing are not a work plan. It is Israel's responsibility to provide security for communities in the north. What hurts me most is the feeling that we have been abandoned. Some people are afraid and others have already grown used to it, but this is not a situation that can be accepted.

The truth must be said: There is no ceasefire, only a dangerous illusion. While the US talks about extending the agreement, northern Israel continues to live under threat, and what is most troubling is the silence. A real ceasefire is not measured by statements from Washington or celebratory headlines. 

Antizionism has recast old anti-Jewish tropes in new language, but mistaking the fight against it for Zionism itself obscures Zionism’s original purpose: freeing Jews from catastrophe and symbolic blame.

An American war hero killed in the final battle of World War I in the Meuse–Argonne Offensive was buried under an incorrect religious marker for more than a century. Now, as the United States moves toward this milestone, his identity, along with those of other fallen American Jewish servicemen, is being restored in a quiet but significant correction of the historical record.

If you are looking for a political solution to the social rift in American and Israeli democracy, you are solving the wrong problem. The rift is not political. It is civilizational. And it will not be resolved until it is properly understood.