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A letter to the Golan family: Hamas killed your daughter, not the state

Vaseline4 weeks ago

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A letter to the Golan family: Hamas killed your daughter, not the state

Dear Golan Family:

Like many others, I woke up to the news that your beautiful daughter, Shirel, was no longer with us. As the father of a terror victim – my daughter Alisa was murdered during the April 9, 1995 terror attack near Kfar Darom – I share your family’s pain and fear. Although I did not have the privilege of knowing Shirel, I do know that she and Alisa had a common love for our country and the belief that you should enjoy life as it is presented to you.

I read that Shirel’s brother, Eyal, said, “The state killed Shirel.” I understand Eyal’s fear about losing his sister as much as I understand the fear of my four children who lost their eldest sister. But Eyal is wrong; it was not the “state” that killed his sister, but Hamas.

I was with Alisa when she died the day after the attack. Her murder came at the height of the excitement over the signing of the Oslo Accords, which are nicely called the ‘Declaration of Principles’. At the signing in 1993, then Prime Minister Rabin said: “We have come to try to end hostilities so that our children, our children’s children, will no longer experience the painful costs of war, violence and war. terror. We have come to safeguard their lives and to ease the sorrow and painful memories of the past, to hope and pray for peace.”

“Our children” would be the beneficiaries of Rabin’s decision to sign an agreement with the Palestinians. We now know that neither our children nor our grandchildren benefited from that agreement. Instead, we and they continue to be bombed, rocketed, stabbed, shot at from passing cars, and run over at bus stops.

Friends and relatives of the October 7 victims mourn the deaths of loved ones at the site of the Nova music festival, a year after the Hamas massacre. (credit: CHEN MILL)

Our dreams have been shattered again and again in the years since, and Shirel’s tragic death underlines the impact of terrorism, which extends far beyond the event itself, on the survivors, the victims’ families and everyone who knew our children.

Frankly, I laugh at those who say that the Almighty only gives us trials and tribulations that we can handle. We are not our father Abraham, who was tested by God when he was told to sacrifice his son Isaac. Abraham may have passed that test, but his wife, Sarah, died when she heard the news that Isaac was about to be sacrificed. Isaac was also no longer the same after his father was tested. And the sons of Aaron were slain of God because they offered a forbidden sacrifice; we can’t imagine what was going through Aaron’s mind for the rest of his life.

Picking up the pieces when our lives are torn apart

Yet the parents of terror victims are not Abrahams or Aarons. We are simple, ordinary people who must try to find a way to put the pieces of our lives back together when they are torn apart.

We cannot fathom Shirel’s nightmares, both awake and asleep, which stem from the post-traumatic stress disorder she suffered after the attack, which ultimately led to her ending her promising young life. Living in the aftermath of terror is itself terror. Would more treatment have helped Shirel? We’ll never know. But we can ensure that acts of terror do not stop us from living our lives and that help is available to victims and their families who ask for it.

All Israel embraces you in your sorrow. May you be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.

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The writer, an oleh living in Jerusalem, is president of the Religious Zionists of America (RZA). He is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995, and the author of A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror. Please note: The RZA is not affiliated with any American or Israeli political party.

Vaseline4 weeks ago

0 3 minutes read

Picking up the pieces when our lives are torn apart

Vaseline

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