Have I sobered up? How could I not: The long road from Oslo to the tragedy of Yotam

Hey, dear Iris. How wonderful for you that you were born in Haifa, in a workers' neighborhood, in "Red" Haifa. You still remember the May Day parades, right? You grew up in the shadow of the stories that your grandfather was a guard in the British Army and later received a position as the station manager in Binyamina.

There was also one dark story, that someone entered their home and hit him hard on the head, something related to a case of mistaken identity? Maybe not. Maybe he was suspected of collaborating with the leadership of the country at the time, the Haganah. Beloved Iris, that is where it all began. The terrible internal conflict between us.

Let's jump a few years ahead, dear Iris. And here you are already a woman, not a child, and no longer under the protection of the Zionist family that immigrated to Palestine in 1934, with the Hashomer Hatzair kibbutzim that believed in coexistence, in a binational state, Arabs and Jews living together. That is how they raised you in the Mahanot HaOlim movement as well.

1995 - you are almost 30. You got married, you have two children. One of them, little Yotam, was just born. You work for a living and live exactly at the other end of the country, a place conquered in blood, sweat, and tears in the War of Independence. In the Western Negev, Kibbutz Gvulot.

You didn't notice that even innocent people walking in Jerusalem are murdered in bus bombings? They also shouldn't have been there? You have no empathy for those "settlers". They are the guilty ones.

You are not really aware of the big story, you want to believe, just like your parents and your grandparents, that it is possible to live together. You are a humane person, a peace-seeker, you believe in peace. The Oslo Accords arrive, you and your husband are on cloud nine, peace is around the corner, Yitzhak Rabin will bring it to us. All problems from now on will be solved. There will be no more deaths and your sons will not go to the army.

In November 1995, everything shatters. You still see only one side, the one that sabotaged the peace agreements, the right-wing camp. That is what they want you to believe. You start to develop anger toward your own people, they are guilty.

You turned your back on the sorrow and the pain.

In 2005, when you are almost 40, another girl was added to the family, you are still living in Kibbutz Gvulot, and since 2000, the attacks from beyond the fence have not stopped. You ask yourself: why do we need to be there? What are we doing there? Intentionally annoying the poor Arab residents who just want to live with us in peace?

You didn't notice that even innocent people walking in Jerusalem are murdered in bus bombings, they also shouldn't have been there? The anger rises in you, you pity our soldiers, you have no empathy for those "settlers". They are the guilty ones.

While those settlers are expelled from their beautiful, invested, and well-kept homes, you turn your back on their sorrow and pain, forgetting who your own people are, and in doing so, you repeat that same blow your grandfather received on his head, and the scar remains for the rest of your life. Great pain.

Beloved Iris, it is painful to write these things from this distance, almost three years have passed, have you sobered up? It seems to me that yes, how could you not. After the people you believed all your life that it was possible to live with, entered intentionally, in a planned manner, armed terrorists, together with a mixed multitude of Gazan mob, fanatical, aggressive, and murderous Muslims - into your son's home, kidnapped him, imprisoned him, and caused his death, along with thousands of your own people. You have sobered up. And that is a good thing.

The author is the mother of Yotam Haim (of blessed memory), who was kidnapped to Gaza and managed to escape with two other hostages, but all three were mistakenly killed by IDF fire.