I entered politics so that the walls would not fall again | Dvir Kariv

Avishai Ben-Haim and his likes are one of the main reasons for my entry into politics. Not because they want the dismantling of Israeli society. Some of them are even convinced that they are fixing and seeking unity. But here exactly lies the ideological dissonance: they talk about healing and in the same breath divide us into camps, into tribes, into oppressors and oppressed, into a 'first' and 'second' Israel.

There were gaps, discrimination, and injustices that must not be erased from history. Some of them still exist. But the trend is clear: the gaps are narrowing, identities are mixing, families are connecting. Most of us have long belonged to the 'third' Israel. Israeli, vibrant, complex. A mix of ethnicities, religious and secular, right-wing and left-wing. A country where children marry together, serve together, fight together, get wounded together, and unfortunately are also buried together. When I see claims that those who fall in battle belong to a certain ethnicity, it turns my day and night upside down. How dare they speak like that? When those who again open the delicate seams of Israeli society arrive, it drives me crazy.

For decades, I have been dealing with extremism and ideological violence. I learned that violence almost never starts with a gun. Before it come the words. Comes the labeling of the opponent. Comes the delegitimization. Comes the feeling that your camp is so right that the other side is no longer an opponent but an enemy.

As someone who saw on that terrible night the blackness in the eyes and the smile on the face of the Prime Minister's assassin, hours after Rabin was shot, I know how dangerous a tailwind for ideological violence is. The murderer is the one who pulls the trigger and he is responsible for his act, but he does not act in a vacuum. Extremism needs an atmosphere where the act is no longer completely abhorrent, where there are those who understand, justify, or provide a sense of backing. It is not for nothing that the murderer said he would have found it difficult to murder Rabin without the sense of a tailwind. Amir and others also clarified the importance of the sense of ideological backing.

Our history is full of warnings. And we still do not learn. At the destruction of the First Temple, the walls fell. After that, a few remained, led by Gedaliah ben Ahikam. They warned him that Ben-Natanya, a Jew of royal descent, intended to murder him. Gedaliah did not want to believe. It was hard for him to imagine that a Jew would rise against his brother and murder. Ben-Natanya murdered him, and the destruction was completed. Generations later, Rabin was also warned about the possibility that a Jew would murder him. He too found it hard to believe and refused to wear a bulletproof vest. And then the murderer arrived, with the sense of a tailwind, and plunged two bullets into his back.

In the Second Temple period, we conducted internal wars while the enemy stood outside the walls. The burning of the granaries became a terrible symbol of a people losing its strength from within while the enemy waits outside.

And yes, also on the eve of the seventh of October. We were at the height of an internal rift. Even on Yom Kippur, Jews argued with Jews over prayer. The exact opposite of 'live and let live'. And then the fences were breached. On that terrible day, I lost three students, and since then four more. A generation of heroes, without unifying leadership. Hamas is responsible for the massacre. We are responsible for learning and fixing.

This is one of the main reasons why I entered politics. Without 'live and let live' we will not be here. When the internal rift deepens, the enemy from outside identifies weakness and tries to exploit it.

I joined not to defeat another tribe and not to add another camp to the existing ones, but to connect. Israel needs to be rehabilitated. Our home. It is allowed to argue about security, economy, religion and state, law and borders, but remember that after the argument we need to continue living here together. I looked for a home that shows stability and an Israeli desire to live together. A home that clarifies the importance of unity alongside equality in the security, economic, and social burden. A home headed by an experienced person, with credentials, who knows how to lead in stormy waters. This is not the time for an inexperienced captain or a new home.

The month of Elul is approaching. A time of soul-searching, correction, and asking for forgiveness. After it comes Yom Kippur, and not long after that will come the hour of political choice. And then we will have to start rehabilitating Israel.

One does not have to agree on everything. One must stop thinking that the path to victory passes through the subjugation of our brothers. Our history teaches a simple, sharp, and frightening lesson: when the internal walls crack, eventually the external walls also fall.

I entered politics to do my best to prevent the next fall. Because we must rebuild Israel, as our home. A strong, powerful, and united home. Amen.

Dvir Kariv, Yisrael Beiteinu. Served in the Shin Bet for about 23 years, most of them in the division for non-Arab counter-terrorism, was responsible for information and intelligence in the investigation of the Rabin assassination. Author of the bestseller 'Yitzhak' about the assassination, educator, and lecturer on democratic values.