They are all children of Israel
Op-ed: It matters not if they were killed storming an Egyptian military post or in a road accident on furlough; every single one of IDF fallen is lost to his loved ones.
The Defense Ministry's Families and Commemoration Department last week published the following figure: 23,320 – the number of men, women and children killed in the line of duty or in terror attacks from the time the first Zionists arrived in Mandatory Palestine at the end of the 19th century and until today.
But it has to be said: This is not a precise figure. We'll probably never know the exact number of people who have paid the price of the Zionist dream with their lives. And the age-old and ongoing argument over whether or not to include a significant number of fatalities in the official figure will continue.
And then again, the number, as strange as this may sound, is not important right now. It matters not if the victim was storming an Egyptian military post in Rafah or an Israel Defense Forces soldier on furlough, drunk, who was returning home from a night out and smashed his car into an electricity pole. Every single one of the IDF fallen is lost forever to his parents, his brothers, his sisters, his wife and his children – and will never return. Dead is dead is dead.
On the Day of Remembrance for the Fallen Soldiers of Israel and Victims of Terrorism, all the fatalities – from the very first of the pioneers who came to Mandatory Palestine, and through to the most recent, today or tomorrow, whose name we don't even know yet – were our own sons and daughters.
All were beautiful and brave, whether they lost their lives in the tunnels of Gaza, or whether their strength failed them and they took their own lives.
We cannot and must not distinguish between blood and blood, between a fallen soldier and a soldier who passed away, between a soldier "killed in combat" and a soldier "who died during his military service."
Today, they are all our children; and the stories of their births and childhoods, until their deaths, are the stories of our lives too – the first birthday, the cake with the single candle, going to kindergarten, the first day at school, high school graduation, and the enlistment in the IDF.
It's hard to imagine a more moving and emotional moment than the one we experience as our sons and daughters get onto the bus at the recruitment base in Tel Hashomer and we watch them disappear into the distance. Most will return home some three years later. For others, it's a one-way journey.
They are the ones we remember tonight and tomorrow.
