This Tisha B’Av: Much of the world would love to add to the catastrophes marked by the day

It is increasingly difficult to look at a news site, paper or podcast and not be accosted with either anti-Semitic physical attacks or anti-Israel accusations about Gaza and the broader Middle East.

To hazard a guess, I suspect that much of the world would love to add a current catastrophe to the list of calamities that the Jewish people remember on Tisha B’Av. The specifics of that addition are not as important as the intent: as they say, it’s the thought that counts.

And today, the thought is that Israel is using genocidal intention to deliberately starve the children of Gaza.

Forget that Hamas has just staged the largest and most successful Pallywood production in history. Forget that it’s not true. It doesn’t matter.

We have been tried and convicted in the progressive and keffiyeh clad court of world opinion, where useful idiots (including 400 self-righteous rabbis, ed.) add their vote of thumbs down based on manipulative information and staged photos.

Now the only real question for these condemners is what should our punishment be? What notch in the belt of Tisha B’Av catastrophes precisely shouldthey be adding in 2025?

And here is where, for me at least, the most important message of Tisha B’Av lies; and that is simply that we are here today to remember it.

The catalog of calamities inflicted on us on Tisha B’Av is an amazing summary of our history as a People, particularly as a People in exile, or about to be exiled.

The hatred and the genocidal intent projectively attributed to us today was abundantly present at each event that we mourn in the past.

And yet, here we are striking our chests, hanging our heads, sitting on the ground and remembering and recalling it. That in and of itself is the exculpating power of the day. These horrors we have endured, these we have suffered, and yet we are still here to recount them and to talk about them.

This must be our attitude today as we confront the incredible hatred and vilification that we are living with. We will look back at some point and talk about how horrendous, how toxically corrosive it was, and how difficult it was to endure and to navigate through it.

But, as we have done for thousands of years, we will navigate through it. We will look back at this time, shake our heads with the recollection of a world gone mad, and marvel at how we were able to sustain ourselves.

Let me hazard an attempt to depict what it is that we will point to as how we managed. The key is the very blessing of what would have rescued and protected us in the past had we had it: our sovereign existence in the Land and the State of Israel.

Being rooted in our Land is empowering, liberating and empowering. It enables us to see clearly and simply what it is that we are cherishing, protecting and seeking to provide for to our progeny.

We understand what the stakes are, what we have to lose and what we have to gain by virtue of prevailing over our adversaries.

One need not be a religious person to feel the rootedness of the Jewish People in our Land. Looking at the woes relived on Tisha B’Av, how many times have we said, if only, If only we could have had the tether to our Divinely ordained home, if only we could have drawn from the strength and recourse of having our Land and our fellow Jews to protect us?

Looking at the destruction of the Temples, which of course happened in our Land, we draw the necessary lesson of the need for unity and cohesion. We vow not to make the mistakes of the past and we intuitively understand the existential nightmare of losing our control over our Land.

So, as we assess the steadily growing drumbeat of demonization, delegitimization and denigration of Israel, we need to have the conviction that somehow the pendulum will swing back the other way.

What matters is that we are not in play, that our being here is permanent, irreversible and the anchoring of our existence. We will take risks for peace, but not for permanence.

We understand that while we cannot control how others regard us, we can control how we regard ourselves. And our regard for our being rooted here in the Land is our great comfort and solace.

So, as we mournfully recall the catastrophes of our Jewish past, let us also thank God for the ability to recall them while sitting in the dirt of our Land. Let us be thankful that even with all our woes, we were able not only survive them, but also to bring ourselves to a place – geographically and existentially – where we can draw strength and resolve from them.

Am Yisrael v’ Eretz Yisrael chai!

Douglas Altabef is the Chairman of the Board of Im Tirtzu and a Director of the Israel Independence Fund