An aerial view shows vehicles on fire as rockets are launched from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, southern Israel October 7, 2023. REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg

I spoke to a friend of mine yesterday who had relocated with his wife and young daughter from Jerusalem to Be’er Sheva a few months ago.

We both moved to Israel from the United States at around the same time — he from Chicago, I from Los Angeles. We left Israel’s capital city within a few months of each other. I headed north with my wife and four kids, he hitched his wagon and set out for a new life in the south.

He called me looking to unload. He and his family live in a part of Be’er Sheva that is situated between two air force bases. The southern city is about 10 minutes by car from Ofakim, one of the communities near the Gaza Strip, where terrorists butchered approximately 1,400 men, women, and children — convicted and condemned for the crime of being Jewish.

“Where the hell were the fighter planes? Where the hell was the army?” my friend seethed during our conversation. “What kind of government allows this to happen to its own people?”

I have no clue what my friend’s politics are. I could not even tell you who he voted for in the last Israeli general election. Our bond is based on a love for music, movies, and beer.

The growing sense of outrage is also palatable in a WhatsApp group I belong to, one comprised of guys I served with as a Sergeant First Class and combat medic in the 93rd Haruv Battalion.

Dormant until the unspeakable barbarism was unleashed (which has also resulted in approximately 200 hostages being taken and thousands being wounded), group members have been messaging each other nonstop for almost two weeks now.

The conversations are blunt, honest, politically incorrect. Since my typing speed in Hebrew is painfully slow, I am not able to weigh in on a topic before the subject changes. Instead, I read and try to keep up with the lightning fast, almost frantic, back-and-forth.

There is grief. There is loss. There is love. There is hope. But above all there is rage in this WhatsApp group. The one issue that the guys are discussing more than any other is Israel’s need to, finally, not have to rely on the goodwill of any other country to stay safe and secure. The status quo is widely dismissed as untenable. The need to constantly explain ourselves to the international community, hasbara in Hebrew, is mocked.

I served with left-wing Kibbutznikim, right-wing hawks from Dimona, as well as a couple of lone soldiers from the United States and South Africa. Our political views are varied to say the least.

But there is no daylight when it comes to how we feel today. We are heart-broken at the sheer evil inflicted on our people by other people who live only to kill. We are also apoplectic at the intelligence lapses, ignored warning signs, lack of communication, and feckless leadership that led to our army being completely caught off guard by Hamas.

Israelis are responding to this colossal failure the way they always have — with steely resolve. Because of the hardscrabble, often tragic, circumstances surrounding our existence, Israelis have developed a sort of national stoicism. After coping with terrible loss and overcoming insurmountable odds, Israeli citizens over the last 75 years have somehow managed to resume their daily lives and even flourish.

It is this stoicism that is making it possible for Israeli citizens to not just function, but to act. With little guidance or help from those elected to lead, Israelis are taking matters into their own hands. Everything from breast milk to high technology, underwear to cigarettes, is being organized and distributed to those people who need it most. Israelis around the world are rushing back into a burning building, their home, to beat back and defeat the terrorists who infiltrated the country and committed a massacre — a modern-day pogrom.

Despite the stiff upper lip, Israelis are voicing their anguish. Since the war began, more and more citizens are confronting leading politicians and government ministers. While visiting the wounded at Assaf Harofeh Hospital, Minister for Environmental Protection Idit Sliman was heckled: “You’re destroying this country. Get out of here. Now it’s our turn. We’ll help each other. Left. Right. One country. United. Without you. You are responsible for this,” a doctor yelled.

Israel will prevail on the battlefield. But, as history has shown, a house divided against itself cannot stand.

The author is a proud Israeli, a proud father, and a former employee of The Algemeiner.