Two ceremonies highlight Israel’s conflicting narratives on October 7

Authors: Rami Amichay and Ari Rabinovitch

TEL AVIV (Reuters) – One of the reminders of the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel will be a public ceremony to be held live at a large venue in Tel Aviv. The second, on Monday, will be a pre-recorded televised tribute that leaves little to chance.

The first one is organized by bereaved families who have lost loved ones. He plans to delve into the failures and heroism shown that day.

The second was established by the government, which says its recorded ceremony will be about remembrance, courage and hope.

The difference in tone is at the heart of the public discourse on how to commemorate the darkest day in the country’s 76-year history.

“You could say it’s a war on the narrative,” said Jonathan Shimriz, one of the organizers of the public ceremony.

“This monument will tell the story of what we went through on the 7th. That there was no army, but there were soldiers. There was no state, but there were citizens. And I think the government monument will not mention the mistakes that happened.”

Shimriz comes from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, which was hit hard during the Hamas attack. His brother was taken hostage into Gaza and later died by vicious Israeli fire as he tried to escape.

“The government tape, this second monument, does not fully reflect how we want to remember what happened on the 7th,” he said.

A government that has not taken responsibility for its failures, he said, is cut off from its citizens.

Minister Miri Regev, a close supporter of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is in charge of the state ceremony.

Netanyahu, who has been in power for much of the last 15 years, has faced fierce criticism for failing to take responsibility for the intelligence and military failures that led to the October 7 attack, which killed about 1,200 people and left 250 injured. taken hostage according to Israeli reports, sparking a devastating war in Gaza.

He says everything will be investigated after the war is over. Meanwhile, polls show that his popularity, which dropped sharply after October 7, is slowly returning to normal.

Regev announced her plans a month ago, saying: “I am aware of the ongoing discourse between different parts of society.”

She added that the state ceremony would be broadcast after the grassroots ceremony to avoid conflict. The film was shot in the small town of Ofakim near the border with Gaza, which lost over 40 inhabitants in a Hamas attack.

“There is no home in Israel that has not been touched by this ceremony,” Regev said.

Ofakim was also a stronghold of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party and his conservative allies in recent elections, unlike smaller communities in the region that tend to vote more liberally.

This raised questions for many Israelis who saw it as an attempt to manage the narrative.

Upon learning of the Ofakim ceremony, some grieving families sponsored a competing ceremony in Tel Aviv’s central park. Within hours of going public, over 40,000 tickets were reserved.

Crowds will likely be limited to 1,000 people, however, as the military, fearing rocket fire from an escalating conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, continues to limit the size of public gatherings in much of the country.

Shirel Hogeg is from Ofakim and is very suspicious of the government’s decision to film the tribute there. His sister comes from a nearby kibbutz and was seriously injured when Hamas attackers set fire to her house.

He helps organize the live ceremony in Tel Aviv.

“As you know, politicians will do anything to get the narrative set for them,” Hogeg said. “We don’t need a synthetic TikTok video.”

(Editing by Alexandra Hudson)