“This is a war to end all wars” was a well-known World War I quote. President Woodrow Wilson made the saying famous, but writer H. G. Wells invented the phrase. However, no such thing happened, nor have we seen the end of it, even now.
Sadly, only the dead have seen the end of war. World War II impinged on my life on August, 12. 1942, when I was a child of 11 in my birthplace, Australia. I will never forget that knock on the door. When we opened it, there stood our Rabbi Danglow, along with two officers in Air Force uniform. They asked to come in, and even I sensed that bad news was forthcoming. They handed my parents a telegram. It stated that my brother, Athol Louis Opas, was missing, presumed killed. His plane, in which he was a gunner in Britain’s RAF (Royal Air Force), had not returned from his mission over Rommel’s forces in Tobruk, North Africa. Just a few days earlier, our family was rejoicing over the fact that it was his 30th mission, and in a few days he was to return home to Australia as an instructor.
It was a terrible loss. I had dearly loved my brother, 12 years my senior. Until her dying day, my mother believed he was alive somewhere and had lost his memory. When any young men passed us in the street, she would turn and look at their faces. It was heartbreaking. We never had any closure.
My Yom Kippur War
My next personal relationship with war came soon after our aliyah in 1971. It was a year later, on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). I was praying in synagogue when something unprecedented happened. Suddenly the doors opened, and men in army uniform entered and went up to all the young men. They immediately removed their tallitot and went out with them to waiting jeeps – this on the holiest day of the year!
From then on, we were glued to all the news reports we could find: “Tanks battle as Syrians penetrate Golan line” (7/10/1973); “Israel takes offensive, bitter battles raging” (9/10/73); “Shooting continues at [Suez] Canal despite Israel-Egypt ceasefire.”
As our four children reached army age, war became more personal and frightening. Then, in 1982, I was asked by the World Zionist Press Service to go to Lebanon in the first Peace for Galilee operation. I wrote a series of articles titled “Voices of Lebanon.” I was in a jeep with my editor Dan Leon, my photographer Douglas Guthrie, plus an IDF liaison officer. Cannons were firing over our heads, and a cow was shot on the road just in front of our jeep. Never have I prayed so fervently!
And now we are embroiled in an unprovoked war with the evil terrorist group Hamas, together with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis, and the cruel proxies of Syria, Iran, and Iraq.
Daily, we pray for the return of our hostages, many dead but hopefully also many still alive being held in unbelievably cruel conditions in Gaza. The emaciated ones who have been released tell of some of the horrors they have undergone.
The motto of war is “Let the strong survive; let the weak die.” The motto of peace is “Let the strong help the weak to survive.”
The writer is the author of 14 books. She can be contacted at dwaysman@gmail.com