Hope and fear in a time of resolve

We wait with bated breath, clutching our phones as we wait for news from our loved ones in Israel. It is a ritual we have endured before, but over the past six days our emotions have grown ever more intense.

For it is not merely rockets and drones falling on Israel, this time it is wave after wave of highly destructive Iranian ballistic missiles.

At the same time, we understand that Israel’s current military campaign to set back Teheran’s nuclear ambitions is an absolutely necessary one. For years, we spoke in theoretical terms of reaching this point. Now that we are here it feels all at once surreal, tense, terrifying and yet somehow hopeful.
There is also pride; as Israel continues to strike Iranian military targets and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, we know that it is doing so not just to protect its own citizens but the broader region and the world from the regime’s malevolence.

And we are also frustrated, as political leaders in Australia and around the Western world talk of restraint and returning to diplomacy, which has failed for more than 20 years.

Again their double standard when it comes to Israel is evident. A more appropriate course would be to merely say thank you.