Moshe Ya'alon at Memorial Day ceremony
Moshe Ya'alon at Memorial Day ceremonyHezki Baruch

A special Memorial Day ceremony was held on Wednesday at the Kiryat Shaul military cemetery in Tel Aviv, which was attended by Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon (Likud), Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan, IDF commanders and family members of fallen soldiers.

In his speech Ya'alon spoke of the "heavy price" paid while defending the Jewish national homeland for the past 68 years since the modern state of Israel was established in 1948.

Addressing the security challenges to Israel, he said, "just last week we again met the attempts of Hamas and the terror organizations in the Gaza Strip to disrupt our lives and fire at IDF soldiers in order to prevent them from activities to locate tunnels in the south."

"We will not compromise and we will not be deterred from these or other threats," said Ya'alon. "We will act with an iron hand against those who seek our harm and we will strike them at any time or place. We will do that with firmness and decisiveness, with intelligence and with responsibility."

Ya'alon mentioned the fallen IDF soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin whose bodies are being held by the Hamas terrorist organization, as well as Israeli civilian Avraham Mengistu and a Druze Arab civilian who are likewise being held hostage in Gaza. He said Israel is obligated to bring them back.

He then spoke about the Arab terror wave that has claimed the lives of 34 victims since last September, and said that while the attacks are lessening in frequency, the wave of terror is liable to escalate again.

"A wave, which unfortunately added additional families to the circle of bereavement. The pain is great, and who like you can understand what is taking place in the hearts of the newly bereaved families," he said, addressing the widows of fallen soldiers.

A liberal manifesto?

"Even in the difficult moments, in which the blood boils and there is much rage, woe unto us if we lose our path and our values," he said. "A sanctified path and moral values have accompanied us for a generation, and compromising on them is liable to lead Israel to the abyss."

He called "to use force when needed, but also to understand its limits and its ability to cause insensitivity. To strictly guard the purity of the weapon and humanity, and not to lose our senses."

Ya'alon's statements bring to mind his surprisingly harsh criticism of IDF soldier Elor Azariya, who is on trial for shooting a wounded terrorist and who argues he did so out of concerns the terrorist was trying to detonate a bomb belt. Ya'alon previously went so far as to compare the soldier with ISIS terrorists.

In his speech, the defense minister also called to uproot phenomena such as racism and violence, physical and verbal abuse of women, and exclusion of the other simply for being different.

He continued, calling "to struggle to protect equal rights and opportunities without discrimination of religion, race, gender or sexual orientation."

Along those lines he condemned hatred of "minorities," a term frequently used for Palestinian Arabs, and called to integrate them into Israeli society, "because they are an important and inseparable part of it."

He also called not to allow any harm to the courts or judges, warning that such criticism leads to "the threshold of anarchy."

According to Ya'alon the various calls he listed summarize Israel's democracy and are a guarantee of a strong IDF. He added, "this is our obligation to those who paid with their lives so that we could establish a thriving and advanced state here, which strives for peace and extends its hand to the nations of the region."

After outlining his vision of Israel's democracy, Ya'alon turned to the bereaved families at the ceremony, and said, "dealing with the loss is very personal, and every one expresses it in their way, towards themselves and their family."

He noted that on Memorial Day the private mourning turns to national mourning.

"We, who sanctify life and strive for peace, stand in pain before the memories and the stories," he said, stating that bereavement crosses all religious and ethnic group lines in Israel.