The former IDF chief of staff, who will become prime minister in November 2021 if the coalition agreement is carried out, spoke to his fellow MKs about the lessons of Remembrance Day.“For us as leaders, today is an opportunity to remember what guides us as public servants,” Gantz said. “We have a great responsibility on our shoulders to remember that there are times when there is no choice but to fight, but we must always seek peace that will prevent the next war.”
Gantz lamented that due to the coronavirus, unlike past Remembrance Days, he cannot start the day by visiting the families of soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin, who were killed under his command and whose bodies are being kept by Hamas in Gaza.
He called on Israelis to “do the mitzvah” by calling bereaved families, addressing them from porches and gardens and meeting them by Zoom.
Likud MK Uzi Dayan spoke from the plenum about his father Zurik, who was killed in Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, when Zurik was 22 and Uzi 100 days old. He said he never got a chance to learn from his father how to live but all Israelis can live thanks to soldiers like him.
Uzi served as IDF deputy chief of staff and his uncle, Zurik’s brother Moshe Dayan, was IDF chief of staff and defense minister.
Blue and White MK Michael Biton cried as he spoke about his older brother Avraham Shalom Biton, who died in 1985 during his army service, and another family member killed in a terrorist attack. Biton thanked his parents for allowed him to become an officer in the Golani Brigade despite their loss.
"Bereaved families do not need Remembrance Day to remember their loved ones, because they think all the time about the precious moments of their lives," Yesh Atid-Telem leader Yair Lapid said in his speech. "But we need this day to show them the proper respect and tell them we are with them and thinking about them."