ByEYAL BIRAM

Countless words have been written on the Holocaust, and yet not enough to indeed pay tribute to the six million Jews that the Nazi regime and their collaborators systemically murdered, including 1.5 million children. The Jewish people were on the brink of total annihilation.

The State of Israel remembers the Righteous Among the Nations, an honorific term to describe those who risked their own lives and those of their families to save Jews, for altruistic reasons, from being sent to extermination camps. My relatives were hidden under the bed of a Polish family for two years in the extreme, life-threatening reality of those times.During the last weeks of the war, as the Nazis were losing ground in the Eastern front against the Soviet Union, the Nazi soldiers took over the small farmhouse where my relatives were hiding. They stayed in the same house – Nazi soldiers with the Jews less than a meter under the floor at high risk.The story of my relatives is that of the Holocaust survivors who moved on to build Israel after most of their families were murdered and villages were destroyed. The Polish family that saved my relatives’ lives is part of the Righteous Among the Nations, those that the State of Israel and the Jewish people respect, honor and thank. 

As a Jewish state, we learned our lesson from the Holocaust, but has the rest of the world learned it? Today, as we see movements of racism and antisemitism growing, the threat of hate is our motivation to act.

The Abraham Accords are not just a normalization treaty to build our relationship between the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Israel. It is a peace that is based on shared values and a vision of tolerance, with a shared mission to spread the message that this is the only way to fight all kinds of racism, including antisemitism.

"There will be no victory of light over darkness as long as we do not stand for the simple truth that instead of fighting darkness, we must increase light,” Aaron David Gordon said.

The eyes of the entire world are looking at us. This is why we designed the "Leaders of Tomorrow" initiative. Young Emiratis, Bahrainis, Moroccans and Israelis that build trust and friendship, leaving differences aside and focusing on our similarities – we are becoming the light that our families have waited centuries for.

Eyal Biram is the CEO of ISRAEL-is and the co-founder of the Leaders of Tomorrow initiative.