Former PBC Commissioner Melissa McKinlay: Israel, with my own eyes | Opinion
It’s been a little more than one week since I returned from Israel. Sleep has been elusive since I stood with my fellow community leaders at the Gaza border inside Kibbutz K’far Aza, an otherwise "peaceful" community where Hamas terrorized residents on Oct. 7 by murdering 63, kidnapping 90. The shoes that fell off feet running for their lives leaned motionless against a tree.
I put quotes on “peaceful” because these families have lived under a constant barrage of missile attacks for years. The Iron Dome is their lifeline. But they persevere, loyal to their faith and their homeland. They wish for nothing more than to be left alone to raise their families, their dreams no different than any other parent's. The only difference is, they’re Jewish. And too many of their neighbors want them dead because of it. Standing in Israel, this is clear.
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I was raised a Roman Catholic. Jewish teachings for me didn’t expand much beyond knowing Jesus was a Jew and my middle school friends got to have Bar or Bat Mitzvahs. It was always cool to me that both faiths also loved the same homeland, Israel. This is why it was so important for me to accept the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County’s invitation to visit Israel as part of a Community Leaders mission to learn about Israel, the history and to see firsthand the horrors of Oct. 7. I needed to learn.
War is brutal. And this one is no exception. Hamas started this one. Hamas raped, kidnapped and murdered innocent people because they were Jewish. Hamas continues to rape and murder hostages they took. Hamas controls when this war stops, by choosing to return all hostages.
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Israel and her allies do not want more war casualties but they are fighting to get hostages back home to their families, fighting to keep the enemy from exterminating Jews. It is no different than America and her allies going to war against Hitler to free Jews and others marked for extermination during the Holocaust. Because if it isn’t stopped now, then that is the direction the world goes.
History repeats itself.
Tonight, I write this in a small inn up in Apalachicola. I am hoping a few nights in this quaint small town might help me find that sleep which eludes me. I pray when I close my eyes tonight that I don’t see visions of women being stolen from their beds, children being murdered. I pray the silence I so desperately want is a sign the hostages are on their way home.
I, like so many, pray for an end to this that can only come when families are reunited and the world can stop hating people just because we’re different. Shalom.
Melissa McKinlay is vice president, government relations for WGI and a former Palm Beach County commissioner.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Learning hard lessons from the pain brought by war in Israel
