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Barak preaches unity sermon to families of fallen With decisions of war and peace weighing heavy on his agenda, Prime Minister Ehud Barak walked silently among the graves of the fallen of the Yom Kippur War in Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl Military Cemetery yesterday, shaking the hands of the bereaved. Then he took the podium and, keenly aware of the fateful hour, preached a message of unity. ’Twenty-seven years have passed, and there is no one among us who does not remember clearly and sharply the moment when the sirens pierced the silence of Yom Kippur, after which nothing will ever be the same,’ Barak said. As he spoke, just beyond where the official memorial for the Yom Kippur fallen was taking place, families were encircling graves. Some were reciting psalms, others caressing headstones. ’This was not a fast and easy war,’ Barak said. ’It was a hard and difficult war against an enemy no less determined than we. That was a war of life and death. ’We won not because of advanced weapons,’ Barak said, his voice sounding a bit more gravely and coarse then usual, his face looking a bit more weary. ’We won not because of strength, only because of spirit.’ The spirit he referred to was a spirit of unity. ’That spirit,’ he said, ’is in danger today. Israel is a very strong nation. But without this spirit, the most advanced weaponry in the world will be useless. During the Yom Kippur War we were one nation, united. Since then it seems at times that we are becoming distant from this, that we are splintering among ourselves into groups and communities that define themselves by their enmity to the other. That process is more dangerous to us than any enemy or external war, even more than what is happening now.’ Barak said that the nation is in the midst of a new battle. The nation must ’come to its senses,’ he said, and understand ’that we are all in the same boat, and we must worry about each other.’ As he spoke, the sound of people yelling could be heard in the distance, but Barak — who did not seem to notice — could not make out what was being shouted. Afterward witnesses said that one particular family who had come to pay respects to a fallen relative was yelling invectives at Barak for his handling of the current situation. ’Garbage,’ they shouted. ’Arafat’s lackey.’ But Barak heard none of it. Instead he returned to the unity theme. ’If we are wise enough to rise above our divisions and return to be one, united nation facing all challenges, then we will win.’
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