Two ceremonies show Israel's conflicting narratives over Oct. 7
Bereaved families organise their own memorial on Monday
Families' event will highlight heroism and state failures
Anger at Netanyahu for security and intelligence weaknesses
TV will show live family event, then pre-recorded govt piece
By Rami Amichay and Ari Rabinovitch
TEL AVIV, Oct 6 (Reuters) -One commemoration of the Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel will be a live, public ceremony to be held at a large venue in Tel Aviv. The other on Monday, will be a pre-recorded televised tribute that leaves little to chance.
The first is organized by bereaved families who lost loved ones. It plans to dive deep into the failures as well as the heroism on display that day.
The other is set up by the government, which says its recorded ceremony will touch on remembrance, bravery and hope.
The distinction in tone is at the heart of a public discourse over how to remember the darkest day in the country's 76-year history.
"You can say it's a war on the narrative," said Jonathan Shimriz, one of the organizers of the public ceremony.
"This memorial will tell the story of what we've been through on the seventh. That there was no army, but there were soldiers. There was no state, but there were citizens. And I think the government memorial will not mention the mistakes that happened."
Shimriz is from kibbutz Kfar Aza, which was hit hard during Hamas' attack. His brother was taken hostage into Gaza and was later killed by erroneous Israeli fire as he tried to escape.
"The tape of the government, the other memorial, it does not quite reflect how we want to remember what happened on the seventh," he said.
A government that has not taken responsibility for its failures, he said, is disconnected from the people.
In charge of the state ceremony is cabinet minister Miri Regev, a close supporter of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu, who has been in power for most of the past 15 years, has faced heavy criticism for not taking responsibility for the intelligence and military failures that led to the Oct. 7 attack, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 250 others taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies, and that sparked the devastating war in Gaza.
He says that everything will be investigated after the war ends. Opinion polls in the meantime show his popularity, which plummeted after Oct. 7, is slowly recovering.
Regev announced her plans a month ago, saying "I'm aware of the ongoing discourse among different parts of the public."
The state ceremony will be broadcast after the grassroots ceremony in order to avoid conflict, she said. It was filmed in the small city of Ofakim near the Gaza border, which lost more than 40 of its residents in the Hamas assault.
"There is not a house in Israel that will not be touched by the ceremony," Regev said.
Ofakim was also a stronghold in the last elections for Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party and his conservative allies, as opposed to the smaller communities in the area that usually vote more liberal.
This raised questions for many in Israel, who saw it as an attempt to manage the narrative.
On hearing of the Ofakim ceremony, some of the bereaved families crowd-funded a competing ceremony in Tel Aviv's central park. Within hours of going public over 40,000 tickets were reserved.
The crowd, however, will likely be limited to 1,000 people as the military, wary of missile fire from an escalating conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, is still restricting the size of public gatherings in much of the country.
Shirel Hogeg is from Ofakim and is highly suspicious about the government's decision to have filmed its tribute there. His sister is from a nearby kibbutz and she was badly injured when her house was set on fire by the Hamas attackers.
He is helping to arrange the live ceremony in Tel Aviv.
"As you know, the politicians will try to do everything so the narrative will be fixed for them," Hogeg said. "We don't need a synthetic, TikTok movie."
Editing by Alexandra Hudson
免责声明: XM Group仅提供在线交易平台的执行服务和访问权限，并允许个人查看和/或使用网站或网站所提供的内容，但无意进行任何更改或扩展，也不会更改或扩展其服务和访问权限。所有访问和使用权限，将受下列条款与条例约束：(i) 条款与条例；(ii) 风险提示；以及(iii) 完整免责声明。请注意，网站所提供的所有讯息，仅限一般资讯用途。此外，XM所有在线交易平台的内容并不构成，也不能被用于任何未经授权的金融市场交易邀约和/或邀请。金融市场交易对于您的投资资本含有重大风险。
所有在线交易平台所发布的资料，仅适用于教育/资讯类用途，不包含也不应被视为用于金融、投资税或交易相关咨询和建议，或是交易价格纪录，或是任何金融商品或非应邀途径的金融相关优惠的交易邀约或邀请。
本网站上由XM和第三方供应商所提供的所有内容，包括意见、新闻、研究、分析、价格、其他资讯和第三方网站链接，皆保持不变，并作为一般市场评论所提供，而非投资性建议。所有在线交易平台所发布的资料，仅适用于教育/资讯类用途，不包含也不应被视为适用于金融、投资税或交易相关咨询和建议，或是交易价格纪录，或是任何金融商品或非应邀途径的金融相关优惠的交易邀约或邀请。请确保您已阅读并完全理解，XM非独立投资研究提示和风险提示相关资讯，更多详情请点击 这里。
