Defeating terrorism needs unity and resilience: Israel pulls together, like NYC did after 9/11

I was in 8th grade on 9/11. I remember looking out the window of my high school in Brooklyn and seeing the smoke billowing; picking up burnt pieces of paper that had blown into all the yards on our block. For the most part I remember confusion — not knowing what to believe, and then feeling shock and numb when the truth came to light.

I feel the same way about Oct. 7. Now a dual citizen living in Tel Aviv, I opened my eyes about 6:30 a.m. when my dogs started howling. Sirens were blaring, and soon rockets were falling. We ran down to the bomb shelter. That morning was filled with explosions — and once again, confusion as rumors spread and we tried to figure out what was real. When we got confirmation — a terrorist invasion of southern Israel; hundreds killed in the most grotesque fashions; more than 200 kidnapped by Hamas and other terrorist groups of the Gaza Strip — I knew the nightmare was just beginning.

I remember going back to school after 9/11, knowing that one of the other boys there had lost a parent forever. It felt like everyone in New York had lost someone — even if you didn’t know someone particularly close, you had a connection, and we all felt the loss. NYPD and FDNY caps came out to show solidarity with our brave first responders. American flags on the cars and outside of houses. That’s when we saw the real spirit of New York — resilience, unity, patriotism.

The defining moment for me came when my Jewish high school was attacked with bricks by some Pakistani kids — and my dad promptly organized a Jewish-Muslim basketball league together with a Pakistani community organization and the NYPD. Jews, Muslims, the police and basketball all cooperating to build cohesion — my Brooklyn in a nutshell.

Israelis have the same fortitude and unity in spades. On Oct. 6, we went to sleep a divided nation–fractured over issues like religion and state, separation of powers, judicial reform. By the time we went to sleep on Oct. 7, we were one. Grieving, hurting, scared, angry. But united.

In Israel, everyone is connected — it’s not six degrees of separation, but three. Nearly everyone has a friend or relative who has a personal connection to someone killed or kidnapped by Hamas. For new immigrants, messages were sent on social media, and hundreds of strangers flocked to the cemetery to pay their respects.

A WhatsApp group updates Israelis of all stripes when a bereaved family doesn’t have enough visitors, and invariably dozens of strangers show up to show love and support. Differences that seemed so important a few weeks ago: religious vs. secular; right-wing vs. left; are meaningless now. We are all brothers and sisters. The terrorists didn’t care about such distinctions — why should we?

Various groups have been created to help in a time of crisis. A supply chain of volunteers has ensured that every need is taken care of — apartments and homes made available; restaurants opened to cook meals — even strangers running to pick up and deliver laundry. A mentalist performed on Zoom for hundreds of families to provide a diversion.

There’s a list of volunteers shuttling soldiers called up for reserve duty to get to military bases around the country; for the initial call ups who raced to respond in their own cars in the first days of war, there were volunteers to bring the cars home to their families — strangers driving for hours to help one another.

There are heightened Jewish-Arab tensions, just as I experienced post-9/11. But ultimately we are in the same boat. The head of the Islamic foundation in Yasif village in northern Israel sent out a message welcoming displaced Jewish families to stay in their village as long as needed; at an emergency supply center opened in a Bedouin town, Jews and Arabs work together to prepare boxes of food for families in need.

On Oct. 10 I began holding Zoom calls with students — since then we have had at least one Zoom call a day, with Arab and Jewish youth from all over the country sharing their feelings with one another, showing support, and modeling empathy and humanity, united in the belief that no child should have to go through this horror, and that the only way forward is together.

That solidarity, that spirit of resilience, is the same spirit that I saw New York use to overcome terrorism. It is the power of a unified, resilient people, who come together in the face of unthinkable evil, the strength of humanity, that ensures that we will win.

Aiello, who grew up in Brooklyn and moved to Tel Aviv in 2009, is the founder of Debate for Peace.