Where Independence Begins: What Israel Understands About Freedom

In Israel, independence arrives on the heels of mourning.

A siren cuts through the air, and an entire country comes to a halt. Cars stand still in the middle of highways. Conversations dissolve midthought. For two minutes, there is no movement, only presence. The day is Yom HaZikaron, a national day and moment of remembrance for the lives lost in securing and maintaining the state.

By nightfall, the stillness gives way to celebration. Music returns. Fireworks rise. The country crosses, almost in a single breath, into Yom HaAtzmaut.

The sequencing of the two holidays back-to-back is deliberate. It leaves no space to separate cost from outcome.

In Israel, freedom carries the imprint of what preceded it. It reflects decisions made under pressure, moments when the future was uncertain and the understanding that sovereignty depends on people who are willing to defend freedom at all costs.

That understanding has sharpened in recent months.

Freedom is often treated as a principle. In practice, it governs the simplest conditions of life: the ability to move, to speak, to simply exist without fear. When those conditions collapse, freedom narrows quickly. It reduces to the body itself, to breath, to time.

On Oct. 7, 2023, that narrowing became visible in real time. When 251 innocents were abducted into Gaza, captivity moved from memory into the present tense, tracked day-by-day, measured in names and faces.

Today, that number stands at zero.

Reaching that point required sustained pressure, difficult judgment calls, and a refusal to accept that captivity could be allowed to continue.

When freedom has been taken, it cannot be reassembled on its own. It must be recovered.

Recently, far from Israel, in the skies over Iran, two American airmen were shot down. While one was retrieved quickly, the other remained behind as hostile forces converged on his position.

For nearly two days, his fate was uncertain.

There are precedents for how such moments unfold. During the Iran Hostage Crisis, 52 Americans were held for 444 days, with their captivity turned into a sustained display of vulnerability. The individuals were absorbed into a larger narrative designed to project Iranian power through American humiliation.

The possibility of history repeating itself lingered between the same countries again this month.

Had the airman been captured, the outcome would have become a public relations disaster. His capture would have been televised, circulated and extended.

Instead, a rescue operation reached him in time.

What followed was not only the recovery of a single life. It foreclosed a different trajectory, one in which the threat of captivity becomes a bargaining chip in a sick theater staged by monsters.

Across the region, the hope of freedom remains out of reach.

More than 90 million Iranians live under a structure that regulates daily life with precision.

It is a system that operates continuously. Behavior is observed, shaped and constrained across public and private domains. Expression carries risk. Visibility invites scrutiny. The boundary between the individual and the state is deliberately thin.

In 2022, the death of Mahsa Amini made that structure impossible to ignore. Protests spread across cities. The response followed with calibrated force, designed to extinguish dissent and reinforce control.

That moment did not resolve. It evolved.

This past January, demonstrations resurfaced with renewed urgency, driven by a population that had already tested the limits of dissent. The regime’s response was immediate and methodical. Security forces moved preemptively into known gathering points. Internet access was disrupted in order to fracture coordination. Protesters were met with live fire and mass arrests. Executions followed, carried out with speed intended to compress the distance between dissent and consequence.

The uprising did not end so much as it was absorbed back into a system designed to outlast it.

During periods of unrest, tens of thousands were killed. Medical workers faced repercussions for treating the injured. Detention extended beyond punishment into demonstration, reinforcing the reach of the state.

When the protests receded, the structure of the regime remained intact.

The pressure settled back into the background. Surveillance, imprisonment and uncertainty continued to shape daily life. Foreign nationals remain in custody under unclear charges, their detention serving purposes beyond any individual case.

History can rarely sustain that status quo indefinitely. Israel’s history offers one example of how abruptly it can give way.

Israel’s path to independence unfolded under conditions where the outcome remained uncertain until it was achieved. No external mechanism could deliver it cleanly or without cost. It took shape through sustained effort in an environment defined by risk.

That dynamic is not unique.

Iranians deserve a future in which the basic conditions of life are no longer subject to constant pressure. A future in which movement does not require calculation and speech does not carry consequence.

Systems organized around control do not loosen gradually. They persist until something forcefully alters the balance that sustains them.

The sequence of these national holidays observed in Israel each year captures that reality with clarity. First comes the recognition of cost, then comes the expression of belief in independence.

For those still living without freedom, the implication is direct. No one hands it over. There comes a point when the cost of remaining as one becomes heavier than the cost of altering that condition.

That is where independence begins.

Jacki Karsh is a six-time Emmy-nominated multimedia journalist and a board member of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles.