Tonight marks the beginning of Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day. Traditionally observed to recall those men and women who paid the ultimate price for the creation and ongoing security of the State of Israel, the day has begun to change. For the second year in a row, Yom HaZikaron will mark the deaths of all those who have died, including civilian victims of terror. And despite having losses to remember from each group, this blurring of lines strikes me as a poor idea with potentially dangerous consequences.
Israel, like any other nation has both the right and the obligation to mourn those men and women in uniform who have sacrificed their lives for the safety and security of the citizens of Israel. But we ought not to confuse the issue by layering on our desire to mourn those civilians who died simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They are not the same and should not be seen as such.
Do we really want to lump civilians and members of the military into a single category? Isn’t the inability to make that distinction what distinguishes enemies from terrorists? Isn’t it fundamentally different to die while serving in uniform and under arms than to be murdered while walking down the street or eating a slice of pizza?

Hamas and Hezbollah argue that no such distinction between the two exists — that in Israel all citizens are “Zionist soldiers of the state”, and therefore equally legitimate targets. If they are not correct, and they most certainly are not, why devote a day to mourning the losses as if they are?
I worry that in our pain, we have created a situation that makes it increasingly difficult for those who may not support Israel to take a moral stand against the purposeful murder of civilians and the practice of terror to achieve political ends. Israel, its supporters, and even its detractors, if they are serious about not supporting terror, would be better served by maintaining two distinct days or at the very least, some practice which distinguished between these two categories. This would force all of us to address the ongoing challenge of global terrorism as distinct from the political differences which we are not likely to resolve in the short term.
Let us not confuse the fight for the existence of the State of Israel, which is far from over, with the plague of terrorism against which all decent people must take a stand, regardless of their position on the former issue.