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What I've Learnt - Nimrod Palmach · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, a father of two small children aged four and seven, Nibrod lives in Israel.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: He's a major reservist in the IDF.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: On the 7th of October at approximately 6 a.m., he received a phone call from his commander to immediately drive to Jerusalem and collect his uniform and weapons, as they had heard murmurs that something was happening, but unsure what exactly that was.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Unaware of the gravity of what was unfolding during the 30-minute drive, Nimrod kept receiving messages that something was happening in the south.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: He demanded his commander that instead of going to Jerusalem, he would divert the south towards the Gaza border and see what he could do to help.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Against his commander's demands, he drove south, armed only with a small pistol, to volunteer to see what he could do to help.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it was during this hour drive that along the highway, towards the Gaza border, he saw the takeover that Hamas had created and saw a dead Israeli soldier on the road.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: So he took his machine gun and kept on travelling, all against his commander's orders.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now he thought that it could be a fair fight and he was willing to take on the terrorists.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: As he headed towards the kibbutz, he knew that his life was in danger and this could result in his own death.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: He stopped driving, pulled over to stand under a tree, took out his phone and recorded a short video to send to his kids to say goodbye.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: When he finished, he continued along the road.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: He witnessed hundreds of dead bodies splayed all over the road, some were slaughtered, mutilated, raped, some were children, women, and innocent civilians.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Together with other soldiers, they engaged in a battle with 30 Hamas terrorists who were on their way to enter kibbutz Alin.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And on the bodies of the terrorists, they found very clear instructions as to what to do in the civilians in the kibbutz, which included murder, rape, head kidnap, men, women and children.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody was going to be attacked.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: By taking on these terrorists, Nimrod predicts that a further approximately 500 lives were saved.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: While he walked through the kibbutz to help save the families who'd been hiding in their safe room for over 18 hours, he witnessed and filmed what he can only describe as reminiscent of the vision from the Holocaust.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: He shares his story with us, and he shared it internationally on Fox News, ABCs, CBN, Sky, The Australian, all over the world, because he is a witness.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And this is his testimony that October 7 happened.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was horrific, and we need to get the hostages home.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: So Nimrod can share what he's doing as part of his NGO that he started called Israel Is, a social and educational program to stop anti-Semitism globally and educate the world about Israel.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: He's launching a new program that is interactive called Be the Witness, a VR program allowing people to be part of the atrocities of October 7 and experience it for themselves through the lens of education.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm very grateful.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Nimrod, for joining us all the way from Israel.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: I know you've been here in Australia and you've been speaking to lots of people, and I hear nothing but amazing reports about your extraordinary communication skills and talking to people about this very difficult time.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Deb.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me here.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Pleasure.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: So why don't we start with that terrible day, as much as I know we've all heard the atrocities, but there's a lot of people beyond comprehension who are doubting what has happened or certainly trying to use, you know, this distorted narrative to imply that somehow it wasn't what it was.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we know it was that because we've seen so many witnesses, you included.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to tell me about briefly what you were called to that day and what you saw within reason of what people can cope with on this podcast?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because some of it's pretty traumatic.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: I was uh I was called to my unit.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it was a beautiful Shabbat morning.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh at the start of it, I woke up really early from a phone call.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: My commander telling me that uh Hamas had fired rockets into Israel and that our unit is being deployed in Jerusalem.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I left uh the house that I stayed in really early and started to drive toward Jerusalem, whereas I I started to get different videos in my phone, realizing something maybe bigger and harsher happening in the Gaza envelope Gaza strip, which is not just Hamas firing missiles at us.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I called my commanders and I told them that I have a hunch that something's happening and we need to go there.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: We had a bit of argue.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually, I'll cut the story as quick as I can.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: I did defy an order.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I disobeyed what they asked me to do to come to Jerusalem, and I decided to drive to the Gaza envelope.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: I had only my pistol with me, I had nine bullets in it, but I'm realizing deep inside that something really bad is happening, that every moment that goes by, innocent life are being taken.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, I didn't have the full picture, not even close to it.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: I drove uh towards the Gaza Streep.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: I had two interesting phone calls, one of them from my ex-wife telling me that her boyfriend with his two daughters is trapped in a safe room.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Try to imagine this: you have a safe room at home, you and your loved ones are in it, hiding, uh scaring, and and you know what's happening in the next door.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: You can hear the screams of people, people being slaughtered.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: You see, after the terrorists killed people, they took their own victims' phones and took pictures and videos of their bodies, and then they posted it on the WhatsApp groups and the social media of the very same victims.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's beyond comprehension.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and also a lot of the um the footage they also had from their body cams.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: So we know that's also been in that 47-minute horrible video that apparently made people actually throw up and need to be sedated after seeing.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I can only imagine what you have witnessed, and yeah, for that, I feel great sadness for you.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh, I me too, by the way.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And uh anyway, she my ex-wife telling me this story, screaming over the phone, that this is what's happening right now.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: He's fighting for his own family life, holding the handle of the door.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Hamastero is trying to open it, they are shooting at the door, it's a steel door, they are throwing grenades at the door, and she screams, go save them.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I just tell her in a very cool uh uh way, Liron, I'm on my way there.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: I hang up the phone and I get into a zone where I drive really fast, I get prepared, and I pray to God for one thing.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm asking him, don't save my life or anything.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Just give me opportunity to fight.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Don't let him shoot me while I'm in the car, because I realized at this point that Hamas is controlled the highways, and they already killed a lot of people at their cars in the highways.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: I managed to break a few checkposts in order to go into battle.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right before that, I had three minutes.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: I left a video, a farewell video for my kids where I knew that I'm about to die today.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: It will be either in a few minutes, few hours, in the end of the day, maybe, but I will be dead today.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: You cannot go outside a situation like that.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I just had to say goodbye.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: I had to r to leave them something for me, a video of me telling them that I love them.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I I when I met this the the amazing community in Australia, people that have so much great values in them of democracy, of love, empathy, of of human rights.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: I I appealed to them and I asked them, try to imagine you have 20 seconds to say goodbye to your kids.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: What would you choose to say?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: What would you choose to say?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, by the way, what will your face look like in the video?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really scared at this moment, but I now I need to smile a bit because they are going to see this video for life.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they are little kids, and that's what I had to do.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: I was really cool, I was really um I could hear a pin drop during that day.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: I was so focused.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I I knew every every moment that I did, I knew exactly what I'm doing.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: I went on a car, I broke three checkposts, and eventually I got uh to the first fight over kibbutz Alumim, where basically we encountered a Hamas ambush.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: There were dozens of them where they tried attempt, the second attempt to go inside Alumim and to create a massacre there also.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: But we didn't let them.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: We had a four hour fight with them.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: We were probably 12 or 18, it depends.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Some came, some left, but but few got injured, not many, and others and other died.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: We were outnumbered, outgunned, and we were fighting to save life, and they were fighting to take life of innocent people.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's that's the situation that we had over there.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: During this fight, when I jumped from the car, and and God helped me, He gave me the opportunity.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: They we drove, we saw a huge fire from inside the communities, the kibbutzim, pillars of thick black smoke all the way to the sky, which for me reminds me of Auschwitz because they set everything on fire, they set everything on fire, including bodies, including bodies.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: They set everything on fire, and you've seen huge pillars of smoke all the way to the sky, and I'm telling myself, I'm in Auschwitz.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: The moment I jump from the car when Hamas fire, they fire a few bullets at our car.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: We jumped.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: The first thing that I see is a half-naked dead woman right there on the highway.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's just terrible.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like a dead soldier.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you knew you this was more than it was like for you, your brain must have actually been trying to shift to process what is going on here because it wasn't a war.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it did you didn't know it was gonna be a war, so it wasn't like you had braced for a war fully, yeah, and you find yourself in this zone.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I I switched really quick and I was like I said before, I was really focused.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was all in the situation where I felt everything that I see, I felt, but it didn't stop me from reacting really fast to the situations.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Is that training?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that's I don't think it's training?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: You think it's in night?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's like I don't know what what is it, it just happened.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and um I'm taking a weapon from a dead soldier, and then I'm starting to engage the fight.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: I I can I can see in front of me Hamas Telways, we are fighting at pretty close ranges, and then and then I feel something in my leg.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm shooting, I'm behind the car, and I feel something soft in my leg that prevents me from being steady to shoot.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: I look down and I see a full-naked woman.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: She was laying on her belly, she's dead, she was shot in the in the in the back of her head.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: I I know that she was raped.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: I won't say how I know it's no, maybe yeah, too much for but I we've heard these horrible stories.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, you know, if I mean that on that point, by the way, there are if you can believe this and you have heard this, there are people saying that there were no rapes.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is it is mind-blowing, but that's why this is like a witness statement.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's a testimonial.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is what people need to know.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: But um I I agree with you, the detail I think a lot of people know already, but we do not need to recount in honor of these beautiful women.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, when when all this was over, so I was I was drafted to my unit.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was there for a month and a half protecting Israel in reserves, and for the last for the first two weeks, almost every day, I had police officers and investigators come to meet me and to take my testimony because we all realized that people in the world won't believe us.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: For us Jews, it's not enough that our victims were violated and tortured and had brutally assaulted.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's not enough.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: For us Jews, we'll have to prove it.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: We have a different set of systems for us in the world.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: We have we'll have to prove it.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to give testimonial, and I can tell you that on the highways, approximately 80% of the women, the dead women victims that I've seen were either half naked or naked.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I've seen.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: I took pictures and I realized as an advocator, as someone in my professional life, that's what I'm trying to do.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: I try to build bridges into communities around the world to get young people to get together and to better uh improve Israel's image in the world.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: And during the fight, I'm realizing tomorrow, not in a month from now, tomorrow, I will have to prove what I've seen.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: We will have to fight for our narrative, for the truth, we'll have to make sure that the world will know.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I took pictures, I took videos of what's happening.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you're my own.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Extraordinary courage.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: As a documentarian myself, which is how I see it, what you're saying makes complete sense.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: But the thought that you had that you could, in that peace of mind, that that state of mind, that you could think of doing that is quite extraordinary, but it's actually so critical.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: But as we know, obviously the the Hamas uh body cam is also tragically and horribly recorded as well, as you pointed out.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: So so for you, you refer to the narrative, and by the way, also obviously you know that Steven Spielberg is doing this, it's like it's he's recorded the show, he's also gonna document, and I'm sure that your testimony will be part of that as well.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And thank God, because you know, we need people like him to do that and to step up, which he has finally.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: So that's great.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: In terms of the narrative that you refer to, one of our biggest challenges here and all over the world is obviously that it's been hijacked quite literally by very virulent and vile anti-Semitic tropes and people saying this didn't happen, or if it did, it was a resistance, you know, you know the whole arguments, we've all heard it.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, as an educator as well, and somebody who's going to use your horrible experience, but one where you actually fought off along with your cohort these horrible terrorists.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: How do you see, other than one-on-one advocacy as you're doing around the world, how can we change the narrative so that people listen to the facts?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: For example, they'll talk about this being a resistance of sep to 75 years of oppression.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about we've been oppressed for 3,000 years.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Just look what's happened in every country, in every century.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's really challenging.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Have you got any thoughts around that?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I did.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for this question.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I I want to uh, with your permission, start before I'm talking about the what I want to do.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: I want to start with the why.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: When I had a uh vacation from the Army, they rotated us.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: After a month and a half, they said, Listen, you can go back to your children for your life for three weeks' vacation before you come back.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: I said I couldn't go back home to my children, even though I missed them.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: I decided I'm going to travel to different communities in the world to share my story, to meet parliament members, media outlets, and to and to talk about the why with those people.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually, I've by the way, I've been to England, Germany, Australia, in my vacation that I had.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: And when I talk to people, eventually you have to choose.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: There is two sides.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever happened there, it's not a resistance, it's not uh it's not an equal fight, it's not army against army.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: There were three thousand, it it was the most barbaric terror attack that ever happened in history.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: There were three thousand terrorists that went like a tornado over people's homes, bodies, lives.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: They took everything that they could.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: You need to see, you know, in Israel we built in our homes safe shelters because we are under attack all the time.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Safe shelters from steel doors and steel and and concrete walls.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you have a small window in each one of these shelters, and this window is from harsh steel.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: And Deb, I will ask you to share a picture that I took of those steel windows.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: You can almost see like there is an imaginary dragon that scratched it, like the hand of the devil scratch it, try to get inside to take lives.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't just went by a home, they stayed there for hours and tried to go all the way into the into the concrete walls, into the steel doors, in order to kill young little boys, and then to rape a 13-year-old girl in front of her parents, and only then shoot her parents.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's the situation that we had there.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: And what I'm what I told, for example, to the to the community in Australia is listen, this is two sets of values.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: The values that I present in Nimrod exactly as I said before.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: I believe in human rights, I believe in in unity, in diversity, in love.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: And the other side, what I have with this believes in death and destruction.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: And pure evil.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: You need to choose.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: You need to choose.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's right.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what I find astounding though, in light of that, is what so many people that we would otherwise would think would have moral clarity at this time.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we've had, for example, since you left, just since you left even Australia, we have had journalists on our main news channels espousing obscene anti-Semitic perspectives.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: They've actually one just got sacked yesterday, thank goodness.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Then we've had, you know, um, you know, it's it's endless.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's the media.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Then we've had a university where the valedictory speech, they actually got up with a kafir and the and and talked about the Gaza situation from a Palestinian perspective and literally railroaded the entire graduation ceremony, which is never happened in the history of this country.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: So do you imagine being a young Jewish person sitting in the audience?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: So the point, what I'm trying to say is one of the problems is people think they're choosing because they don't understand, and that's why your testimony and your story is so important.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: They don't understand that what they're choosing is the wrong side of history.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that's not to say we don't have compassion for the Palestinians, of course.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And what's happening is it's not a question, but this is, as you say, this was an opposite evil sort of tornado.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's a brilliant sort of image.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: And and those I think innocent people that choose to wear the kafia instead and blow up the ceremony don't realize when they put the kafia, Hamas had kafias on them when they raped, uh tortured, and killed innocent people throughout the whole day, by the way.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's very important.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: People need to know that.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: People really need to know that, and they need to know, and and you're right, it's education.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to address two things.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: One, anti-Semitism were was laying underground, only inch underground.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: Only inch.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: You could you could almost scratch it, yeah, and and it's you know, now it's exploding.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: And the second thing regarding education, I totally agree with you.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: What I decided to do, you know, when I was running in kibbutzbury, saving lives, witnessing the atrocities that I have seen, fighting to save lives, with my own risking my myself.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: I got shot in the chest.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: I I wore a ceramic vest, I got shot.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thank God you were.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: When I was in Bari, yeah, when I was in Bari, I kept telling myself, Nimrod, no one will believe you.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the ones that will will never understand what you have seen here.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: They won't understand what's happening here.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: How horrible it is.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: Who can stand along?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you have to have such a weak moral fiber, not to understand and to be able to say this is wrong.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Even if I believe that this conflict should be resolved somehow, this is wrong.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: This is not the way.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: This is not values, poor Palestinians that they have to have a leadership like that.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: By the way, you think that Hamas is doing that only to us?
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Look what they have done to the Palestinian people where they have billions of dollars entering every year and they take it to their own leadership, corrupted, the most corrupted leadership in the world, where they take all this money and instead of investing in hospitals and education systems and healthcare, they spend it to build tunnels in order to kill Jews.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: This is the situation.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: What I decided to do, we took a VR video team, we went into those kibbutzim a week, a week and a half after.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: We took pictures, like 360 pictures all over videos.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: And what we are going to do, we we are creating a movie, by the way, with the help of former director of the Spillbook Foundation.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, the Spillboard Foundation.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, good.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: He's gonna help us, he's gonna guide us and oversee the production.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually try to imagine yourself, a young student, sitting in the university in Sydney, and you watching the VR for 12 minutes you'll see you you'll be actually you'll be inside Kfaraza where the massacre took place.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: You'll be you'll walk with the survivor of the party of the festival, you'll walk with her.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: She will tell you what she had witnessed and what happened here and what happened there.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: You will see with your own eyes.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's the ultimate testimony.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because unfortunately, as you said, Jews have to why is this?
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's so it's so insane.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, why is it that no one like look at all, and this is the other thing that I don't understand, and maybe you get some clarity from all these places that you're visiting.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, why is it that there are, you know, we've got in Syria, we've got, you know, Myanmar, we've got so many countries in conflict, or where there's been, or even Iran, what's happening now, you know, it's which is with executions, etc.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Why is it that this has become the cause celebre, you know, like the the thing that everyone, and it's a really just really confronting lens.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's as if the ground has shifted for many Jewish communities and Jewish people.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's happened in the past, but this is really out of left of center, you know?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it is a very, very good question.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: And the phenomenon of the Jewish people, why we are at the center, why when so many bad things and and and and different genocides happen around the world, why they we need we have to to to have Israel in the center.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: This is a phenomenon.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I could only, you know, and and I've been asking this question myself for years, yeah, and I reached only one answer, a simple answer for me.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a bit of philosopher, and we have witnessed on October 7th that the like you said, the pure evil in the world, we have witnessed it.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: And when you read when you read Plato, the the great philosopher, yes, uh Plato tried to talk about the ideal of values.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: What is the ideal values?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he tried, he fought philosophical philosophically, he fought to prove that there is an ideal value of good, like the most ultimate pure good in the world.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: He couldn't prove it, but someone else managed to prove that there is an ideal pure evilness in the world, and we have witnessed it on October 7th, and this group of people, Hamas, Palestinian Hamas, that showed us that prova that there is pure evil in the world, they made us the Jews as the most uh biggest enemy of the pure evil.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I keep asking myself if the pure evil says I'm his worst enemy, what does he say about me?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I'm I have a potential to be the pure good.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: What is my role now?
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what is God asking me?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: The antithesis, yeah.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the antithesis.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Even you know, it's interesting you say that because even with the rallies, you know, the rallies, you know, in New York and London, they're so, you know, incredibly like chanting and horrible.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: And like I'm talking about some of the extreme rallies.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: And with all due respect, a lot of the Jewish rallies are very peaceful and quiet and just sad and and sort of just and full of warmth and love.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that's just my perspective.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's just a fact.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you can see if you put them side by side, it's as if we have to rise above the evil and find the good.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what you're saying.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so just coming back to your own personal story, how are you coping with the trauma?
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: And are you getting the support you need?
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because it is you what you're doing, and is this part of your catharsis, do you think?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: To go around and speak, like it's it's like part of your healing.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Probably, yes.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: People ask me, how can I delete the pictures in my mind of what I've seen?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I told them, listen, I will never delete it.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be another engine in my life to make sure I swore on the soil of Barrie, I swore never again, as long as it's up to me.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm an Israeli leader, I'm a leader in the IDF.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: As long as it's up to me, never again Jews will have to go through a slaughter like that.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: And to your question regarding the trauma, it is traumatizing what we had to witness.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: On the very next morning of the slaughter, on October 8th, I waited to 8 a.m.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: and I called a good therapist that I know.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Her name is Eti Esther.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: I called Ettie, the most sensitive woman in the world, and I told her Ettie I was there yesterday.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't need to explain, everyone knew what happened.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to make sure I'll be a good father, a good husband.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: I want to make sure that in three years from now I won't wake up in the middle of the night screaming and sweating.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: What should I do?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Help me to heal myself now.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's 8 a.m.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: only a few hours after I left.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's me.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's at that moment I decided to take care of myself and to talk.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that is something that will be part of your healing, just the fact you were ready to do that and you knew that it's like you'd been slashed emotionally, and you knew that you had to go forth.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact that you could own that and that you is that something that you think that you're taught as part of your experience in the army, or do you think it's just something that you have gone on your own personal self-care journey, knowing that in your role that you have to have that capacity to access support when you need it?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's even deeper than that.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: In my journey in life, I'm really sensitive.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm connecting to feelings, to emotion, and it helps me be a better father, uh, a better spouse, and a better boss.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: I feel I'm uh I react with empathy, and it's like a muscle when when you walk walk on your feelings and connecting to feelings, and not be afraid, by the way, to show feelings.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's only make you a better version of yourself, not worse.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: So and so for you moving forward, you're obviously in a position where you have this extraordinary tool and this this capacity to share your story and to educate and to go out into the world in the way that you have in different countries.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: What sort of resonance have you felt from communities, Australia included?
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: I have to say that the Australian community is the best Zionist community I met outside of Israel.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: And as I said to them, probably even in parts inside Israel, and why they're so Zionist, because half of them are descendants of Holocaust survivors.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: And the other half came from South Africa, they left out of fear South Africa, and so they know they they understand in a deep level, such a Zionist community.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, when I decided to fly to Australia, my commander called me again and he told me, Don't go.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to go rest because we need you up and ready in three weeks.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: Don't go and get tired in your travelings.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I told him, again, you don't understand the situation, you don't know who I'm going to meet.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to come back home much stronger, powerful, with understanding of why I'm doing what I'm doing.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I felt when I met all these uh amazing communities.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: So they really filled your cup, and hopefully we did, because you've certainly filled the cups here.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like there were so many people that were inspired by your strength and your courage and your preparedness to still be able to be uh present.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it's you know, it's interesting whether that's a bio biological ability to just you know, as you say, you're getting support and healing, but clearly you have an innate ability to, and maybe you've been this on this journey for some reason that we don't know about.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: How's your faith?
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Has your faith been shaken?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, I feel more connected to God and also this very, very awful day where part of me inside of me is dead, but it will maybe wake up, only a part of me, not all of me.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I've seen some so many other miracles on that day also that saved so many lives.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: It was not our fault.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually, a group of jihadist uh extremists went on a mission, embarked on a mission to kill as many people as they could on that morning.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: We were able to stop them.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: It took us a bit few a few hours, but we were able to stop them.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: And we had so many few mirac different miracles along the day, and and I feel more connected.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the miracle that you refer to, other than the fact that you could stave off some of these terrorists, were there also miracles in the sense that you just felt you could save people, but also there's also we got you've got, I mean, some of the hostages came out later that we still have obviously a long journey there, and that's another very challenging story.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: Was there any miracle that springs to mind specifically that really touched you?
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, a lot of people survived.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: We managed to save a lot of people's lives.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: We are we are surrounded with different with more jihadist extremist organizations like Hezbollah, which is uh bigger, stronger, maybe more determined from Hamas, and they didn't enter as well.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: Try to imagine what could have happened then if we had two fronts.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: We were worried about that.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone, I think everyone was very and still to some degree is worried about that.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Are you feeling strength or fear or both?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: What are you feeling?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: You're back in Israel, and clearly I read these interesting statistics that said there's been like a tenfold increase in people coming to live in Israel and come back to their homeland or make Aliyah in order to support Israel, which is extraordinary, really.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: What where do you find that?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: Most people are leaving, and then there's all this.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: What does that tell you?
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: Again, this is the phenomenon of the Jewish people.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: People in airports along the world say, Are you guys crazy when there is a war?
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: Usually we see people fleeing.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: And when there is a war in Israel, you see Israelis coming back in because we are fighting for a justice fight of values.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: Again, not just for us Israelis, but also for the Palestinians.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: For them, they deserve better leadership that will take them further for advance, for creativity, for building.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: And we are fighting also for you Australians.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's not Israel Hamas.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is jihad war against us, civil, uh, Western civilization.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Democracy, yeah, absolutely.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, you can see that in London, New York, Australia, wherever it is.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: But unfortunately, people don't fully get that message.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Just on that note, one of the other things that I've been reading is many of those victims, tragically, were actually coexisting, very peace-loving, beautiful.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like they would, you know, I read about, you know, uh the grandmother that was murdered on then left on the border, and she was somebody who used to take people from Gaza, bring them across for chemotherapy treatment, and then drive them and wait with them, and then take them back to the border.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like, is this something that this is the most left progressive peace activist community in Israel?
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what they got.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, again, it's like in the Holocaust when the German Nazis sent us to the gas chambers.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't care who are you, how much you are in favor of the social uh national party.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't care.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: All of you Jews, you're Jews, you need to be dead.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for sharing your story, giving us your time, Nimrod, and wishing you safe and uh careful.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: I want I want to make sure that you take care and you look after you because you're sharing some amazing energy with all of us, and we loved having you in Australia.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: So we will stay in touch.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much, Deb, for this uh opportunity, and I want to send my love to the Australian people, uh, my connections and and my thoughts about you.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm blessed to have so many wonderful guests coming on the show.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: So check out my what I've learned Instagram for updates.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, stay tuned, kind and curious.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Love to do it.