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The piano-playing soldier who changed Israel · The Front

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Monday, October seventh. Commemorations Today mark the one year
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  Speaker 1: anniversary of a terrorist attack on Israel that launched a
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  Speaker 1: new phase of conflict and set the Middle East on
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  Speaker 1: the brink of wider war. Anthony Alberanese's government has shifted
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  Speaker 1: its language on Israel's right to defend itself, condemning anti
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  Speaker 1: Semitism and declaring Israel has a right to defend itself
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  Speaker 1: by responding to missile attacks on its soil. Today a
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  Speaker 1: special episode of the Front with our correspondent on the
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  Speaker 1: ground in Israel, Jonni Vashanh. Sixteen years ago, a little
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  Speaker 1: boy named Tull Grushka appeared on Israel's Channel twelve TV station,
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  Speaker 1: talking proudly about his upcoming performance in a major piano competition.
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  Speaker 2: Much long hato.
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  Speaker 1: By twenty eighteen, that little boy was twenty years old,
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  Speaker 1: A tall, muscular young soldier still in love with the piano.
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  Speaker 1: He posted a video on YouTube, where he had fourteen subscribers,
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  Speaker 1: of himself playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata Part three. In the video,
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  Speaker 1: teal Grushka is wearing ripped denim shorts and a T shirt.
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  Speaker 1: Sitting at an upright piano. He's concentrating hard, playing on
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  Speaker 1: through a few tiny mistakes. He's not looking at any
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  Speaker 1: sheet music. He's learned this piece by heart and a
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  Speaker 1: year ago today, Talgrushka was a twenty five year old
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  Speaker 1: major with the Israeli Army's Nahull Brigade nine hundred and
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  Speaker 1: thirty first Battalion, based in the West Bank, just south
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  Speaker 1: of Bethlehem. Early in the morning, they were called to
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  Speaker 1: respond to a major terrorist attack unfolding to the south,
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  Speaker 1: Hamas fighters flooding over the border from Gaza into rural
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  Speaker 1: villages including Kafar Azar. Grushka and his men were racing
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  Speaker 1: to kafa Azar to defend the civilians from what would
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  Speaker 1: be one of the day's worst massacres, but Grushka never
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  Speaker 1: made it. Their convoy was ambushed by Hamas fighters a
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  Speaker 1: few hundred meters from Kafar Azar, and when Grushka opened
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  Speaker 1: the door of his armored vehicle, he was shot dead.
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  Speaker 3: Stunning developments in Israel, as Palestinian militants fired thousands of rockets.
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  Speaker 2: The mass today launched a major surprise attack on Israel
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  Speaker 2: bi Airs reporter cowded an idea of Commander who mentioned
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  Speaker 2: the discovery of approximately forty BB's who had been subjected
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  Speaker 2: to horrifying violence, some beheaded. There is the mazazazas in
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  Speaker 2: the bedrooms in theos and how the toy excuse them.
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  Speaker 2: It's not at all, It's not a butterfit.
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  Speaker 1: And on October ten, as Israel reeled from the twelve
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  Speaker 1: hundred deaths and hundreds of hostages taken in the attacks,
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  Speaker 1: Talgushka was buried.
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  Speaker 3: It's a military cemetery in an area called Kas Sabah,
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  Speaker 3: and it was quite late at night and packed with people.
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  Speaker 3: This was three days after October seven, at a time
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  Speaker 3: when Israel was overrun with burials.
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  Speaker 1: Johnny Bishan is the Australian's journalist and he'd scrambled to
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  Speaker 1: get to Israel. Just hours after landing in Tel Aviv,
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  Speaker 1: Johnny found himself among the mourners at Talgrushka's funeral.
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  Speaker 2: There was actually four soldiers buried that evening.
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  Speaker 3: Tal was the first and his funeral was held at
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  Speaker 3: approximately ten pm inside that cemetery because similar services were
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  Speaker 3: is taking place all over the country and at all hours,
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  Speaker 3: so I just got off the plane, I'd just put
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  Speaker 3: my bags and I had never attended a military funeral
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  Speaker 3: in Israel before, but I found myself standing at this
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  Speaker 3: event with Tult's family, who I knew through my own family,
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  Speaker 3: but I'd actually never met.
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  Speaker 2: Them before, and so there was an extra layer of poignancy.
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  Speaker 1: Johnny has been back and forth to Israel over the
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  Speaker 1: past year, and today in The Australian we're publishing his
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  Speaker 1: interview with tel Grushka's family.
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  Speaker 3: The impression I got listening to Tull's family was that
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  Speaker 3: he was a lovely guy, still very much of the
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  Speaker 3: ten year old kid who loved the piano and he
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  Speaker 3: was actually a piano prodigy at a young age, but
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  Speaker 3: that he'd grown into this strong, fearless soldier who just
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  Speaker 3: believed in the mission of being a soldier. What was
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  Speaker 3: clear to me was that he wasn't in the army
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  Speaker 3: and pursuing a career in the army for the sake
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  Speaker 3: of carrying a gun and wearing a uniform, which in
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  Speaker 3: this country there is a lot of cachet that comes
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  Speaker 3: with that, but fetal doing these things was a a
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  Speaker 3: matter of security.
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  Speaker 2: And safety for the Jewish people.
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  Speaker 3: And I know this not just because his family told me,
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  Speaker 3: but because I've read some of his writings and some
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  Speaker 3: of his poetry which he posted online and which his
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  Speaker 3: family had given to me. But one of the other
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  Speaker 3: legacies of Tal as a commander was that he was
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  Speaker 3: very insistent with his troops that every Friday, just before
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  Speaker 3: the Shabbat weekend, they take out their mobile phones.
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  Speaker 2: And call their grandparents.
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  Speaker 3: And this is partly because he had his own very
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  Speaker 3: strong connection with his own grandparents. And possibly the saddest
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  Speaker 3: side I could have seen at his funeral was his
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  Speaker 3: grandfather standing there at the microphone and saying goodbye to
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  Speaker 3: him too. The legacy out of this is that this
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  Speaker 3: initiative of tilS has become something of a movement in Israel,
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  Speaker 3: not just on social media, but fridge Magnet's been printed,
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  Speaker 3: and there's a partnership with one of the telephone companies,
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  Speaker 3: and a university here has been.
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  Speaker 2: Promoting what Tal was doing with his soldiers.
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  Speaker 3: So there's this message that's going out there every Friday,
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  Speaker 3: you know, call your grandmother. Even among the people I've
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  Speaker 3: encountered on this reporting trip to Israel, I hear about
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  Speaker 3: young people making more of an effort to call their
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  Speaker 3: elderly relatives, so it's undoubtedly having some sort of.
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  Speaker 1: Impact in Israel. As in many societies where military service
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  Speaker 1: is a part of life, there's a thread in popular
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  Speaker 1: culture of the thoughtful warrior poet. Your dreams of better times, yo,
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  Speaker 1: but I'm a soldier, and don't you cry for me? Girl,
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  Speaker 1: goes the chorus of this nineteen seventy nine hit by
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  Speaker 1: one of Israel's biggest stars, Shlomo Aatzi. Israel has been,
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  Speaker 1: by choice and by circumstance a warrior state since it
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  Speaker 1: was founded in nineteen forty eight, after centuries of persecution
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  Speaker 1: and after six million Jews were murdered in Adolf Hitler's
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  Speaker 1: Hole cost the United Nations split a tiny sliver on
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  Speaker 1: the eastern shore of the Mediterranean roughly in half and
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  Speaker 1: called one slice Palestine and the other slice Israel, an
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  Speaker 1: acknowledgment that Jews and Muslims both regard this as their
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  Speaker 1: holy land. The idea was to give Jews somewhere safe
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  Speaker 1: to live forevermore, but the fighting has gone on ever since.
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  Speaker 1: October seven, twenty twenty three, was just the latest iteration
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  Speaker 1: har mass fighters swarming into Israel from Gaza and Israel
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  Speaker 1: pounding Gaza with a stated aim of returning the hostages,
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  Speaker 1: eliminating her Mass and destroying the tunnels under the strip.
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  Speaker 1: Her Mass, which began as an elected government but which
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  Speaker 1: morphed into a totalitarian regime, hasn't allowed Gazans a free
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  Speaker 1: vote since two thousand and six. It brought on this
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  Speaker 1: conflict with an intention of galvanizing the world against Israel,
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  Speaker 1: and paying the price have been Gaza's Sevilians, with Hamas
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  Speaker 1: claiming forty thousand have died in this year of bloodshed,
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  Speaker 1: and in Israel, a sense of complacency and tranquility, particularly
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  Speaker 1: for the post Holocaust generations, have been completely shattered. Israel
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  Speaker 1: has quite a remarkable missile defense system called the Iron Dome,
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  Speaker 1: which has protected it in a lot of instances from
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  Speaker 1: rocket fire coming in from over its borders. But October
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  Speaker 1: seven really shattered their sense of safety and their sense
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  Speaker 1: of faith in the Israeli state to protect them, didn't it.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, And one of the drawbacks of having an Irondome
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  Speaker 3: system is that in Israel's case, it didn't have as
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  Speaker 3: much of an urgency to take care of the rockets
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  Speaker 3: being fired from Hamas in Gaza. For many, many years,
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  Speaker 3: because it had the safety of the Irondome system.
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  Speaker 2: So as long as it was working.
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  Speaker 3: And as long as missiles weren't landing in Israeli population centers,
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  Speaker 3: there's no great need from the Israeli army to mount
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  Speaker 3: any kind of incursion into Gaza or what Israeli sometimes
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  Speaker 3: call a grass cutting mission, where you go in and
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  Speaker 3: mow the lawn to get rid of the problem and
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  Speaker 3: wait until it grows back. But because of that circumstance,
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  Speaker 3: you've got a situation on October seven where hundreds, even
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  Speaker 3: thousands of Hamas fighters and even ordinary Gazans have stormed
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  Speaker 3: across the border infiltrated Israel. And what happened was Israel's
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  Speaker 3: military was left flat footed by what happened. It was
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  Speaker 3: caught off guard. So I guess we're left in a
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  Speaker 3: situation where even now one year on, there's approximately one
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  Speaker 3: hundred and one Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza.
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  Speaker 3: And so the compact between the state and the people,
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  Speaker 3: in which a person gives three years of their life
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  Speaker 3: to military conscription and in return they're assured of that
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  Speaker 3: safety and security, the image of that, or the symbolism
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  Speaker 3: of that, seems to have been fractured in part because
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  Speaker 3: Israelis are looking at Gaza and seeing their countrymen still
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  Speaker 3: holding captivity, and while the army is doing whatever it
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  Speaker 3: can to try and get them out, they are being hamstrung.
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  Speaker 2: They haven't been.
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  Speaker 3: Returned, and so that has had a devastating impact on
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  Speaker 3: faith in the army and faith in the security establishment.
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  Speaker 3: Although it's not totally broken, there are certainly some people
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  Speaker 3: who are asking themselves what it's all for at.
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  Speaker 1: This point, coming up after the break, how Tull Grushka's generation,
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  Speaker 1: both in Israel and in countries like Australia, is responding
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  Speaker 1: to this conflict in real time. The Australian subscribers have
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: been reading the best analysis of this huge story ever
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  Speaker 1: since October seventh last year. Join us at the Australian
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  Speaker 1: dot Com dou and we'll be back after the break.
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  Speaker 1: It's young people who are having to fight this war
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  Speaker 1: on Israel's behalf, and yet they are people who for
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  Speaker 1: whom the Holocaust and the pogroms of history are just
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  Speaker 1: that the history lessons. So how does this generation who's
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  Speaker 1: grown up under the Iron Dome, grown up with a
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  Speaker 1: sense of Israel being a safe place square this conflict
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  Speaker 1: that they now find themselves in this existential fight.
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  Speaker 3: This is a situation that Jews the world over may
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  Speaker 3: not have had to contend with because they grew up
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  Speaker 3: in a post Holocaust generation where Israel's.
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  Speaker 2: Existence was always secured.
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  Speaker 3: In Israel, however, there have been ongoing wars and ongoing skirmishes.
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  Speaker 3: And when you're a young person growing up here, you
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  Speaker 3: see your friends being drafted, You see your older siblings
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  Speaker 3: enlisting in the army and being sent at times into
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  Speaker 3: volatile and hostile parts of the region. And this war,
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  Speaker 3: or these wars, first in Gaza and now in Lebanon,
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  Speaker 3: don't appear to be all that different. And what I'm
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  Speaker 3: certainly seeing from the young people is that no one
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  Speaker 3: is reflecting on the events of October seven and asking
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  Speaker 3: themselves what this is all for. Actually, they're heading in
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  Speaker 3: quite the opposite direction. They've been galvanized by what's occurred
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  Speaker 3: on October seven. They see the impending threat of doom
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  Speaker 3: that's bearing down upon them, especially now from the world's
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  Speaker 3: largest non state military actor in Hesbolah, and they're very
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  Speaker 3: much energized to defeat this threat and do the work
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  Speaker 3: that's required of them.
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  Speaker 1: You Andi We've seen big protests on the streets of
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  Speaker 1: Sydney and Melbourne on Sunday. There are increasing reports over
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  Speaker 1: the year of antisemitism and of Jewish people who once
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  Speaker 1: might have had mixed feelings about Israel, or who might
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  Speaker 1: have deplored Israel's military actions against its neighbors, but who
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  Speaker 1: now have different feelings. They've got a different sense of
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  Speaker 1: why Israel exists and what it means for the Jewish
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  Speaker 1: diasper all over the world. And then we've got Tael
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  Speaker 1: Grushka's generation here in places like Australia, who are in
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  Speaker 1: large part extremely concerned about Israel's actions in Gaza, and
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  Speaker 1: many of whom believe that Israel has gone too far.
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  Speaker 1: How is that perceived in Israel? The sense that in
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  Speaker 1: the West Israel is being judged very harshly.
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  Speaker 3: I think within Israel there's a great deal of confusion
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  Speaker 3: about how it's being perceived in Western capitals and elsewhere,
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  Speaker 3: because in Israel they see what they're doing in Gaza
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  Speaker 3: as removing the threat of terrorism. I mean, for the
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  Speaker 3: people here, it's very simple. There's a famous video of
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  Speaker 3: a young hostage named Nama Lev who's being driven in
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  Speaker 3: a youth to Gaza. Her pants have been soiled, she's
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  Speaker 3: been grabbed by the hair by a Hamas terrorist. Her
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  Speaker 3: achilles heel appears to have been cut so she can't
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  Speaker 3: run away. You've got an image of this beautiful young
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  Speaker 3: woman being dragged into Gaza, and you've got an Islamic
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  Speaker 3: she had us dragging her by the hair to go
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  Speaker 3: along with him. I mean, this is a very simple
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  Speaker 3: fight for the people of Israel. I mean they're asking
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  Speaker 3: people in the western capitals who side are you on?
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  Speaker 3: Are you with the girl or are you with the
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  Speaker 3: guy dragging her by the hair? That is the very
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  Speaker 3: simple equation here. It's a fight against Islamic she Hadism.
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  Speaker 3: It's a fight against terrorism, whether it's happening in Gaza,
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  Speaker 3: or whether it's happening in southern Lebanon with Jsblah, or
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  Speaker 3: whether it's coming via a long range threat from Iran,
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  Speaker 3: or from the Huthi rebels in Yemen, or from the
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  Speaker 3: other fronts in Iraq and Syria.
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  Speaker 2: So that's the confusion here.
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  Speaker 3: Israelis feel like they're doing the work of the West
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  Speaker 3: combat a threat that they would face two And it's
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  Speaker 3: for that reason that they can't really understand why there
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  Speaker 3: are very high numbers of protesters gathering in Sydney, in
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  Speaker 3: Melbourne and elsewhere, demanding that Israel call on an immediate
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  Speaker 3: cease fire, stop the war, stop the fight and allow
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  Speaker 3: this problem in the Middle East to proliferate.
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  Speaker 1: Yonni Bishan is in Israel for The Australian. He'll be
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  Speaker 1: reporting live from the ground with our journalist Lea Mendez
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  Speaker 1: on commemorations and the very real thread of ground war
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  Speaker 1: on the border with Lebanon. Join us at the Australian
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  Speaker 1: dot com dot au