Republika Srpska stands with Israel not only in remembering October 7, but also in defending the fundamental right of the Jewish people to live freely, safely and on their own land, said Ana Trišić Babić, acting director for international cooperation of Republika Srpska.
“Throughout history, the Serb and Jewish peoples have experienced times when a person did not have to do anything to be marked for persecution. Their name and origin were enough. Under the same fascist and Nazi system of crimes during the Second World War, both Serbs and Jews were killed,” Trišić Babić said.
She emphasized that the Serb people’s attitude toward the suffering of the Jewish people is not based on political calculation, but on historical experience and questions of survival.
“To the State of Israel and the Jewish people, we send a message that carries profound meaning in Republika Srpska. When someone shows a people that they seek their fear, helplessness or disappearance, that people’s right to protect itself is not subject to anyone else’s permission,” Trišić Babić said.
The Republika Srpska Media System – SRNA published Ana Trišić Babić’s opinion piece in full:
Three years after the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, the memory of the victims of October 7 remains a reminder of every people’s right to live freely and safely.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas showed what its ideology means when given the opportunity to turn into action. On October 7, 2023, Hamas showed what its vision of freedom looks like.
More than 1,200 people were killed in Israel, most of them civilians. A total of 251 people were abducted and taken to Gaza. People were killed on the road, in their homes, at parties and during moments of ordinary life. They were not selected because they posed a military threat. They were targeted because they were Israelis and Jews.
Three years later, every serious remembrance of October 7 must begin with that fact.
October 7 was a crime of the worst kind. It was a terrorist attack deliberately directed against civilians, intended to turn murder, abduction and fear into a message to an entire people. Hamas sought to demonstrate that for Jews, neither their own homes, their own state nor everyday life could ever be sufficiently safe.
It was not the first time the Jewish people had faced such a message.
In this, Republika Srpska understands something that cannot be learned from diplomatic statements. Throughout history, the Serb and Jewish peoples have experienced times when a person did not have to do anything to be marked for persecution. Their name and origin were enough. Under the same fascist and Nazi system of crimes during the Second World War, both Serbs and Jews were killed. Jasenovac is a place where the destinies of our two peoples lie side by side and, as such, remains one of the most horrific testimonies to that policy, while the Jewish community of Banja Luka was almost completely destroyed by the Ustasha authorities.
That is why the Serb people’s attitude toward the suffering of the Jewish people does not begin with political calculation. At its foundation lie historical experience and a question of survival.
There is also the experience of a much more recent period. During the wars of the 1990s, the Serb people experienced firsthand what radical Islamism can do when it reduces a person to their religion and nationality and gives violence the appearance of a higher justification. That is why, in Republika Srpska, we do not view the methods of Hamas – the massacre of civilians, abductions, rapes, hostage-taking, humiliation and terror as a political instrument – as something belonging to a distant era or an incomprehensible world.
The histories are not the same. But peoples who have survived attempts to erase them know how to recognize the moment when hatred ceases to be merely a word and becomes a method.
This third anniversary carries particular significance. For the first time since October 7, Israel marks the anniversary without any of the hostages from that attack still being held in Gaza. In January of this year, after 843 days, the remains of Ran Gvili, the last abducted person whose remains were still in Gaza, were returned. With the return of his remains, Israel brought home the last of the 251 people abducted by Hamas on October 7. All surviving hostages and the remains of those who died after being taken to Gaza by Hamas were once again on Israeli soil.
This is not merely the conclusion of an operation. It is an affirmation of one of the most serious obligations a state has toward its people. A serious state does not stop searching for one of its own simply because time has passed. It does not accept that an abducted person becomes a number, that a missing person becomes a footnote, or that the passing of years can erase the debt owed to someone violently torn from their life. In Republika Srpska, such a message carries particular weight because our people also know what it means to wait for news of the missing and to live with the responsibility of ensuring that no one is abandoned to oblivion.
That is why the closure of the hostage list also carried special significance for Republika Srpska. Behind that list stood one of the darkest ideas inherent in terrorism: that a human being can be torn from their own life and turned into an instrument of someone else’s political will.
Remembering October 7, therefore, is not a matter of protocol.
Remembrance is a responsibility toward the dead, but also an obligation of the living not to allow the passage of time to alter the moral nature of what happened. Civilization rests not only on laws and institutions. It also rests on the ability, when necessary, to distinguish without relativization between the victim and the victim’s killer, and between a crime and its justification.
Peace rests on the same ability. Peace is not a natural condition that, once achieved, belongs to us forever. It exists as long as there are societies prepared to preserve it and states prepared to protect their people when someone uses violence to deny them the right to live.
Today, we respectfully remember the people Hamas killed on October 7, 2023, and all those whose lives were violently ended or forever changed that day.
And to the State of Israel and the Jewish people, we send a message that carries profound meaning in Republika Srpska. When someone shows a people that they seek their fear, helplessness or disappearance, that people’s right to protect itself is not subject to anyone else’s permission.
Friends, we stand with you! Not only in remembering October 7, but in defending the fundamental right of your people to live freely, safely and on your own land.
Source: RTRS
