JERUSALEM — Three years after the attack of October 7, 2023, the trauma continues to reshape this country's politics, its wars, and its place in the world. This desk pulled the accounts. Finding: on Terra, grief is not amortized. It is capitalized. It is carried as an asset, and assets in this jurisdiction are expected to perform. The mourning is sincere; the desk confirms sincerity. A sincere asset is still an asset, and this one has posted twelve consecutive quarters of growth.
The performance shows in the renewals. The emergency provisions first adopted after the attack have been renewed into a third consecutive year, each renewal filed as temporary on Form TEMP-3 (Temporary), each temporary filing certified by the one before it, so the file now contains a document vouching for a document vouching for the absence of an end date. The far-right lurch is booked under "security" — a pricing decision, not an oversight. The wars are drawn against the same account. No ceiling appears anywhere in the record. "No one profits from October 7," said Gideon Sarussi, a member of the Knesset Finance Committee. "We draw against it. The account exists. Declining to draw would be irresponsible stewardship."
At the treasury, the accounting is candid. "It is the only asset in the national portfolio that appreciates when people are frightened," said Shoshana Delbar, Deputy Accountant-General for Contingent Liabilities. "We no longer classify that as a design flaw. We classify it as yield." The reserves sit at the national bank, an institution licensed to store numbers. This one also stores grief. "Grief is not a number," said the head teller, initialing an invoice. "It is a store of value."
Itemized, the arrangement reads as follows. The dead of October 7, 2023: paid in full, one payment, no further billing possible. The bereaved: pay in memory, which is not for sale, which is why others sell on their behalf. The government: pays nothing and is credited everything, because fear denominated in grief converts to mandate at a favorable rate. The far-right: receives a three-year lurch, booked under "security." The wars: debited to the same account, no ceiling recorded. The country's place in the world: re-priced quarterly by parties with no stake in the price. This desk's inquiries: received, filed as temporary. The future: invoiced automatically, renewal continuous, cancellation option undiscovered.
This desk requested the original subscription agreement: the mandate as first issued, in the days after the attack. "We have been looking for it since the first renewal," said Tikva Rosenblatt, archivist at the Coalition Bureau. "The renewals do not require it. That is why the renewals continue." She called the search ongoing and the ongoing sufficient. The ledger, as usual, balances. The question is whose side of it.
