There is hardly a more peaceful place in Tel Aviv than Meir Park. On a bench next to the pond, Anastasia Ro gives her baby a bottle. But like all of Israel, the young mother, who provides online fitness classes, has had turbulent days. “I had to wake the baby up again and again to go to the shelter,” she says, “and every night I cried at the images of the violence of war. Imagine all those mothers who now have to bury their children.”
Israel is still in shock over Hamas’ bloody attacks from the Gaza Strip, which began on Saturday and killed more than 1,300 fellow countrymen, including numerous children, women and the elderly. Never before have so many Hamas fighters crossed the border, never before has the toll been so high. “Not since the Holocaust have so many Jews been murdered in one day,” said President Isaac Herzog.
The Palestinians are also having a very hard time now. After almost incessant retaliatory bombings, which left many hundreds dead, they are now in fear over the expected Israeli ground offensive against Hamas. Many are also faced with an impossible choice: Israel has urgently advised more than a million Palestinians to evacuate the northern half of the Gaza Strip, while Hamas has ordered civilians to stay.
It is an inky black border around the year in which Israel celebrates its 75th anniversary and which was already marked by intense divisions over plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to drastically curtail the judiciary. Old contradictions between secular and religious Jews played an important role in the background. Once again, Israelis are now faced with the question of what to do next with their country, with themselves and with the Palestinians in the occupied territories, who will not simply disappear.
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These are existential questions that have caused deep disagreement for decades. Ruby Lev, a young phone salesman in Tel Aviv’s virtually customer-less Dizengoff shopping center, knows what to do. “Raise the Gaza Strip to the ground. Look like this,” he says, running his hand firmly over the evenly smooth top of the counter. You hear it more often, especially from men, who often swear.
The fact that it is hardly realistic to suggest that Israel could simply kill the 2.2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, shove them into the Mediterranean Sea or dump them over the fence of other countries makes little difference to them. Although Israel has already taken a big step in that direction: there is a lot in Gaza bombed to pieces and nearly 1,800 Palestinian civilians have been killed so far. In addition, 1,500 Hamas fighters were killed on Israeli territory.
Anastasia Ro and her husband, a former army sniper now incapacitated due to back problems, choose a different path. They mainly think about their safety and that of their son. They wanted to flee to Cyprus a few days earlier but could no longer get a flight. “For us, this war has really reached our limit,” she says, “We want to move to Australia. Israel is a beautiful country but it is too dangerous here and I see no prospect of peace. Even before the corona pandemic, we were considering emigrating, but that didn’t happen at the time. Now we’re really going to do it.”
Annoyance with the government plays a role, says Ro. According to her, it does far too little for the citizens. And she is also not happy with the army, although most Israelis are firmly behind their own armed forces. “Why did they not know about those attacks, why did people in the south have to wait eight hours until they received help from the army? My husband says that the army no longer has even basic things due to lack of money, such as batteries and battery chargers.”
Israel turned out to be more vulnerable than expected and that causes a trauma that will continue for a long time
Dahlia Scheindlin political analyst at The Century Foundation
Confidence in the Israeli government and the armed forces has suffered a blow,” Dahlia Scheindlin, political analyst at the American think tank The Century Foundation, also says on the phone: “Israel turned out to be more vulnerable than expected and that causes a trauma that will last for a long time.” continue working. And the dormant feeling that Israel is always a victim may resurface. A lot of people will say: look at what happened, that’s proof of it.” It can increase the urge to hit back hard. “You already see calls for revenge everywhere and I fear that this crisis will plunge Israel and the Palestinians into a new cycle of violence,” said Scheindlin, who returned from abroad as quickly as possible last weekend.
The government, which has so far avoided asking why Hamas has been able to operate so unchecked, is also using martial language. “Every member of Hamas is doomed,” said Prime Minister Netanyahu Wednesday. “Gaza will never return to what it was,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant promised a day before. “Whoever comes to behead, to kill women and Holocaust survivors, we will eliminate with all our strength and without compromise.”
Such rhetoric is well received by a large part of the population. “You cannot make compromises with extremists,” says 76-year-old Alex, a retired merchant sitting on a chair under the trees on the central Dizengoff Square. He does not want to give his last name. “Israel is now backed into a corner. This persistent threat from terrorists must disappear. You can’t live with that. But we have no problem with the Palestinian civilian population. Hopefully he will also try to live in peace with us.”
Analyst Scheindlin predicts that the war will be accompanied by an increasing militarization of society. “This was already happening but will be strengthened by this. That is also bad for democracy in Israel. In times of war, experience shows that restrictions are often imposed on this. We have already seen that the protest movement against the legal reform has been suspended indefinitely.”
Who will we be when we rise from the ashes and enter our lives again?
David Grossman writer
Although everyone agrees that Israel cannot let Hamas’ attacks go unanswered, many doubt whether military force can provide a solution in the long run. “There have been wars with Hamas three times before,” says Anastasia Ro, “In fact, they have not changed anything.” The government is now opting for violence, but at the moment it does not appear to have a coherent plan for the future. Scheindlin and other analysts are also not giving up in that regard. Scheindlin: “It is already too late for a solution. They should have been there earlier, when it was still possible.”
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Writers are also cautiously getting involved in this sensitive discussion. In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Israeli writer Lizzie Doron suggested, daughter of a Holocaust survivor, this week that Israel must first talk to itself. “Before there can be peace, we, the people who live here, have to find out who we want to be. It will be a tough internal battle between liberal Jews and ultra-Orthodox. But that has to be the next step. Only then can we talk about peace with the Arabs,” Doron said.
“Who will we be when we rise from the ashes and enter our lives again?” also asks writer David Grossman in the Financial Times.
He holds the current government partly responsible for the crisis and predicts that “many war-free years will have to pass before acceptance and healing of the wounds can even be considered.” The contradictions between Israel and the Palestinians will probably only intensify further for the time being. Grossman doubts whether Israelis can ever count on “a normal, free life, free from threats and fear.”
A version of this article also appeared in the October 14, 2023 newspaper.
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