Dreaming of ‘A Good Ending’

In one of my earliest memories, I am sitting on my grandmother’s lap gazing out of her living room window. Her tiny kibbutz house smells of freshly baked apple cake and mint tea. My grandmother follows my gaze towards the hills of Lebanon and tells me that our two countries are not friends. Perhaps she notices a concerned look on my face, because she hastens to add that I shouldn’t worry. Soon there will be peace and by the time I am 18 there will be no need for me to serve in the army.

It was a declaration, occasionally even a promise, made to many Israeli children of my generation.
I remembered it recently as I listened to Israeli singer Yoni Bloch, whose new song, A Good Ending (Sof Tov), has been difficult to avoid in Israel over the past few weeks.

A Good Ending has gone viral in Israel not simply because it is a catchy song, but because it is a revealing reflection of the current tension between hope and despair in Israeli society.

Bloch’s song is both optimistic and deeply tragic. On the one hand it depicts a utopian future, on the other the extremity and absurdism of his fantasy exposes the seemingly insurmountable obstacles it ignores.

The camera pans across two giant billboards advertising “a dream weekend in Tehran, $299” and “Discover Beirut, $199.”

The song and its accompanying video clip—largely generated by AI—present an imagined future in which Israel overcomes all its major challenges from the grand geopolitical conflicts to the snubbing of the country by Taylor Swift.

Bloch presents a series of positive consensus points that would likely appeal to a settler from Ariel as much as to a Tel Aviv liberal: flag-waving, teary crowds welcoming back all the hostages from Gaza; a CNN headline proclaiming “Peace in the Middle East”; the Israeli Defence headquarters in Tel Aviv turned into the “Yitzhak Rabin Water Park”?