How two divergent views of Oct 7 could shape Israel’s election

This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward's free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.

There are two ways to look at the Oct. 7 attacks, and which way you do will determine, to a large degree, whether you want to see Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu survive the next election.

The first view is that Oct. 7 proved the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be solved. The second is that it proved the conflict cannot be allowed to remain unresolved.

These conclusions point in almost opposite directions, yet both begin with something Israelis learned, or thought they learned, from the same horrific day. One says there is no point trying to mollify the Palestinians, because hatred of Israel runs too deep. The other says that leaving millions of Palestinians indefinitely in their current condition will produce catastrophe again and again. The tragedy is that Oct. 7 supplied powerful evidence for both.

The first view is not without foundation. Even to Israelis (and people across the world) who have long sought a peaceful accommodation, it was shocking to see the sheer joy of the Hamas terrorists as they butchered families while filming their own barbarism, calling parents to brag, then dragging innocents into Gaza where crowds wildly cheered.

But the real shock was the support for this in the West Bank and Gaza – polls showed two-thirds to three-quarters of Palestinians approved –  suggesting coexistence is impossible. Rarely have polls been more devastating. As a result, many Israelis lost sympathy for Palestinians and concluded that a cleansing inferno is required. The brutal war that followed certainly reflected that.