This war has torn apart Israeli society

On October 7, 2023, the Hamas attackers forced us to look into an abyss of pure evil, and we will never be the same. Israeli society has always been fractured and divided, but during the war Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has played on our fears, twisting the trauma and dread that we all feel to spread rancor and bitterness to ensure that his camp of constituents unites against his opponents.

Even the families of the hostages have become fodder for Netanyahu’s campaigns of poisoned rhetoric, with those who support Netanyahu attacking those who do not. Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan, was prohibited from entering the Knesset to attend a committee meeting to which she had been invited by the opposition, because, the Knesset security detail was instructed, she is “disruptive.” Relatives of hostage Liri Elbag, who are also critical of Netanyahu, found a funeral wreath by their front door. Neither Netanyahu nor his supporters have denounced these acts.

At the beginning of the war, electronic speed-limit signs on the highway promised, “together we will win.” Netanyahu never defined “we” or “win,” but somehow those hokey flashing signs offered a kind of collective comfort.

But the war went on for two years, and we are changed. We are coarser, more cynical, angrier and more hateful of each other and the Other than we ever were. We are fractured by differences and resentments, often defining ourselves more by whom we hate than by whom we embrace.

Today, the differences between us are not just the well-known differences that have accompanied us since the inception of the State: Jews vs. Arabs; religious vs. secular; right vs. left; Mizrachm vs. Ashkenazim; rich vs. poor; periphery vs. centre. Today, we are plagued by more subtle, and more dangerous differences, built on identities and ideologies.