Published: 20 January 2025
Last updated: 29 October 2025
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.
A large part of Israeli society demands that we be allowed to give free reign to our most violent impulses
Comments2
Rachel Sussman26 January at 10:30 am
It is true that Israeli society has always been diverse. And I like to call it diversity of opinions rather than division. As the saying goes: where there are two Jews there are three opinions. This is our nature and it is not a bad one, it actually ensures the survival of discussion and democracy. It is not the diversity that we need to change, it is our fear of it and our failed belief that to be one we must think as one… I was born in Israel, I grew up there and I have full faith in our people. The author pessimistic outlook proves to be wrong, for once again the whole country sat in front of the TV and gathered and cheered when this ceasefire started regardless of the diverse opinions… We are a stubborn but good people, we have not lost ourselves to revenge but we are wiser and more opened eyes and so we should be… morality does not ask self sacrifice and whatever one may say, Israel abided by law in its war. The fact that many lost their lives is not due to Israel’s immorality but to Hamas’ immorality; and whatever one may think of Bibi, (and I am not a fan of him), the assumption – and I say it is assumption – that he simply ‘prolonged’ the war for his benefit, must be well studied before made fact.
Personally, I sadly believe that this ‘ceasefire’ is but a pretense on both sides.
Hamas uses it to rearm and regroup, it has no intention to let go of its desire to eradicate Israel and kill Jews. One only needs to listen to the crowd chants in Arabic during the past two releases : October 7 will be done again and again. One only needs to look at the big Hebrew sign on the stage upon which the four recently released soldiers were made to stand:
Zionism will never win
As for Israel, it needed the ‘ceasefire’ to get the hostages out, it could not risk doing it on its own any longer and the inner pressure – and rightly so – was growing. Only once the hostages are all home can we all begin to heal, only when they are out can Israel begin to really defeat Hamas. As for the people of Gaza, they have a choice to make, and sadly for them, as long as they choose Hamas, cooperate with it, and chant its chants they will suffer, in spite of any efforts Israel may take in attempt to minimize suffering, and destruction. Israel does not need to sacrifice itself, its people and indeed the Jewish People, so to save the people of Gaza, horrible as it may sound.