Anything but peace

Neither the public discussion nor the political dialogue conducted in Israel’s Knesset indicate that other than a ceasefire, a peaceful solution or even just a nonviolent arrangement with our Palestinian adversaries is at all something Israelis would consider or strive for these days. The terminology is one of total victory and for some reason that seems to be more than enough even though everyone knows that even after a total victory (whatever that means), could that even be achieved, there must be something else.

Nerves are raw, the smell of revenge for October 7th continues to permeate the air, war crimes are clearly being committed in Gaza at an ever increasing scale and even cooler heads shoot off their mouths to the extent that they may well end up being named in the ICJ/ICC prosecution papers if they aren’t listed there already. None of our politicians seem to remember that Palestinians and Israelis are bound to live together in the same neighborhood, closely together, intermingled to this or that degree, no matter what. Nor do they seem to realize that a regional peace arrangement is something that has to be worked on 24/7, if only to prevent more bloodshed.

The Israeli body politic, with very few but noted exceptions, has completely reverted to the dark side. What has been a liberal democracy, if a challenged one, is quickly turning into an illiberal construct sliding ever faster into fascism as amply substantiated by the ever more ludicrous legislation that is being advanced in the Knesset by the day on the background of the government’s continuing trashing of the legal system.

What previously has been said only behind closed doors, is now blurted out in public, and politicians, public figures and even high-ranking army officers see no harm in using the most vile language disparaging and threatening the enemy a.k.a. the very people we are going to continue living with. Calls for revenge are loud, clear, uninhibited, unapologetic and the dehumanization of the Palestinians without differentiating between civilians and combatants has long been completely normalized.

Adversarial determinations regarding Israel’s activities in Gaza by international bodies like the ICJ or the UN, regardless of their basic correctness, are the basis for derision and doubling down, claiming what not and of course, antisemitism. Israeli voices calling us out on our monstrous infringements on international law and human rights are either ignored or derided. All shame has gone and there is absolutely no fear of any kind of condemnation, retribution or backlash by the international community, nor by the few elements in Israel who could still claim the moral high ground and whose voice could make a difference like the Office of the President or senior religious figures. Quite the opposite, the silent consent and not infrequent vocal support of the public sentiment by those elements contributes to further deterioration of the public dialogue.

Under these circumstances, even a reasonably well-attended peace rally that brought out probably more than 10,000  in July 2024 was only very marginally covered by the patriotic media which vie for the sympathies of the public more than they venture risking to support peace and democracy.

So here is where we are at – the war in Gaza is winding down and after the death of Sinwar, could easily be declared won, but will not be quite yet for political expediency with losses continuing to mount on both sides. As long as the war in Gaza isn’t finished and the hostages aren’t back home, this isn’t over, despite the wind-down of the confrontation in the North with Hezbollah which was forced by international engagement after Israel had hit Hezbollah very hard in response to its attack. The Houthi’s involvement has never stopped and in their recent attacks, instead of sticking to Israel-bound shipping, they keep hitting central metropolitan areas. Israel didn’t take a chance as we did after the massive attack from Iran when we responded in moderation – this time we hit back in a massive attack on Hodeida in Yemen followed by additional attacks on Sanaa, opening opportunities for a wider war. And our response to Iran’s big attack in early October 2024  which eventually went through later that month? We still aren’t certain if it was moderate enough not to draw an Iranian response, tough enough to leave a lasting deterrent, or both.

The key is and always has been Gaza. Stopping the war in Gaza as part of a hostage agreement would completely wind down the whole enchilada but Netanyahu won’t have any. He’s in his Churchillian period – a wannabe Churchill at war. A big war. Not only with Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran but also with two-thirds of his own people who want to shut down the war in Gaza, get the hostages back and move on.

So all we citizens are looking for now are small gains, like a ceasefire in Gaza to put us on a road to a return of the hostages, some regional cease-fire to be followed by a regional agreement, not a regional peace, g-d forbid, we aren’t ready for that, our leaders certainly aren’t ready for that, they don’t even know what that means.

It seems like expectations couldn’t be any lower – the best we could expect is to go back to the status before Oct. 7 with the added impact of Oct. 7 on our mind. There is absolutely no indication that Oct. 7 has caused anything beyond our standard knee-jerk reaction by which we are the total victims and everone who isn’t fully on board with this view is an antisemite. And that at a time when it becomes clearer than ever before that this mutual blood-letting simply cannot continue.

Despite everything, peace will have to wait.