At a Crossroads…… Again
At a crossroads…… Again
It seems that the statement ‘we are at a crossroads’ is a permanent state of being in our little country. It never ends. So, once again, we are a crossroads. The war in Gaza is basically over. Yes, there are still terrorists attacking our soldiers and we are holding over 50% of the Strip but we will not be going back to a war situation. Trump will not let that happen and he controls Netanyahu, no matter how many times Netanyahu will deny it.
So, what is our crossroads this time? We are before elections. When those will be is still an open question. Officially, they will take place in October 2026 but very few people believe this government will hold until then, despite all of the magic that Netanyahu continually pulls out of his hat to keep his fledgling minority government afloat. Netanyahu, if nothing else, is truly a magician in his ability to maintain a failing government in order for him to remain in power. But elections will come, whether they will be early elections with the fall of his government or the official elections in October. Netanyahu himself unofficially started his election campaign on the day he visited Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Okay, so elections will be coming. In the few years before the war, we had 5 elections and their accompanied campaigns, but there wasn’t a crossroad. In all of those elections, the major parties didn’t even present a platform. The only question put before the voters was ‘Bibi or not Bibi’. The last election that seemed to have some kind of platform by the major parties was when it was Netanyahu and the Likud vs. Herzog and Labor. At that time, Herzog’s people were working closely with someone I know very closely on a real political platform. That platform was based on the actual existential problem facing Israel for decades, the Israel/Palestine Conflict. Herzog was supposed to present a platform towards resolving the conflict instead of managing it, which has been a failed policy since 1967. The conflict cannot be managed. At the last-minute Herzog, being the ‘nebuch’ that he is, chickened out and instead presented a platform based on social and economic issues, something that was not controversial and certainly not bold. In another time, in another place, perhaps a platform like that may have resonated with some voters but not here and not at that time. On the other side, Netanyahu presented, not a platform but his standard picture of gloom and doom and total fear of destruction of the State by enemy players such as Iran. When people are put in a position of facing doom and end of life vs. social issues, they will always choose the side promising the prevention of doom because what difference do social issues make if we are dead and the country ceases to exist.
Are we past the gloom and doom of Iran? Probably. Possibly. In any case, the real issue of the day and every day is the Israel/Palestine Conflict and October 7 should serve as the wake-up call for the entire nation. That wakeup call must be a recognition across the board that the policy of ‘managing the conflict’ is a miserably failed policy and concept. This conflict cannot be managed; it must be resolved.
There is a demographic fact that many on the right have chosen purposeful blindness to its existence. This fact is that there are almost the same number of Jews and Palestinians between the River and the Sea. The other fact that most people recognize is that neither side is going anywhere. The Palestinians are not going to push the Jews into the Sea and the Jews are not going to expel 7 million Palestinians, no matter how many Trump Gaza Riveria fantasy plans are presented with an accompanying ridiculous AI movie of Netanyahu and Trump smoking cigars on lounge chairs overlooking the Gaza Beach.
Netanyahu has spent his career spouting the cowardly statement that we will always live by the sword. This is a statement, a platform actually, that speaks volumes. It shows that he has no problem sending our children to fight and die for generations. He tries to separate the Conflict from the day to day lives of Israelis and has successfully sold this distorted vision to much of the world for too long a time. Before October 7, the success of this vision was so great that even many Arab States bought into it. We were so close to normalization with Saudi Arabia because they, too were willing to view the conflict as a minor problem that could be handled through non-binding neutral statements that Israel would consider dealing with resolving the conflict.
The separation fence that Netanyahu constructed between most Israelis and the Palestinians was less about security and more about separation. He fully understands that separation breeds fear and fear breeds hate and hatred of the Palestinians bolsters the concept of having to always live by the sword. Prior to the separation fence, there was far greater interaction between Palestinians and Israelis. It was common place to find Israelis shopping and touring in all of the major Palestinian cities and towns. In Bethlehem for instance, Saturdays would find so many Israelis in restaurants and markets and Hebrew was spoken freely. The separation fence put an end to that. For those who believe it was all security based, every Palestinian knew many different ways to bypass the fence and get into Israel to work or to look for work. As a direct and desired result of the separation fence is exactly that ‘Separation’. Over the years of having this fence, the level of fear and hatred has grown exponentially on both sides and the level of knowing, trusting, understanding the other has degenerated to the depths of that fear and hatred that makes believing the other side wants peace impossible.
If one were to ask most people on either side if they want peace, the answer would be an unequivocal ‘yes’ but if one were to ask if they believed it was possible, most would say no, and that the other side doesn’t want peace. We have had grassroots peace groups for decades and each have found partners on the other side who genuinely want peace and are willing to work for it. Even post October 7, there are still grassroots groups who continue to work with their partners and still maintain trust, which is a very hard thing to do since October 7. Yet, no matter how many grassroots groups there are, the overwhelming majority of Israelis have had their sense of security shaken to the core and are far more doubtful that peace can ever be achieved. The Palestinians feel the same way. For them this war has brought upon them the second Nakba (catastrophe) with close to 70,000 Gazans killed (most of them non-combatant women, children and elderly), over 1000 killed in the West Bank, the almost total destruction of Gaza, 2 million refugees, displacement/expulsion of complete villages in the West Bank and fear of the Gaza destruction effect in the West Bank, an economy in ruins, hundreds more military check points making movement in the West Bank tedious and time consuming, sometimes even impossible.
Even so, there are Israelis and Palestinians working to resolve this conflict. The most notable and visible is the Alliance for Two States co-founded and co-directed by Gershon Baskin and Samer Sinijlawi. (https://gershonbaskin.substack.com/p/alliance-for-two-states-calls-for )
Together, they regularly bring together influential Israelis and Palestinians who sit together and work towards the resolution of this 100 year conflict, not managing it but resolving it.
This week, Samer told the group that the Palestinians in the street don’t care if there is a one state solution or a two state solution. If it is to be one state, they want passports, voting rights and everything else granted to citizens of a democratic state. If it’s two states, then let’s get moving. They are waiting for Israel to decide.
Gershon, for years has been saying that once both sides have courageous leaders who will take the risks of working to resolve the conflict, they will reach agreements. These agreements will be taken to both peoples as a finalized deal that will bring peace to us and the region. 70% of both sides will fully agree and embrace the deal, albeit with the understandable trepidations, while 30% will be fully against. And the deal will go through. That is how democracy works.
For those who doubt his supposition, we must remember the period of time from 1973-1978. 1973, the Yom Kippur War, a very dark period for Israel with Egypt being our greatest enemy and with the knowledge and understanding that we will forever be at war with them. We jump to 1978 and the world is taken by surprise by Anwar Sadat’s surprise journey into the unbelievable, his coming to Israel and his statement before the Knesset “No more war, no more bloodshed!” And that was followed by a peace agreement that holds till today, almost 50 years later. In 1980, together with my brother, 3 weeks after the border of Egypt and Israel was opened for tourism, we went to Egypt. Everywhere we went, we were asked where we were from and we answered ‘Israel’. The response was consistent and overwhelming. The people on the street all responded “Sadat is Great, Begin is Great, the Peace is Great!” From being sworn enemies who could only consider killing each other, we went through an unbelievable transformation that no one could have imagined this even in the days preceding Sadat’s visit. Sadat’s coming to Israel was the manifestation of a true leader who decided to take a risk for peace.
So, this brings us back to the current crossroads. This election, in October 2026 or hopefully a lot sooner, will happen and it would be the worst possible thing for it to be another round of ‘Bibi or not Bibi’. It must be about the direction that we want our country to be going and how we are going to rebuild it to the country we all deserve. Are we going to leave it in the hands of all the people who are responsible for bringing us to October 7, the people who insist we live by the sword for all time, the people who see the population as ‘us or them’ dividing us for their political purposes, the same people who insist we continue to manage an unmanageable conflict? Or are we going to choose a new generation of leaders who can see beyond living by the sword, who believe that we have lost too many of our best in this unmanageable conflict, who know that they need to earn the trust of the population every day and not just on election day, who can see a time that peace will be part of our lives and not just a hope or a dream, leaders who will be brave like Sadat and Begin and decide that our future will not change unless we take the necessary risks and make the change. Our leaders have always taken the risks for war. It’s about time that our new leaders will take the risks for peace.
To quote Liat Atzili, herself a returned hostage and her husband a killed hostage, “I am Liat Atzili from Kibbutz Nir Oz. My partner, Aviv and I built a life and a family in Nir Oz. We were an inseparable part of this little community, which fulfilled our aspirations and needs. Mine as an educator, and Aviv’s as a farmer and an artist.
On October 7th, our kibbutz was attacked, conquered, and destroyed by Hamas. A quarter of the residents were either killed or kidnapped, including me. The time I spent as a hostage in Gaza was of complete despair, unending fear for my friends and family, and long days. I was nervous that I wouldn’t survive.
After 54 days in captivity, I was returned home. The following day, my family and I were told that Aviv was killed on October 7th. Aviv had hundreds of friends, he traveled and created, and made the most of every opportunity; he truly loved life. In his final year, Aviv fulfilled many dreams, the greatest being to share his art publicly. While managing the kibbutz’s agricultural garage, he painted on tractor parts and scrap metal, blending his love for metals and the Negev fields into his creations. Our children looked up to him and I feel like I had the greatest privilege to share my life with him.
I always believed that war is not our destiny, and that any conflict, including ours, can be solved. This war has proven to me beyond a doubt that we cannot continue fighting, that we have no right to impose the continued suffering of war on future generations on either side. I am ready today, more than ever, to do everything in my power so that our children can live here in peace and security.”
This is our crossroad, this is our time to decide that our future must change, this is the chance to stop living by the sword and stop ‘managing the conflict’. This must be our opportunity for real change and to make Israel the country we have all dreamed of, and to have leaders who are deserving and worthy of us. It is not enough to vote, which we must make sure that everyone does. We must be in the streets and talking to people. We cannot allow anyone to forget October 7. We must not allow anyone of the politicians to rewrite the worst day to fall on the country in our history and the worst day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Their narrative is the false narrative that they began rewriting on October 8 in order to push the blame on anyone but them. They continue to act as though we are still living on October 6 and want us to think that we are. This will not happen. The truth will prevail; the memory of Israelis will stop being the short memory that these politicians have always relied on. Everything that brought us to October 7 will come out and the total failures of the army, the chaos of the government, the ministers and their ministries will never be forgotten, the mishandling of the war and the hostages will forever be the Mark of Cain on all of those responsible in this government starting from the head.
Every election, it is said that these are the most important elections that will determine the direction of the country for years to come. All of those statements pale in comparison to the upcoming elections which will determine if we continue to be a country led by self-serving leaders who care more about their political position and future than the good of the country and its citizens or we will be a country led by a different breed of politician, the people who feel the pain and the joy of the citizens, the people who have integrity and moral compasses that impact their decisions and people who have a vision for a better future for us all and not just for themselves, and who are willing to do what is necessary to achieve those visions even when it has a personal political price. This is our crossroad and we must not let down our future generations.
“I’ve never met them,
But I miss them.
I’ve never met them,
but I think of them every second.
I’ve never met them,
but they are my family.
