In Defiance of Progressing Towards Regression
Reading accounts of people’s experiences in the hours before the ceasefire this past week, I encountered something framed as hopeful. Seeking a message to speak on my behalf, I began reading
Disclaimer: I love Israel. I love what it could be, what it should be. I want to be part of its best self.
The hopeful post expressed faith in the people, recalling shared core values. Oops. I guess I have become a non-believer. Faith in citizens rallying together when Israel faces crisis. I wish I lived in that country. People with shared values. But reality penetrated and shattered that imaginary world for me.
When I first visited Israel, age 16, manifestations of institutionalized discrimination and popular prejudice against Jews from Arab and Muslim countries, I was shocked. Completely. I was drawn to the colorful diversity of customs and traditions. Inspired to explore the circumstances that led Jewish communities from the Muslim world to Israel. As I assimilated into Israeli society, as an olah hadasha – a new immigrant – in the 1980s, I learned more about local identity politics.
The ethnic card remains a placeholder for party politics and election campaigns. Historic injustices surface. Contemporized manipulations serve the base, and truth is irrelevant if it brings in the votes.
Amidst pre-war demonstrations against proposed judicial reform, lack of government attention to the welfare of Arab society in Israel, to crime and violence in cities and towns populated by Palestinian Arab citizens of the State of Israel is further marginalized. Another phenomenon of the progression into regression. The noticeable absence of the Arab voice in the protest movement, despite what they have to lose, reminds you of the uninviting demonstrations where diversity and inclusion are nice ideas, but the practice – lost in the margins of the Jewish character of the state, proclaimed for all its citizens.
When West Bank Jewish settlers went on a rampage in Huwara, a Palestinian village – nothing short of a pogrom – it was a shock. Then it became common practice. Jewish perpetrators rarely arrested. Palestinians living in fear, at times arrested without reason. An extreme right-wing Israeli government is preoccupied with other matters, like staying in power.
With over 1200 Israeli casualties of the Hamas massacre on October 7 and 251 hostages dragged into Gaza, Israelis are jolted into acknowledging a shared destiny. Powerfully electrifying.
Shared destiny does not impose shared values. In complete agreement with the claim that we need to the end the war to heal, I am also skeptical. We need to end the war. We need faith in safety provided by our government.
Israel attacks Iran and our national dignity and safety is reinstated? We rightfully praise the heroic fighter pilots, the chain of military personnel, the Home Front Command, the Intelligence organizations, every entity that enabled the successes of those 12-days. We acknowledge – begrudgingly on my part, not entirely convinced – that our Prime Minister and the President of the United States took necessary brave action.
A conversation with Haim encapsulates my sentiments. Notably, he is more willing than me to sing the praises of this attack on Iran and US intervention. A headline about Iranian assessment of the damages at Fordo prefaced our discussion. Haim assured me of the extensive destruction of Iranian nuclear power. Encouraged, I asked, “Do you think we’re safer than before June 12?” His candid response, “No.” I was almost relieved: my fears were validated.
Israeli citizens, Jews of diverse ethnic lineage, and Palestinian citizens of this state shared the attacks from June 12 until the ceasefire on June 24. A moment of shared fate, even as shared destiny is reverberatingly questionable.
In some situations, longing for a shared destiny entrenched in shared values, I am complicit with superficial solidarity, among Jews. Reluctant to speak of shared society and equality, lest others’ fears compel them to explain we can’t afford the luxury, I am quiet. Internally screaming, we can’t afford anything but! But I didn’t say it and they didn’t say the contrary. We cherish family bonds and caring for each other, for Israeli society, and for good people everywhere. If we discussed it, we might find discrepancies in our definitions of good people – being Jewish not a criterion.
I have hope, because I reject current declarations of solidarity. I desperately want to share my destiny with people, whoever they may be, seeking to stand on shared moral grounds, defying oppression of others and presumed supremacy of any group over another. I want to live in that Israel. I want to live in peace. A Jewish settler attacking a Palestinian village is a threat to me. A serious threat!
Harriet Gimpel, June 28, 2025
