Remembering Yachad Nenatzeach

I am old enough to remember the world before October 7th and young enough to remember the phrase “Yachad Nenatzeach.” And whereas there is no way to return to a prior October world, there is a possibility of bringing back the unity and togetherness of the time that followed.

Each morning, Monday to Friday I host The Morning Mayhem, a breakfast show on the Jewish radio station ChaiFM in South Africa. It’s a 3 hour show from 6am to 9am and although it is a community station, we have a significant listenership with the demographic split evenly, Jewish and not Jewish. Whereas the Jewish listeners are largely very supportive of Israel, the other 50% is divided into those who do, and those very much do not.

Prior to October the show’s content was broad, but when we returned to studio on the 10th everything had changed. Since that day the 3-hour show is primarily focused the war. I speak to around 6 people per show and try and cover all aspects and impact of the events, including the fight for the return of the hostages, the political fight to delegitimize Israel, the political fighting within Israel, antisemitism around the world, the battles that have ensued, and the emotional fallout.

This There is no easy way to say what I have observed but I do so nonetheless: I believe that we have been influenced by the tsunami of hate, of lies and by the massive disinformation campaign that is an integral part of the war. As a result, my observation is that we have lost the ability to see nuance, to recall who the real villain of the story is, and have internalized the hatred of our people. And doing so, we have lost the essence of “yachad nenatzeach.”

Why do I say this? Because where there is absolute legitimacy to blame the horrific system failure of October 7th on the government, Hamas was the terror organization that perpetrated the horror. Whereas Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might be a “political survivor” and should unquestionably call for an election, it doesn’t make him the keeper of the hostages. And whereas Ben Gvir and Smotrich continue to bring shame (in my view) to Israel, it doesn’t mean that they are always wrong. And yet, when I speak to political commentators, to families of the hostages and many others, it is easy to get the impression that Hamas is more akin to a natural disaster than an evil group sworn to the destruction of Israel and that most of the blame rests on Israel.

The campaign began almost immediately following the October invasion. Allegations that Israel was responsible for much of the killing, that the sexual assaults didn’t happen, that Netanyahu created and financed Hamas, that Israel was deliberately harming civilians, bombing hospitals and killing the hostages became the norm. Repeated and repeated and repeated until “genocide” was “successfully” linked to Israel and her actions and not to Hamas.

It’s natural to seek a home for our anger. It is much easier to blame family. It is well known that we often vent our frustration on our care givers, parents and those closest to us rather than rage against something further afield. It is natural and easier to do so because no one is perfect, because parents mess up and because care givers make mistakes. And if this this is what we tend towards in general, how much more so when we are being told over and over that it is the caregiver’s fault that this has happened.

Netanyahu bears responsibility. He wants to survive politically. Those truth can easily live alongside the truth that he cares deeply for Israel and her people. That the failure of October 7th weighs heavily on him and that he both desperately wants to see the hostages return and to keep Israel safe against further attacks in the future.

It is frustratingly nuanced.

The shift towards binary blame is dangerous and divisive. It hands victory to Hamas and weakens us in the process. It takes advantage of our pain and of our loss. And it proves to those fighting the war on the misinformation battlefield that that is where we are weakest.

The reality is that there is more that unites us than divides us: The return of the hostages to their families, a secure Israel and the confidence that October 7th cannot happen again and the ability to heal from the indescribable trauma. Differences are found in the way this is to be achieved with each having permutations and consequences.

The world of October the 6th is lost. But the unity of October the 8th need not be. It’s time to allow nuance into our thoughts, time to fight the media battle as a legitimate front and time to accept that we can own diverse views on politicians and politics but still believe that “Yachad nenatzeach”.