With a proposed ceasefire on the
table, brokered by Egypt and apparently agreed upon by Hamas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is intent, still, on more war, and more killing in Gaza. Last week,
his government approved the battle plan of an extremely reluctant army chief to
head into a full takeover of Gaza City. This move will likely lead to more
hostage deaths. And Monday morning, Israel bombed a Gaza hospital twice,
killing 20 people, including first responders and five journalists who raced to
the scene.
Street protests, led by the hostage
families, are compounding. According to Israeli news reports, only about a half
or less of reservists are showing up when called to fight. It’s the clearest
sign yet of the deep divide between the government and the Israeli people. All
polls show that an overwhelming majority of Israelis want an agreement and an
end to the war, all except for a hard-right faction that happens to rule the
government. (One far-right minister said after the new offensive was announced
that unless Israel’s pronounced goal was to eradicate Hamas, rather than save
the hostages, her small but pivotal party would leave the coalition, though
centrist Benny Gantz has offered to step in to the coalition to get to a yes
for a hostage release and ceasefire, which Netanyahu is so far dismissing.)
The soldiers are reluctant warriors
at best right now. During my last week in Israel this summer, there were
seven reported suicides by active-duty soldiers. There have been more than 18
reported suicides in 2025. Gaza is a hell for the Palestinians who live there;
it is also a moonscape of horror for those sent to fight there.
It is almost impossible to convey
in words the sadness that engulfs most Israelis; it hangs over the country like
a heavy netting, as Netanyahu plays whack-a-mole with
his public. The contempt in which he holds the Israeli people is matched only by
the contempt—and then some—in which he holds the Palestinian people and, for
that matter, Israel’s longtime global allies. Right now, the only person
outside of his inner family-dominated circle who matters whatsoever is Donald
Trump. So far, Trump, despite a few rhetorical warnings, is allowing Bibi free
rein.
The presence of the hostage
families is everywhere in Israel, impossible to ignore, yet Netanyahu does just
that. The community where I lived for part of the summer had an installation at
the entrance—50 yellow chairs (the hostage campaign’s color), with a daily
ticker written by hand on poster board of how many hundreds of days it’s been
for their captivity (as of this writing, 688 days), and their oversized photos.
Similar displays are everywhere—on office buildings, freeway billboards, bridge
overpasses.
Most evenings, the families protest
in front of the Defense Ministry; sometimes, they try to halt traffic with
their bodies. The country knows these parents, siblings, partners, like they are
rock stars. They are revered by their fellow citizens; reviled by their
government. It is a haunting and shocking situation, one that puts the very
future of Israel in peril as it rips apart the social fabric of a society
dependent on social solidarity.
Last week began with a massive
national strike that culminated in a rally to end the war that included around
500,000 people. Another day of action is planned for this week. Historian and
peace activist Fania Oz-Salzberger, with whom I spoke after the day of action,
told me: “It was an enormous show of strength, albeit one that for now
Netanyahu will probably ignore.… It is a message we are sending to each other
and to the world.”
She continued: “It is first and
foremost a message to the families of the hostages and the bereaved families
and the survivors that are surrounded by millions of their co-citizens in
support and help.… Israel, liberal Israel, secular Israel, rational Israel, is
essentially talking to itself, which is not a bad thing. We can see how strong
we are, how numerous we are.”
At this point, nearly every sector
of Israeli society outside of the hard right base of Netanyahu and the
ultra-Orthodox is organized against the government. There are statements by
artists, academics, business leaders, youth leaders, trade unionists, and more
to make a deal to bring home all the hostages and end the war.
“What people must understand today,
and American liberals ought to understand it even better than others, is that
this is not a normal government of Israel,” Oz-Salzberger said. “This is a
rogue government, led by a rogue prime minister. I always said this is a Latin
American situation, except that it’s also a North American situation these
days.”
That’s why Oz-Salzberger thinks
that American liberals and progressives should “start supporting Israeli civil
society rather than the government … A growing number of Israeli liberals, of
middle-of-the-road Israelis, of decent Israelis are saying the same: not in my
name. What’s going on in Gaza now, even the hardest-to-awaken Israelis are
seeing.
“So, if you are a friend of Israel
abroad … I tell my American friends, Jewish and non-Jewish, if you are a friend,
a true friend of Israel, you must become an enemy of the current government of
Israel. I’ve never said that about previous Netanyahu governments. Never voted
for him but always considered him totally legitimate. Not anymore.”
Oz-Salzberger’s father was the
noted novelist and left peace activist Amos Oz, who, she reminds me, used to
say, “I’m not pro-Israel. I’m not pro-Palestine. I’m pro-peace.” That’s where,
she thinks, the global progressive community should land. And, to her, that
means not only promoting justice for the Palestinians, but peace for both
peoples. If you are pro-Palestinian, she suggests, you must consider if “you
would like the justice of the graveyard, which is what is going to happen, or
the peace of compromise.”
But the current pro-Palestinian,
anti-Israel activism is not the answer. “What you cannot do is erase and
eradicate a nuclear power made of 7.1 million Jews and two million Arabs. How?
How will you annihilate us … you must rethink not from an ideal, platonic ideal
of ultimate justice, but from some very complex, very nuanced groundwork for
allowing both people to live here. Bottom line, if you are not a friend of
Israel, at least be a realistic friend of the Palestinians. Do not tell them
that they will get it all.”
In the meantime, Oz-Salzberger has
strong demands for world leaders: “I think every single minister in Netanyahu’s
government, including Netanyahu himself, should be outcast from the
international community. Just the way Australia has now done by revoking the
visa of [Knesset Member] Simcha Rothman (a hard-right minister who is leading
the legal coup and who advocates for return to settlement by Israelis in Gaza).
[Homeland Security Minister Itamar] Ben Gvir and [Finance Minister Bezalel]
Smotrich should be considered criminals. And then definitely Netanyahu.”
While the streets are bloated with
anti-government protesters, the Knesset is a stronghold for Netanyahu. As
Oz-Salzberger noted to me, he “hand-picked” all his parliamentarians so that
there is nearly no chance of a break away that would topple his
government.
Indeed, the left-wing opposition in
the Knesset can be counted on one hand. Its leading figure is Gilad Kariv, of the
Democrats Party, whom I profiled in 2023 for this magazine. Just before I saw him recently in Tel
Aviv, he went with a delegation of liberal rabbis (he is himself a Reform
rabbi), to pay respects in the family’s mourning tent for Awda Hathaleen, a
consultant on the Oscar-winning film No Other Land, who was murdered on
July 28 by an Israeli Jewish settler in Hebron who to this day has not been
held accountable. There were three murders by settlers of Palestinians in the
West Bank in the three and a half weeks I was in Israel. All have gone unpunished,
including the killing of American Palestinian Saif Musallet on his family’s
land. The family, with whom I met in Ramallah, told me that the State
Department said that it expected Israel to investigate. So far, nothing.
Kariv characterizes Netanyahu
as almost an observer in his own government: “Forces much more extreme are designing
the reality.… It creates a dramatic risk to the hostages and to the IDF
soldiers, and it definitely creates this unprecedented humanitarian crisis and
terrible reality for the Palestinians.”
He continued: “It is quite clear
that the more extreme right-wing forces in the government and in the coalition
are using the public awareness to the war in Gaza and to the hostages, in order
to promote extreme policies in the West Bank, in order to enable extreme settlers
to set facts on the ground, even if it involves violent acts against the
Palestinians. Those policies of the extreme far right components of the
coalition are to create a de facto annexation.”
Kariv calls for the war to end, especially after this week’s
bombing at the hospital in Khan Yunis. “The IDF itself has
already announced that Hamas has been defeated as a military force,” he said
after the bombing. “The continuation and expansion of the war will bring along
countless more incidents of this kind. Israel cannot afford this, not morally,
ethically, or diplomatically. The war must not be expanded. It must be brought
to a swift end.”
Yet there is no sign that Netanyahu
will end this war. I have been to Israel four times since October 7, 2023. Each
time, I felt a palpable sadness, but nothing like this summer. A profoundly
unpopular government is at war with its own people. It is corrupt, immoral, and
taking Israel to a place of extremes, where there is might at the expense of
morals; messianism at the expense of humanity and hope. Israel is more globally
isolated than ever before; it will take years—maybe decades—to recover, if at
all.
But there is significant pushback
that is truly extraordinary, considering how profoundly exhausted the public
is—it is massive and impressive and forthright. It deserves global support.
Meanwhile, those in the government who are most extreme don’t even register in
the electoral polls, and yet the damage they are doing, along with their leader
Netanyahu, will mark Israel—and Israelis—for decades to come.
The post I Visit Israel Every Summer. I’ve Never Seen Hopelessness Like This. appeared first on New Republic.
