Israel's security

better off today than six months ago?

One has a hard time discussing the events in Middle East over the past few days without passions erupting but it should be an unavoidable topic. The tragedy of the past six months has undercut Israel’s standing in the world as well as its sense of security so profoundly that it’s impossible to see much hope for the future.

The pain Israelis felt following the brutality in early October remains palpable. Families still hoping for some miraculous release of loved ones seized as hostages must recognise the likelihood of that outcome diminishes hourly. Hamas’s savagery towards Jews is neither new or likely to end following the Israeli retaliation. The Prime Minister declares defiantly from Jerusalem that Israeli Defense Force (IDF) eradication efforts will end only when Hamas no longer exists; yet that is not an inevitability under any set of circumstances.

If we have learned nothing over the past twenty-three years, much less the prior millennia, it’s that erasing hatred never occurs, particularly as furious reactions spread into new generations of civilians swirling in the repeated retaliation. Israelis are more keenly aware of this than anyone in the world having witnessed attack upon attack upon attack of Jewish communities around the world. The killing of Jews only strengthened the determination of survivors first to create a Jewish sanctuary from barbaric actions, then to assure that homeland in Israel is safe. Despite the fury over the attacks last fall, many Israelis surely recognise this entire episode renews the hatred as more Palestinians starve and suffer will similarly buttress voices in their community supporting further retaliation in days, months, and years to come. The Israeli-Palestinian dynamic is truly intractable and dragging both populations into the depths of civilisational depression.

More pressing is the accelerating loss of generalised support for the Jewish state. As an almost daily consumer of BBC News, I remain shocked by the focus that network continues to play stories of perceived disproportionate IDF action while sympathy for Palestinian civilians is distinct and unequivocal. New reports indicate that the rise in frustration elsewhere in Europe coincides with governments publically judging Jerusalem’s actions to be oversteps. Attempts by Israeli politicians to remind the world of the brutality Hamas used against Israelis is falling on deaf ears. At a time when Putin, Orban, and other anti-Semetic voices harangue the world to blame Jews for the world’s problems, this evidence of Israeli’s collousness is a terrible result of Netanyahu government’s crusade in Gaza. We long ago left the period when Israelis demanding Hamas’s accountability was part of the conversation. Air strikes in neighbouring states, seeming to focus on the Iranian enemy, only exacerbate an already nervous world. Social media instantaneously shows justifications for those seeking to condemn Israel, regardless of the profound and existential fear and pain Israelis have felt over the past six months.

Israel long ago accustomed itself to the distasteful proclamations of other states showing strong sympathy for the Palestinian refugee cause but, especially following the 1967 War, the United States stood unquestionably supportive. Today, in the aftermath of the deaths of aid workers from the World Central Kitchen and the ongoing Israeli operations in Gaza, Israel’s support is declining substantially. President Biden’s frustration with the Israeli Prime Minister is not translating to forcing our close ally to change course, a failure that could well thwart the incumbent’s reelection as core constituencies refuse to avert their disdain for the Gaza crusade. The urban under-35s, so crucial to the Democrats’ hopes to retain the White House and the Senate, are in danger of abandoning Biden as they long ago rejected Israel’s actions.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is a political survivor who makes clear he does not intend to change course regardless of anyone’s criticism, at home or abroad. He seeks to buy time to create a victory over Hamas to insulate himself against charges of incompetency before 7 October. It’s hard to imagine that he will ultimately be able to continue in power once the impossibility of eradicating Hamas becomes an unavoidably accepted reality. Protests by Israelis earlier this week indicate that they may well fear Hamas but they may fear a continued Netanyahu regime even more.

What is the current state of Jewish security in the Israeli nation? I am not thinking of day after tomorrow as much as the damage long-term. Whatever damage results from foreign reluctance to abandon Palestinian civilians will endure as the costs—in every sense—skyrocket for rebuilding whatever communities existed in Gaza

Does this past six months’ retaliation enhance Israel’s security? I mean ten years from now rather than day after tomorrow. Israel appears far more isolated, more vulnerable, less coherent, and infinitely more uncertain of the path ahead than in its almost seventy-six year history. The public is deeply divided on the future, beyond any potential role for Bib Netanyahu. Israelis no longer know who or where they can turn yet they know that complete isolation to survive is a futile proposition.

As Jews approach Pesach later this month, the religious event commemorating the Jewish escape in the face of Egyptian efforts to destroy them thousands of years ago, both the fears and the urgency for finding a sustainable future are greater. For many years following the horror of the Holocaust when anti-Semites attempted to extinguish the race, Israel was a sign of hope. A good portion of the world felt some obligation to support that young nation in repentance for ignoring, if not abetting, the horrors committed against Jews. In the days immediately following the 7 October attacks, the world condemned the attacks on a people woven together in their Faith, something so personal and ingrained.

Those por-Israeli sentiments appear distant now. I have to wonder which actions can provide us with far better consequences for the road ahead—for Jews, Palestinians, and everyone else. Instead I see fear, loathing, hatred, distrust, and despondence.

Rebuilding the region requires more than money. It most fundamentally needs trust, right now in desperately short supply. We as civilised people must step by step find a way to recapture that trust for Jews, Palestinians and the world. We don’t have many other long term options. Hamas launched the attacks and Israelis responded but we all must be part of some deliberate move towards recalibrating the relationship.

Thank you for reading this column. Thank you to the commentators who responded last night on the Marshall Plan. I read each and every entry, think about it, and consider your engagement a step forward in our civil conversation. If you want to join the Substack responses, please subscribe financially to this column. I do read your individual notes to me as well though they are not shared with broader readers as such.

We had sun early this morning, though we now have many clouds ready to burst again.

I am so mindful and thankful to live in this country, for all of our tensions.

Be well and be safe. FIN

Anat Peled, ‘Israel’s Protest Movement Reemerges With Focus on Bringing Down Netanyahu‘, wallstreetjournal.com, 3 April 2024, retrieved at https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-protests-netanyahu-ccd5e3dc?mod=middle-east_news_article_pos5