Both extremist behviour in the West Bank as well as gun and knife-wielding gloating in Gaza during the past 36 hours prove to me that the eternal hostilities will endure. People like us will still be debating these issues 3,000 years hence. The release of the three women hostages excepted, the past 15 months' travails now seem pointless. All of us in Israel have suffered in one way or another and the country - our society - lies in emotional tatters redolent of the physical destruction of Gaza.The diffeence, I fear, is that Gazans like it that way.
Thank you for this. There is a grim reality upon us and it's difficult to see what breaks it. Israel is further along or into this reality than the US, but that gap might sadly be closing rapidly. We are at least a few years from better times, and that might be optimistic.
I must disagree, Etgar. Jewish history is not linear; it's cyclical. The annual reading of the Torah evokes the ceaseless round of retribution, revelation and redemption.. This is how and why you, a genuine from birth Israeli and me, a pale imitation. are on this page together, now.
Absolutely - we have no alternative Etgar! Art certainly helps, especially humor. There was and is a lot of despondency here but I expect the resistance hear to build up very soon. TLV protesters certain a standard we need to rise up to.
Every time I almost force myself to listen or read the News no matter their skewness (is that a word?) i find myself both holding my breath and take a deep breath at the same time. That’s life
Most of the "pro Israel" pundits in the Anglosphere have reacted to the truce with great disappointment, viewing it as a regrettable Israeli capitulation to the forces of darkness. It reflects the kind of fucked-up, abstracted morality you get from viewing war remotely. From a distance, ending civilian suffering (that of both the hostages and the Gazan civilians) is just another abstract ideal, one that matters less than capital-j Justice because its scope is limited to the people affected, whereas big-ticket ideas like Justice belong to everyone. This truce is also incredibly unsatisfying on a narrative level - when you spend a lot of time watching something on TV, that thing should have the decency to behave like a movie. People want the blockbuster end, they want Saving Private Ryan. This ending is way too messy, way too real life.
From here in the states, where what has been impossible to imagine is happening, I am surprised that you write “it’s impossible to imagine.. “. It is very possible for me to imagine idiotic behavior, and horrors recurring. In fact, what is impossible for me to imagine is a time when I no longer have dreams triggered by what I know my mother went through just a short 80 years ago, in the land of Beethoven, Goethe, Schiller and so many others I have heard were geniuses.
In her NY Times newsletter yesterday, Tressie McMillan Cottom wrote about the situation in the US, including a paragraph which also speaks to our experience and heartache here in Israel:
"That’s not just grief; that’s something akin to what sociologists call anomie. That’s a collective sense that a social contract — the norms on which we rely to navigate the vicissitudes of society — is broken. Anomie is a shared experience. It happens because the hallmarks of identity that we rely on to give us the safety to go to work, to make families and to trust strangers have eroded."
The link worked for me, and it's an article worth reading, though her comments as to how Trump might recognize Martin Luther King Jr were overly optimistic; he failed to do so in any way, while his erstwhile personal billionaire toady, Musk, brought cheers to from the inauguration crowd with 2 Nazi salutes. I am sickened. Anomie indeed; how sad that we already have a word to well describe the terrible state of things.
I may not be as optimistic as your words implore (though I nat to be), but the pressure must be placed BY our respective communities within our respective communities on apologists of rage while reflections must be made on what kinds of societies we are and want for both. From the “outside”, the challenge comes from the political division in which antisemitism - most especially on the ”Left” (where we are supposed to care about peace and inclusion) has become rote, contemptuous about nuance, smug in dismissing Jewish pain by favouring everyone else’s pain, mocking Jewish self-determination and who seek to redefine what Zionism is by assigning a false and vicious narrative that cloaks it in a generalized hatred and suspicion of Jews. This, of course, includes - most agonizingly - some (too many) vocal, deferential and ignorant as well as silent Jews. Taking on a right-wing Jew who spouts raging hate somehow feels easier in sense than dealing with a Left-wing where hypocritical smugness and sanctimony dictate an unwavering bias of deluded self-erasure.
I’ve listened to Palestinians interviewed on BBC, CBC, NPR and elsewhere saying only they should be able to determine their future (One gentleman expressed that because he has lived in the UK for a few years, he knows what it entails 🤦🏻♀️). None of these people acknowledged the hand of their own in this latest and most intense misery … Except for a mere handful of individuals, we are not seeing the existential reckoning that I see among Jews in and outside of Israel (this does not include those on the so-called far left who, to put it delicately, shit where they eat). Alas, the interviewers never push for their guests to outline exactly how that would play out. What exactly *is* a democracy in Gaza and West BanK?
In any case, they’ve had that opportunity to get their on their own and with outside help that has been either cynical or manipulative (or both) and it has failed spectacularly and repeatedly making victims of its own as much as of Israelis and Jews everywhere. One does not go from where they have been and are into a flourishing democracy overnight (assuming that this is what they want … and if they do not want an accountable democratic society, why not and what exactly are they offering up instead?) without the unwavering and sincere support and oversight that their path will, indeed, lead toward an accountable democracy.
To me, and ned to this misery begins and ends with a declaration that Israel has a right to exist in peace and security, and that residents of G&TWB have a right to live without the kind of leadership that does not rule by threat or nihilistic obsession toward the genocide of Jews and at the expense of their own.
To me, that means establishing political and judicial structures and a civilian society that can demonstrate a protracted pattern of peaceful accountability in the interest of an egalitarian society which can thrive and that recognizes that all lives are sacred and not to be used as fodder.
It is a society in which women and girls are able to pursue their educational, political and career goals (and because it needs saying, dressed as they please, and able to move freely in public without threat of being beaten or murdered because of male egos).
And we Jews who care so deeply for the longevity and goodness of our story, our future, our family … we need to push our relatives everywhere that Netanyahu and his ilk are not helping and have not helped. That religious fundamentalism is anything but spiritual or righteous. They, too, must be held accountable for their spectacular failures, provocations, arrogance and egos, while also not being presented as the sole trigger or cause of this nightmare (as antisemites on the Left insist).
The Arab/Muslim world needs to apply the same pressures to do better on their family as we need to continue to apply on ours. I have not seen it or heard at the same volume or with the same full-throated insistence as the vitriol from everywhere against Jews everywhere (including our own sell-outs. For more on that, see today’s piece from Jill The Liberal Jew:
I agree with you on most points. And I would add that Israeli society also needs a reckoning with itself—a good look in the mirror at its own racism and unwillingness to change, to heal. Yesterday a mob of settlers set fire to homes and businesses in the West Bank. These pogroms continue regularly with few consequences. Hate is spewed in mainstream songs, the comment sections even on outlets like Haaretz fill up with inhumane statements and vitriol, and the Arab minority in Israel is treated with contempt and suspicion. How can there be peace when society does not view its own citizens with respect and dignity? How can there be peace when the Jewish nation, purporting to represent the Jewish people, a people that suffered the worst genocide in history, seem hell bent on perpetrating their own crimes against humanity? Yes leadership sets the tone—and, please, God, good riddance to N. and Hamas—but it is ultimately us who also fall in line and follow.
We so desperately need healing, and it will only begin if all phases of the deal are implemented...halavai both sides will get some new leadership, and fast...
Bravely said. We've seen history repeated as tragedy, and there's no sign of it turning to farce, only further tragedy. We must hope that evil leaders are punished at the ballot box, but it may be a hope long deferred. And I'm an optimist!
After watching my few go-to news sources in Israel since Oct 7th, I found myself becoming more and more hawkish. Your point of view made me feel more like my old self again. Thank you for that.
I have to say that as long as people such as Etgar and you exist, the path is more than possible to find. Hope has the last word in my book because you exist.
Thanks. This is a clear view of the situation.
Both extremist behviour in the West Bank as well as gun and knife-wielding gloating in Gaza during the past 36 hours prove to me that the eternal hostilities will endure. People like us will still be debating these issues 3,000 years hence. The release of the three women hostages excepted, the past 15 months' travails now seem pointless. All of us in Israel have suffered in one way or another and the country - our society - lies in emotional tatters redolent of the physical destruction of Gaza.The diffeence, I fear, is that Gazans like it that way.
Thank you for this. There is a grim reality upon us and it's difficult to see what breaks it. Israel is further along or into this reality than the US, but that gap might sadly be closing rapidly. We are at least a few years from better times, and that might be optimistic.
This isn’t just fate. We can change our future.
I must disagree, Etgar. Jewish history is not linear; it's cyclical. The annual reading of the Torah evokes the ceaseless round of retribution, revelation and redemption.. This is how and why you, a genuine from birth Israeli and me, a pale imitation. are on this page together, now.
Absolutely - we have no alternative Etgar! Art certainly helps, especially humor. There was and is a lot of despondency here but I expect the resistance hear to build up very soon. TLV protesters certain a standard we need to rise up to.
Every time I almost force myself to listen or read the News no matter their skewness (is that a word?) i find myself both holding my breath and take a deep breath at the same time. That’s life
Most of the "pro Israel" pundits in the Anglosphere have reacted to the truce with great disappointment, viewing it as a regrettable Israeli capitulation to the forces of darkness. It reflects the kind of fucked-up, abstracted morality you get from viewing war remotely. From a distance, ending civilian suffering (that of both the hostages and the Gazan civilians) is just another abstract ideal, one that matters less than capital-j Justice because its scope is limited to the people affected, whereas big-ticket ideas like Justice belong to everyone. This truce is also incredibly unsatisfying on a narrative level - when you spend a lot of time watching something on TV, that thing should have the decency to behave like a movie. People want the blockbuster end, they want Saving Private Ryan. This ending is way too messy, way too real life.
From here in the states, where what has been impossible to imagine is happening, I am surprised that you write “it’s impossible to imagine.. “. It is very possible for me to imagine idiotic behavior, and horrors recurring. In fact, what is impossible for me to imagine is a time when I no longer have dreams triggered by what I know my mother went through just a short 80 years ago, in the land of Beethoven, Goethe, Schiller and so many others I have heard were geniuses.
In her NY Times newsletter yesterday, Tressie McMillan Cottom wrote about the situation in the US, including a paragraph which also speaks to our experience and heartache here in Israel:
"That’s not just grief; that’s something akin to what sociologists call anomie. That’s a collective sense that a social contract — the norms on which we rely to navigate the vicissitudes of society — is broken. Anomie is a shared experience. It happens because the hallmarks of identity that we rely on to give us the safety to go to work, to make families and to trust strangers have eroded."
It's for subscribers only so I doubt the link would work for others - https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/render?uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2Fc357f9a9-ff65-576a-b4e9-184bc664117c&productCode=TMC&isViewInBrowser=true
The link worked for me, and it's an article worth reading, though her comments as to how Trump might recognize Martin Luther King Jr were overly optimistic; he failed to do so in any way, while his erstwhile personal billionaire toady, Musk, brought cheers to from the inauguration crowd with 2 Nazi salutes. I am sickened. Anomie indeed; how sad that we already have a word to well describe the terrible state of things.
I may not be as optimistic as your words implore (though I nat to be), but the pressure must be placed BY our respective communities within our respective communities on apologists of rage while reflections must be made on what kinds of societies we are and want for both. From the “outside”, the challenge comes from the political division in which antisemitism - most especially on the ”Left” (where we are supposed to care about peace and inclusion) has become rote, contemptuous about nuance, smug in dismissing Jewish pain by favouring everyone else’s pain, mocking Jewish self-determination and who seek to redefine what Zionism is by assigning a false and vicious narrative that cloaks it in a generalized hatred and suspicion of Jews. This, of course, includes - most agonizingly - some (too many) vocal, deferential and ignorant as well as silent Jews. Taking on a right-wing Jew who spouts raging hate somehow feels easier in sense than dealing with a Left-wing where hypocritical smugness and sanctimony dictate an unwavering bias of deluded self-erasure.
I’ve listened to Palestinians interviewed on BBC, CBC, NPR and elsewhere saying only they should be able to determine their future (One gentleman expressed that because he has lived in the UK for a few years, he knows what it entails 🤦🏻♀️). None of these people acknowledged the hand of their own in this latest and most intense misery … Except for a mere handful of individuals, we are not seeing the existential reckoning that I see among Jews in and outside of Israel (this does not include those on the so-called far left who, to put it delicately, shit where they eat). Alas, the interviewers never push for their guests to outline exactly how that would play out. What exactly *is* a democracy in Gaza and West BanK?
In any case, they’ve had that opportunity to get their on their own and with outside help that has been either cynical or manipulative (or both) and it has failed spectacularly and repeatedly making victims of its own as much as of Israelis and Jews everywhere. One does not go from where they have been and are into a flourishing democracy overnight (assuming that this is what they want … and if they do not want an accountable democratic society, why not and what exactly are they offering up instead?) without the unwavering and sincere support and oversight that their path will, indeed, lead toward an accountable democracy.
To me, and ned to this misery begins and ends with a declaration that Israel has a right to exist in peace and security, and that residents of G&TWB have a right to live without the kind of leadership that does not rule by threat or nihilistic obsession toward the genocide of Jews and at the expense of their own.
To me, that means establishing political and judicial structures and a civilian society that can demonstrate a protracted pattern of peaceful accountability in the interest of an egalitarian society which can thrive and that recognizes that all lives are sacred and not to be used as fodder.
It is a society in which women and girls are able to pursue their educational, political and career goals (and because it needs saying, dressed as they please, and able to move freely in public without threat of being beaten or murdered because of male egos).
And we Jews who care so deeply for the longevity and goodness of our story, our future, our family … we need to push our relatives everywhere that Netanyahu and his ilk are not helping and have not helped. That religious fundamentalism is anything but spiritual or righteous. They, too, must be held accountable for their spectacular failures, provocations, arrogance and egos, while also not being presented as the sole trigger or cause of this nightmare (as antisemites on the Left insist).
The Arab/Muslim world needs to apply the same pressures to do better on their family as we need to continue to apply on ours. I have not seen it or heard at the same volume or with the same full-throated insistence as the vitriol from everywhere against Jews everywhere (including our own sell-outs. For more on that, see today’s piece from Jill The Liberal Jew:
https://open.substack.com/pub/theliberaljew/p/no-ones-jew-card-can-be-revoked?r=284cle&utm_medium=ios )
I agree with you on most points. And I would add that Israeli society also needs a reckoning with itself—a good look in the mirror at its own racism and unwillingness to change, to heal. Yesterday a mob of settlers set fire to homes and businesses in the West Bank. These pogroms continue regularly with few consequences. Hate is spewed in mainstream songs, the comment sections even on outlets like Haaretz fill up with inhumane statements and vitriol, and the Arab minority in Israel is treated with contempt and suspicion. How can there be peace when society does not view its own citizens with respect and dignity? How can there be peace when the Jewish nation, purporting to represent the Jewish people, a people that suffered the worst genocide in history, seem hell bent on perpetrating their own crimes against humanity? Yes leadership sets the tone—and, please, God, good riddance to N. and Hamas—but it is ultimately us who also fall in line and follow.
❤️
כל מילה
Every word...
We so desperately need healing, and it will only begin if all phases of the deal are implemented...halavai both sides will get some new leadership, and fast...
I’m with you Etgar. I’m praying for a lasting peace, and yet, afraid to be too hopeful.
Bravely said. We've seen history repeated as tragedy, and there's no sign of it turning to farce, only further tragedy. We must hope that evil leaders are punished at the ballot box, but it may be a hope long deferred. And I'm an optimist!
After watching my few go-to news sources in Israel since Oct 7th, I found myself becoming more and more hawkish. Your point of view made me feel more like my old self again. Thank you for that.
https://youtu.be/H-NCuAOZ9I0?feature=shared
"It's not the path that's difficult, it's the difficult that's the path."
Rebbe Sören Kierkegaard.
Great quote
Humanity seems so broken; can we even find the damn path?
I have to say that as long as people such as Etgar and you exist, the path is more than possible to find. Hope has the last word in my book because you exist.