On My First Visit Since October 7, I Saw the Gradual Erosion of Israel's Soul - Opinion - Haaretz.com
The first reminder I had landed in a transformed Israel came as I walked earlier this month down the long corridor leading towards passport control at Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion Airport.
I stared at the portraits of the Israeli hostages displayed there, a gallery of faces that have burrowed into the collective consciousness since October 7.
The plan had originally been for my wife and son to accompany me on a trip to Israel to meet my newborn nephew. But that was before the bloodbath of October 7 flowed into the obliteration of Gaza.
And so, we decided I'd go alone. The flight from New York where I now live, with a stopover in Europe because of the scarcity of direct flights, was freighted with the absence of my wife and son, rendering the notion of a family reunion incomplete.
A soldier walks past the photos of hostages kidnapped in the deadly October 7 attack, in Tel Aviv last month.Credit: DYLAN MARTINEZ/ REUTERS
The irony of arrival continued: While I was in passport control trying to get into Israel, I received a text about a fundraiser for a Palestinian poet who was trying to get out of Gaza.
Signposts of war were everywhere. On the train from the airport, a weary soldier sleeping, the barrel of his M-16 resting on his knee, pointed at me. From the window I read the words on a billboard: "We will win this together." Once off the train I spotted a yellowing sign reading "Free the Hostages Now". It hung limp on a fence, the faded lettering singling the time elapsed.
The Hebrew phrase "war routine", signifies how the conflict hovers over society, especially when everything is tainted by the metallic taste of war, as people feign normalcy while living in ongoing shock.
In Tel Aviv I observed the dissonance of full cafes and lunch spots amid the yellow ribbons, a symbol of the hostages, fluttering from vehicles and balconies, and groups of off-duty soldiers dressed in jeans and sweatshirts, but armed, their weapons loaded. Google Maps revealed a city speckled with bomb shelter icons.
People sit on synthetic grass in central Tel Aviv, Israel in January.Credit: ALEXANDRE MENEGHINI/ REUTERS
All my "How are you doing?" questions were met with perfunctory "You know…" reflecting a shared sense of resignation toward the "situation"—a euphemism for the existential reality of war.
Years after leaving, the ocean never seemed so vast and wide as it did on October 7. From New York, I frantically sought updates all the while terrified to hear, as I at last did, that someone I knew had been murdered.
Now, nearly five months into the war, I found myself in a café in Israel with a fellow journalist, scrolling through social media images of Palestinians swarming an aid truck, trampled, shot, run over. We registered numbly that the horror was unfolding just an hour and a half drive away. I felt again the mercilessness of distance.
I wandered into Tel Aviv's "Hostage Square," the site where families and friends with loved ones still being held hostage in Gaza set up a semi-permanent presence displaying photos, memorials and art installations, among them a concrete installation styled like a Hamas tunnel. The square seemed more museum stuck in suspended anxiety than a site of protest.
After Friday night dinner at my parents' house in a village near Haifa, we watched the news. Military analysts confidently discussed targeted strikes, pointing out hidden tunnels and launch sites from drone footage. Their analysis textbook perfect as they argued the case for targeting these black and white dots.
My eyes darted from their reassuring faces to the social media feeds on my phone, clogged with images from Gaza of emaciated bodies, beckoning eyes of children. The Israeli media has crafted a parallel universe where "collateral damage" glosses over human suffering.
Walking through winding streets of my village I passed the house of my murdered friend; another in the network of grief-veiled homes.
More than a decade ago, Netanyahu declared Israel will live forever on its sword. His prophecy was self-fulfilling. Netanyahu presides over a society in which many are more unified by external threats than a collective dream, perpetually vigilant, hardened, and increasingly desensitized to others' suffering. Their grief and rage from October 7 atrocities still feels fresh.
The erosion of Israel's soul has been gradual: systematic polarization, attacks on the left, censorship, an industry of silence designed to intimidate those who believe there's another way to live.
Living in Israel has become an exercise in endurance; Israelis haven't only endured war from their enemies—brutal and determined—but also from their own leadership – politicians and leaders who have hollowed out institutions, who speak of unity but attack those who express differing opinions. And for Palestinians in Gaza life has become an exercise in survival itself.
Palestinians rush to collect the humanitarian aid airdropped into Gaza City, Gaza Strip, on Sunday.Credit: Mohammed Hajjar?AP
I had thought, from across the ocean, that October 7 might jolt Israel out of its decades-long complacency and force everyone to recognize the need for a sustainable, peaceful solution once and for all. But in talking to people, I realized so many were instead paralyzed by the terror of what happened on "Black Saturday."
The Israeli psyche was scarred that day. But instead of brave leaders working to heal the wound they have instead made it deeper with cynicism and nationalism. No public is inherently left or right, no people deterministically hopeless; it is though when there are no words to express a hopeful vision. That's when a society can lose itself.
In discussions with friends and strangers, I found a glimmer of hope among those who still believe in our ability to overcome this trial and live as free-thinking citizens. My mother, the daughter of Holocaust survivors who moved here fifty years ago on her own from Australia to help build a community based on equality, said, "I didn't sign up for this."
On Saturday night in Tel Aviv I watched as thousands took to the streets to hold signs in defiance of the government, demanding a deal for hostages, and some, an end to the war and the mass starvation being perpetrated in Gaza. In a sea of hate and horror, I saw islands of humanity and hope.
Israeli activists block a road during an anti-government demonstration in Tel Aviv , on Saturday.Credit: JACK GUEZ - AFP
Shouting "Democracy" or "Release The Hostages" might sound humble and insufficient in the face of a nationalistic takeover, of war, apathy—but in a society where discourse and political imagination have been radically diminished, the words of those who navigate the limited acceptable vocabulary carry significant weight. No wonder police resort to violence, arrest someone for holding a sign, and agitators criticize the hostage families. They know that any crack in the wall of apathy the right created can flood light in.
The week-long trip passed quickly. As I walked toward the departure gate, I noticed that on one of the hostage's portraits a death notice was posted. The reality of the ongoing war, of this stalemate of death, weighed on me as I entered the plane.
Upon landing, I texted a friend that I had returned home. He pointed out that in the decade of our acquaintance, it was the first time I'd referred to the U.S. as "home".
I replied that home is where my child is. Then a great sadness came over me. My childhood home couldn't secure safety for my child, nor for my newborn nephew, just as it eluded the children murdered on October 7, and some 12,000 children who have perished in Gaza. What kind of a home is it where children aren't safe—where they—like the children of Kibbutz Be'eri or Khan Yunis—don't even have one?
When we were restored to one another, I held my son tightly. But even with my arms around him, nothing could dispel the loneliness of being away from my family; being so distant from the hope of a shared home. Nothing ever will.
Etan Nechin is an Israeli-born journalist and author. Twitter: @Etanetan23