For nine months, I've been looking for a crack in the wall of hatred and messianism – in vain. In the wake of the October massacre, the majority of Israeli society has been speaking exclusively from the gut. The head has been deactivated.
On July 1, the first sign was given that things are beginning to change, with 6,000 people taking part in an impressive conference in Tel Aviv, sending clear messages against the war, for the return of the hostages and the prisoners, and for the principles of "the day after." At last, the crack I've been looking for. Narrow though it is, it lets in light so that we don't move about in pitch darkness.
And then, after just a few beams of July sunlight came through, all the wall's mouthpieces came together to reinforce the darkness. In all mainstream media there was not a single word about the peace conference, while voices supporting both the government and the "opposition" sought to immediately seal the crack, lest its light interfere with the state of siege and lead people to see.
Israeli society needs to choose. A crack of light, or darkness. The crack of light is the alternative, because there is no opposition in Israel. Everybody is playing the same tune, whether loudly or softly, and the state is trapped in a slogan dictated by Benjamin Netanyahu: "total victory." Some are indeed asking for the return of the hostages, but in the long run they wish for the war to continue until that total victory; in other words, forever.
But before total victory defeats the Palestinians, it has already defeated Israel's standing in the region. Even after 76 years, Israel is not considered legitimate here, and needs to kill perhaps thousands more to maintain its position. You could say: It's the Arabs who didn't want us, it's the Arabs who started the war, it's the Arabs who turned to terrorism. All this, even if it were true (it isn't), doesn't change the fact that in the end, Israel didn't not know how to make peace with this land and its inhabitants.
And if after 76 years it wound up killing 37,000 Palestinians, it must ask itself why the "dunam here, dunam there" project failed, totally, and nothing changed, as if the conflict started yesterday.
Furthermore, speaking of victory, it is a pyrrhic one. As Jesus Christ said, "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Here is the lovely fruit of the beginning of "total victory". A fascistic right-wing wave is washing over the country, Israeli society is corrupt and predatory, and not just against the other, but against itself. And all this without an alternative; the opposition is even more extremist than the coalition (see Avigdor Lieberman, Gideon Sa'ar and their ilk), a Spartan state at its ugliest. Total victory is total defeat to the idyll of "every man under his vine and under his fig tree." The most dangerous place for Jews today is under the fig leaf of their "forefathers' property."
The tidings of the July conference are a litmus test for Israeli Jewish society, and the brave people who organized the conference exemplify the proverb, "Where there are no people, try to be a person." Two camps: the July camp, with tidings of peace, life and rapprochement between the two peoples, and the other camps, with its stars Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich, Yinon Magal, Zvi Yehezkeli and their mates. Isn't it a shame, that these are the heroes of this generation?
In a short while, sobriety will have no choice but to return, and people will ask themselves, how did these hateful, messianic people lead them to the abyss? But it will be too late, even now it is getting to be too late. The people of July 1 brought an action plan of action to the Israeli public, today it seems like just words, tomorrow you'll ask how could we have lived without it?