Not only did the four kidnapped female soldiers return home on Saturday – the entire country returned to itself, to its self-love, to its self-embellishment, to deceptive togetherness, to false celebrations of victory, to feelings of superiority, to ultranationalism and incitement.
The moving personal joy of family members and friends, whose world had collapsed during the passing year, became a national carnival that was out of all proportion. We've already become accustomed to it, but on Saturday we injected ourselves with an overdose of kitsch and lies.
For more than an appalling and dreadful year, it's easy to understand the need to be happy, if only for a moment, even the need to take pride and congratulate ourselves. But Saturday's celebration went far beyond that. As if the natural joy over the female soldiers' return weren't enough, we had to cloak the joy in lies. The need for propaganda and incitement precisely on a day of sweeping national joy attests to the fact that something bad is bubbling under the cover of the hugs, kisses and tears shared with Karina, Naama, Daniella and Liri.
We were lied to on Saturday. The lie of total victory over Hamas was shattered, in view of an organized, orderly and armed Hamas, the sovereign in Gaza, holding a liberation ceremony with a stage and some extras posted. If any victory was on view Saturday, it was of an organization that had risen from the ashes and ruins after 16 months of airstrikes, killing and destruction, still standing, alive and kicking.
We were told that this organization was Nazi-like, cruel, monstrous, demonic – not only in the excitable street discourse, but by the most senior TV anchors, the voice of Israel and the portrayers of reality. The reality, how should we put this, was somewhat contradictory to such statements.
The competition between TV presenters over who could vilify Hamas more in their studios stood in grotesque contradiction to the consoling and relatively encouraging sight of the women released from captivity. They stood upright, dispensing smiles, holding bags of mementos given to them by their captors.
They looked very different than Palestinian detainees upon their release, at least some of whom look like total wrecks. One may assume that down the line we may yet witness harsher scenes of released Israeli hostages, and obviously, one should not make light of the suffering the released female soldiers have gone through, but this is not what people released by Nazis look like.
Look at us, how beautiful we are, what sanctifiers of life we are. We're willing to pay any price for releasing our hostages. Contrast this self-perception with the persisting and vexing truth that Saturday's ceremony could have been held eight months ago, possibly on the days after October 7. The claim that they sanctify death and we sanctify life is perhaps the vilest lie.
After 50,000 deaths caused by the Israel Defense Forces, most of them innocent, there's no point in wasting words over this idea. Israel barely sanctifies the lives of its own sons – with over 800 soldiers dead in battle, this too is doubtful – it definitely doesn't sanctify the life of any human being.
There is nothing cheaper in Israel than the life of a Palestinian, in war and in the day to day. Ask in Gaza what value is ascribed to human life by Israel's soldiers and pilots. Those who systematically destroyed all of Gaza's hospitals, shot at ambulances and killed hundreds of emergency response workers did not sanctify life, but squashed it.
Solidarity was also falsified ad nauseam on Saturday. A yellow ribbon on a car is not solidarity. Israelis care for one another? You must be joking. Travel the highways, stand in line, consider the mass forgery of disability documents. This isn't solidarity or reciprocal care, it's the rule of the powerful; it's each person for himself, and no lofty words can hide this reality.
Israel celebrated the return of four hostages on Saturday. The joy was sincere, moving and sweeping. But the makeup was shoddy, the props cheap and the kitsch reminiscent of Bollywood. With a little more truth and fewer lies, this celebration could have been much more complete.