Purim 2025 was the most jubilant holiday I can remember in recent years. The streets were packed with masses of people in costumes, an _expression_ of an almost desperate desire to live and be happy. It was hard not to feel the sense of relief that the cease-fire had brought, after a dreadful and seemingly endless war. While Purim was being celebrated in Tel Aviv, in the devastated Gaza Strip Ramadan was marked and iftar meals were held in the evening.
Of course, the world was far from perfect. An atmosphere of crisis and uncertainty hovered over almost every aspect of life. But on that unstable ground people wanted to live. It's surprising how fast one can shift to talking about everyday matters – a new café that opened, or the new episode of "White Lotus." Even the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange was starting to recover.
I try to remember the life we had just a couple of weeks ago, and it looks to me like a different world. That's exactly why the descent into renewed war and renewed destruction of Gaza are so hard to take. I ask myself what led people who had already started to be rooted in life-after-the-war, who had already begun to bounce back and thrive – what led them to storm Gaza again? It sounds naïve, but I mumble to myself: Why war?
Because renewal of the war took place in conjunction with advancement of the judicial overhaul, many in the liberal camp believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resumed the attacks in order to enable the return of Itamar Ben-Gvir to the government and to save himself from the investigations and criminal trials.
But that explanation isn't sufficiently convincing. Netanyahu is not fighting alone, nor is he embarking on a war with just Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich prodding him on. He would not have acted without some legitimization. Millions of people are ready to embark on this war, or to support it to one degree or another.
This urge that has gripped the masses is simply beyond me. It wasn't always like that. During many months of war, I didn't feel that the reactions of Israelis were beyond comprehension. The massacre on October 7 and the feeling of insecurity it left necessarily engendered a desire for self-defense. True, Israel had countless opportunities to exit the war since the end of 2023. Israel has also committed appalling war crimes in Gaza. Still, the war was subject to some sort of logic of action that was, albeit with difficulty, amenable to explanation.
But with the crass violation of the cease-fire and of the hostage deal, we are in a new situation. Israel's actions place it in a status similar to that of Russia after the invasion of Ukraine: as a criminal, war-mongering regime, thirsting to destroy and kill. That's why the present feeling recalls what the liberals in Russia felt in February 2022. Even those who were somehow able to live with President Vladimir Putin up until that point were compelled to understand: We're not in Kansas anymore. Our country has undergone a complete transformation and has turned into a predatory entity.
When I try to explain to myself what made so many in Israel wish for the war's renewal, I find that the ritual of the freeing of the hostages made a decisive contribution to it. Instead of feeling relieved about their return, Israelis felt humiliated again, almost like in October 2023. It's possible that the ruinous war in which we are now immersed will one day be considered the restoration-of-honor war. But that logic is in no way justified. Acceding to rage and humiliation is not a modus operandi for a modern state. It doesn't constitute justification for destroying the world.
Among all the recent actions taken by the Netanyahu government, the breach of the cease-fire is the most criminal. Even life in an illiberal regime is bearable – millions live like that in Hungary, not to mention China. There are gatekeepers who are there in order to prevent the government from running amok and breaking the law. But all that is happening anyway – even with the attorney general and the head of the Shin Bet still ensconced in their offices.
The war is a crime, and that crime is not a possibility that is likely to be committed: It is something that is happening now. Accordingly, before anything else, demonstrators must demand an end to it.
Remnant of another era
At one point in George Orwell's novel "1984," the protagonist, Winston Smith, enters a dusty, crowded junk shop filled with nuts and bolts, chisels and penknives. We often tend to forget that "1984" is a novel about war, an endless war. Missiles are constantly flying between Eurasia and Oceania. News bulletins report progress on the front. Prisoners of war are tortured and executed.
But among the junk Winston finds a round object "that gleamed softly in the lamplight" – a glass ball with coral in the center. "It's a beautiful thing," Winston says. Still, "What appealed to him about it was not so much its beauty as the air it seemed to possess of belonging to an age quite different from the present one."
The glass ball becomes a surviving object from a former world, just like the declamation Winston hears from the old man in the store: "Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement's / You owe me three farthings, say the bells of St. Martin's." These remnants – the coral, the recitation, the ancient farthings – constitute a symbol of life as it was before the war. "It was curious, but when you said it to yourself you had the illusion of actually hearing bells, the bells of a lost London that still existed somewhere or other, disguised and forgotten."
We are in a similar situation. Hurled for the third time into an endless war, groping in the dark and not able even to call the disaster in which we are living by its name. All that remains for us is to hold onto the remnants of the life we once had – just a couple of weeks ago.