Tuesday 8:40AM: What’s missing from this week’s post is a reaction to Netanyahu’s statement last night in a Foreign and Security Committee debate that “the Oslo Accord [sic] is a disaster that resulted in the same number of victims as October 7”. I would like to respond to that now, but I didn’t hear of it until half an hour ago, and there isn’t time before the deadline, so I will just have to let it simmer on a low light for another week., and pray that nothing even more egregious and outrageous emerges before then.
So, let’s start by getting that out of the way.
I’ve just googled ‘What is the difference between a statesman and a politician?’ The first twenty hits all contained the same message, best summed up by the aphorism: ‘A politician thinks about the next election, while a statesman thinks about the next generation.’ Looking back at politicians and statesmen of the past, I’m tempted to suggest another difference, which possibly covers different scenarios from the first. ‘A statesman acts morally, while a politician acts expediently.’
Either way, two things seem clear to me in the cloudy world that is political reality.. First., a general observation: If we illustrated this on a Venn diagram, there wouldn’t be a lot of overlap between statesmen and politicians, not in Israel, anyway!
Second, a specific observation. The days of Netanyahu even appearing to be a statesman are, regrettably, in the past. In the last week or two, he has demonstrated on at least three occasions that he is motivated in his public statements principally by the need to ensure his personal political future. He strives to do this both in the short term. by nurturing the right wing of his coalition, and in the longer term, by appealing to those sectors of the voting public that are to his political right.
First we had his appalling playing of a macabre numbers game, as quoted at the head of this post. It is a fact that between the signing of the Oslo Accords in September 1993 and October 6 2023, at least 1,334 Israel civilians were murdered in Palestinian terror attacks. It seems, at the time of writing, that the October 7 death toll was at least 1200 Israelis. (That we cannot be confident of a final figure after Israel has undertaken 10 weeks of the most intense, painstaking and painful forensic investigation is, itself, an eloquent comment on the scale of horror of the atrocities.)
The pogrom of October 7 resulted from a series of intelligence failures and operational misjudgements, and claimed 1200 lives in less than two days. Attributing responsibility for the failure of the Oslo Accords is a more nuanced subject. However, let us assume, for the sake of argument, that it was, similarly, a set of Israeli intelligence failures and operational misjudgements that led to the loss of life since the signing. Let us go even further, and assume that all of the murders of Israelis by terrorists between September 1993 and October 6 this year are attributable to the signing of the Oslo accords. Even assuming all this, to make a bald statement about numerical equivalence, while ignoring the difference between 2 days and 11,000 days, is ridiculous.
Netanyahu followed this up with an astonishing response to a question in a press conference on December 2, when asked about the horrible shooting in error of Yuval Castleman, who was killed at the scene of the terror shooting at a Jerusalem bus stop, when Staff Sgt. (res.) Aviad Frija, one of two off-duty troops who responded to the attack, shot at the two terrorists. He also opened fire at Castleman, an armed civilian who had stopped his car across the street and himself shot at the terrorists. Footage from the scene showed that Frija shot Castleman after the latter had put his gun down and was holding his hands in the air.
Asked about this, Netanyahu acknowledged that more guns in the hands of the public can produce more such tragic incidents. But more civilians with guns can save the day in times like this, he said, defending his government’s policy on encouraging more eligible Israelis to carry weapons. He then continued: “Therefore, I think that in the current situation we need to continue with this policy — I definitely support it. We may pay a price, but such is life [my emphasis].” For as experienced a politician as Netanyahu to fail to weigh his words so egregiously seems inconceivable. Either he regarded the whole matter as not worthy of his attention, or he was speaking specifically to Ben-Gvir’s constituency, knowing how central a plank of Ben-Gvir’s policy arming civilians is.
Finally, in the last couple of days, Netanyahu has been reiterating his rejection of the two-state solution and of the Palestinian Authority playing a role in Gaza after the war. While taking this position, which undoubtedly represents the Israeli mainstream at the moment, Netanyahu claims that he prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state and takes credit for “putting the brakes” on the Oslo peace process. In what has become his signature style, Netanyahu refuses to address the contradictions in his actions over the years. In 2005, he originally voted in favour of disengagement from Gaza. In his Bar-Ilan speech of 2009, he stated that he was willing to accept the two-state solution. In 2011, he triumphantly welcomed Gilad Schalit home, while releasing Yahya Sinwar and another 1,026 security prisoners.
Politicians are certainly allowed to change their mind. Situations may change. Politicians may reassess and reevaluate. Netanyahu, however, pretends that he has always been right and never changed his mind. I have long believed that this reflected his desire not to undermine his followers’ belief in his infallibility. I am now feeling that he has bought into his own rhetoric and believes himself infallible.
Let me finally offer another definition of the difference between a statesman and a politician. A statesman is elected in order to do what needs to be done. A politician does what needs to be done in order to be elected. For Netanyahu, re-election has changed from being the means to being the end. The fear is that if he succeeds, it may well be so.
Tis the season for grandsons to catch anything that’s going, apparently. Ollie seems his usual cheerful self, despite being under the weather; Raphael is enjoying being out in the weather; but poor Tao has been feeling proper poorly, as we say in South Wales. May they all, and you all, and we all, have a better week this week!
This week’s post is aimed more at my friends and family in Chutz La’aretz than at my Israeli readers, who will be very familiar with most of what I have to say.
Tuesday 8:40AM: What’s missing from this week’s post is a reaction to Netanyahu’s statement last night in a Foreign and Security Committee debate that “the Oslo Accord [sic] is a disaster that resulted in the same number of victims as October 7″. I would like to respond to that now, but I didn’t hear of it until half an hour ago, and there isn’t time before the deadline, so I will just have to let it simmer on a low light for another week., and pray that nothing even more egregious and outrageous emerges before then.
Day 66 and counting
Those who have not lived their lives in Israel cannot really understand what that statistic sounds like to Israelis. The Suez Crisis in 1956 lasted ten days. The war in 1967 lasted six days. The Yom Kippur War in 1973 lasted 20 days. Combat during the First Lebanon War in 1982 lasted 20 days. The second Lebanon War in 2006 lasted 34 days. Operation Cast Lead in 2009 lasted 26 days. Operation Protective Edge in 2014 lasted, sporadically, for 50 days.
In other words, Israelis expect a war to be over in about a month. In addition, since Israel’s wars are fought just beyond the state’s formal borders, Israelis expect that their soldier children and spouses will be home for a 24-hour leave every week or two.
None of this has been the case in the current war. Many of those who have been fighting in Gaza presented themselves for service on 7 or 8 October and did not get home again until the ‘pause’ on 24 November – and some not even then. On radio stations, when field officers are being interviewed, parents phone in to ask the interviewers to question the officers as to when their children will be getting leave.
I well remember what happened during my own military service (three-and-a-half weeks of basic training in 1990, since you ask – and 15 years of annual reserve duty after that). The entire intake I served with were immigrants in our thirties or forties. When some were begging the officers to allow them home for Shabbat, one of the Russians I befriended, a veteran of the Soviet–Afghan war, recalled how, immediately following his 18th birthday, he had been taken 4000 kilometres away from home to the mountains of Northern Afghanistan, where he spent the next three-and-a-half years, having no contact with his family.
As with so much in life, our ability to accept circumstances depends as much on our expectations as on objective realities. The anxieties of parents and spouses are no less intense for being different in scale from those of my Russian comrade-in-arms’ family. And, as every day of those 66 days brings another list of “Approved for publication…” announcements of the names of one, or two, or three, or more, soldiers who fell in the previous day’s fighting, or who succumbed to injuries they suffered earlier, so the days weigh ever more heavily.
Everyone is Someone’s Child
One of the soldiers who fell last week was the brother of a close friend of our niece. Just before Shabbat, we learnt of the son of a close friend whose tank suffered a direct hit; he, thankfully, suffered what are described in these circumstances as very light injuries, but his fellow tank-crew members were not so fortunate. Then, as I was in the middle of writing these paragraphs, a death notice came up on our shul WhatsApp group: the son of a family who used to daven in our shul.
I have, in recent weeks, been davening in the mornings in the shul they moved to, and often pause for a few moments’ conversation with the now bereaved father. We are far from being close friends – we are more acquaintances than friends – but when you have joked and prayed with a family, and when you remember their son as a young boy, even if only vaguely, life is suddenly breathed into the bald statement of a death…and then, of course, you remember, that, for every such death, there are circles of immediate family, less close family, friends, and acquaintances, who all feel the death because they all knew the life.
Instructions to Parents
I offer you a pair of bookends: two sons communicating to their parents what is important to them. I offer this without comment.
The first, which you may well have heard at the time, is a phone conversation between one of the Hamas terrorists and his parents, while he was committing atrocities on October 7. You can hear the recording here.
The second was a ‘will’ left by Reservist Sergeant Major Ben Zussman, who fell a week ago, which he passed on to a friend, to be delivered to his parents in the event of… Here is the complete text:
“I am writing this message to you on the way to the base. If you are reading this, something must have happened to me. As you know me, probably no one is happier than me right now. It was not for nothing that I was on the verge of fulfilling my dream soon. I am happy and grateful for the privilege I will have to defend our beautiful land and the people of Israel.
Even if something happens to me, I don’t allow you to sink into sadness. I had the privilege of fulfilling my dream and vocation and you can be sure that I am looking down on you and smiling hugely. I will probably be sitting next to grandpa and we will catching up; each of us will talk about his experiences and the way things were different in the different wars. Maybe we’ll also talk a little politics, ask him what he thinks.
If God forbid you’re sitting shiva, make it a week of friends, family and fun. Let there be food, meat of course, beers, soft drinks, seeds, tea and, of course, of course, mum’s biscuits. Crack jokes, listen to stories, meet all my other friends you haven’t seen yet. Wow! I envy you. I would like to sit there and see them all.
Another very, very important point. If, God forbid, I fall into captivity, alive or dead. I am not ready for one soldier or citizen to be harmed because of some deal for my release. I don’t allow you to conduct a campaign or struggle or anything like that. I’m not prepared for terrorists to be released for me. in no way, shape or deal. Don’t go against my word, please.
I’ll say it again, I left the house without even being called to the reserves. I am full of pride and a sense of mission and I have always said that if I have to die, may it be in defence of others and the country. “Jerusalem, I have placed guards,” May it be that the day will come when I will be one of them.” [Ed Note: This is a reference to Isaiah 62 v 6. Ben follows here the interpretation that the guards are angels watching over Jerusalem until such time as the Temple is rebuilt.]
The heart-wrenching decisions
One of the conditions of the ‘pause’ was that Israel would suspend its aerial observation of Gaza. Agreeing to that condition contributed to the safe release of the children and women that were released.
Agreeing to that condition also enabled Hamas to make preparations for when the fighting would be renewed. Today the deaths were announced of seven soldiers, including five who were killed in the explosion from a device concealed near a school, and probably detonated remotely on a signal received by a concealed spotter watching from a nearby building. It seems likely that this device was placed during the observation blackout imposed throughout the ‘pause’.
Nobody could envy the Israeli authorities the decision-making this inhuman enemy confronts them with.
Conflicting Voices
A large number of the families of the abductees have, since October 6, been working together to ensure that their voice is heard. Their message has been that the safe return of all the abductees must be the authorities’ first priority, and that they must do all they can to bring it about. They are also demanding that the Government bring them home now.
It is, of course, impossible to criticise these families. What they are suffering is unimaginable, and their fears for the well-being of the abductees are completely realistic. They are reacting in ways that are totally understandable. It is, indeed, hard to imagine any parent, or child, or spouse, or sibling, reacting differently.
And yet… I fail to see what response they want to their demand that the Government bring back the abductees. What, in practical terms, do the families want the Government to do that it is not doing?
It seemed for a long time that this message was one that all the families wished to convey. However, it has become increasingly clear that there are at least some families who feel differently, and who felt until recently that their voice was not being heard sufficiently. We are now hearing more from families who accept the Government’s statement that the safety of the abductees is top priority at face value, and who are expressing their trust in the authorities to make the right decisions to maximise the chance of achieving the outcome we all want.
It occurs to me that the more the families confront the authorities, and the more they demonstrate against what they perceive as the Government’s inaction, the more they strengthen Hamas’ resolve not to release abductees. This is a cruel thing to say, but it seems to me that, if the families were publicly expressing faith in the authorities, this would lead Hamas to question whether releasing more abductees might be a tactically more sound move.
And this is the point at which I begin to suspect that I am overthinking everything, and, not for the first time, I come up against the realization that bargaining with the devil is not easy, and may not even be possible.
In a simpler, and more innocent, universe, our grandsons are at peace: both the one we will be seeing, God willing, tomorrow, and the ones we will be seeing. God willing, in just under two weeks (!)
The more observant among you will notice that I have not started this week with a reminder that today (Monday) is Day 59. (Of course, cunningly, I have now, which we call having your cake and eating it.)
On a related note, Bernice didn’t need me to point out that I did not, today, as soon as I was free, go upstairs to write my blog, as I usually do on a Monday, but, rather, I was doing what I have always known as pitzelling around downstairs: reading the paper, shelling peanuts, making a cup of tea, alphabetising the CDs. When I eventually faced up to it, I explained to her that I had decided in advance that I was not going to write about ‘the situation’ this week. However, between my making that decision last Thursday, and today, there have been so many developments that it seemed in some way perverse to talk about anything else. So, I really could not make up my mind how to proceed.
What I decided to do eventually was to outsource this week’s heavy lifting. I recommend to you a lengthy and dispassionate essay by a blogger called Richard Hanania. (Many thanks to my good friend and fellow-blogger Ron for drawing my attention to the article.) I find it very difficult to disagree with Hanania. Even if you find yourself reluctant to accept his conclusions, he will, I think, challenge you to marshal your counter-arguments. And again, even if you do disagree with him, you will, I hope, agree with me that he sets a standard for reasoned and calm discussion that we would all do well to emulate.
This outsourcing leaves me now free to write about anything, to act just as if life goes on, which, of course, it does; indeed, it must. Bernice and I have heard the good news of births and engagements in the last few weeks. We are due to be joining wedding celebrations in the next few weeks. Micha’el and family should be arriving in three weeks’ time for three weeks. We have to keep believing and recognising that much as what has happened here sometimes looks and feels like the end of the world, it is not.
Mamaloschen
So, let’s start by dealing with ‘pitzelling’ from two paragraphs ago. While I had no idea how to spell it, I vividly remembered it, from my childhood, as meaning: ‘to fail to get down to doing something properly’. I always assumed it was Yiddish.
However, on researching today, I can discover it only as a German word for ‘penis’, and not as a Yiddish word at all. This led me to doubt my memory. However, both Bernice and my brother Martin remember it in similar contexts from childhood, so I am reassured that I have not made it up. Why, then, is it not mentioned online? This may, of course, simply be because all self-respecting Yiddish dictionaries and word-lists, having identified the first twenty or thirty Yiddish words for ‘penis’, lost interest. I must also say that the path from ‘penis’ to ‘being slapdash or wasting time’ seems a little tortuous.
If any of my readers can shed light on the etymology of ‘pitzel’, I will be very grateful.
Mama(Mia)Loschen
I was put in mind this week of a piece of graffiti that I saw on the wall of a cowshed on kibbutz 50 years ago. (I was tempted to write: ‘I was put in mind of a graffito’, so that I could be accused of pedantry, but even I feel that ‘graffito’ is best avoided, in the same way as I would never write: ‘I try to eat spaghetti with a twirling fork, but there’s always one spaghetto that refuses to twirl.’)
Anyway, as I say, I was reminded of a piece of graffiti this week. I have been harvesting produce one day in each of the last couple of weeks, as part of a group of volunteers going to help Israel’s farmers who are suddenly without foreign workers. Last Thursday I spent five and a half hours on my knees picking tomatoes. Interestingly, the next day my knees were fine, but my gluteus maximus muscles ached like anything. In other words, I not only was, as usual, a pain in the arse, but I also had one– or, more accurately, two – one in each buttock. It was at this point that I recalled the piece of graffiti from an earlier period when I worked on kibbutz. This requires a little background.
Among the strands of Zionism that co-existed as a rich tapestry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was one championed by Aharon David Gordon, who argued that the national redemption of the Jewish people could be brought about only by fostering, through physical labour, the organic relationship of the People with the Land. His philosophy, and his personal example, inspired the entire Labour Zionist movement. Physical labour, working the land, became a cornerstone of the Zionist dream become reality.
His philosophy also inspired a later volunteer on kibbutz to paint on the cowshed wall the dedication: “A. D. GORDON DIED HERE”. I now find myself able to point to, but not to view directly, exactly where A. D. Gordon died for me personally.
Marketing Patriotism
In the immediate aftermath of October 7, the major radio network stopped broadcasting commercial advertising. This seemed a very natural decision. The brash blaring of adverts would have seemed very jarring. At some point in the last couple of weeks, however, the decision was made to resume advertising, and it has been interesting to observe how advertisers have….How to complete that sentence? I am torn between: …how advertisers have demonstrated their patriotism… and …how advertisers have cynically exploited the country’s existential crisis…
I think maybe I will sit on the fence.
It has been interesting to observe how advertisers have adapted to the new reality, and incorporated it into their message. So, for example, we have the advertisement for the energy food supplement in which a senior citizen explains that “In these difficult times, it is particularly important for me to keep my strength up, and so…”. We have many banks offering, to businesses affected by the war, loans that are interest-free for an initial period or that have an extended period before repayments begin. We have many products that have introduced patriotic packaging, like these tissues, proclaiming that “Together we shall win”.
I am sitting on the fence because I genuinely cannot decide whether I find this cynical or moving. All I can say is that when, a week or so ago, there was only one radio advert that did not reference, directly or indirectly, our existential crisis, I found it offensive and insensitive. This was an advertisement from a major retail chain selling domestic electrical appliances, which relentlessly advertised its November sale as if we were not in the middle of a war.
I was, subsequently, made to feel very bad, when I read that this chain, in partnership with another major chain, had installed washing machines and dryers in the public areas of shopping malls throughout the country, for the use, free-of-charge, of soldiers.
Like Light at the Hem of the Cloud
That heading is a quote from a poem by Leah Goldberg: a poem which looks forward, longingly, to a future time of “forgiveness and grace”. It seems to me an important image for these times. Here is a translation of the poem that doesn’t really do it justice:
Will there yet come days of forgiveness and grace, When you walk in the field as the innocent wayfarer walks, And the bare, bare soles of your feet will caress the clover leaves Or trample the oat stubble and sweeten its prickling?
Or rain will overtake you, its thronging drops tapping On your shoulder, your chest, your throat, your head, refreshing. And you will walk in the wet field, the quiet in you expanding Like light at the hem of the cloud?
And you will breathe in the odour of the furrow, breathing and quiet, And you will see the sun mirrored in the gold puddle, And simple will these things be, will life be, and touching will be allowed there, And loving will be allowed, will be allowed.
You will walk in the field, alone, unscorched by the flame Of conflagrations on roads that bristled with horror and blood. You will once again be peaceful in heart, humble and bending Like one of the grasses, like one of humanity.
I was led to this poem by a programme of meetings held under the auspices of, and in the breathtaking new building of, the National Library (which I am in danger of boring you with, I suspect). Each meeting is a conversation between Yuval Avivi, who presents a book programme on television, and a particular author, who is invited to present readings from their own and others’ work to offer some comfort, in these troubled times. The programme is called ‘Like Light at the Hem of the Cloud’, and I was curious about the origin of the phrase.
In one of the meetings, Eshkol Nevo read an extract from his novel ‘A Man Walks into an Orchard’. This is not a book that I know. Nevo is not even an author that I have read. However, I find the short extract he chose, even without a context, to be very haunting and very empowering. Unfortunately, I cannot find a translation, and I haven’t the talent to attempt a translation myself that would come anywhere near doing justice to this passage. So, with apologies, I offer this as a bonus for my Hebrew readers only. The rest of you can jump straight to the photographs below.”אם לשנות אז את העולם. אם לחטוא אז בלי רגשות אשם. אם גל אז ירוק. אם לנסוע אז רחוק. אם נעליים אז קלות. אם לחצות אז גבולות. אם לעשות אז שלום. אם שלום אז עכשיו. אם נותרנו, נאהב. אם נותרנו, נאהב. אם יש זמן הוא הולך ואוזל. אם לרקוד אז להשתולל. אם עבר אז לשכוח. אם אסיר אז לברוח. אם גדר אז חיה. אם להקים אז שערורייה. אם גבר אז אישה. אם אישה אז בבקשה. אם לחשוב אז לעשות. אם לעשות אז לטעות. אם לטעות אז עכשיו. אם נותרנו נאהב. אם נותרנו נאהב. אם נותרנו, נאהב
אם לשנות אז את העולם. אם לחטוא אז בלי רגשות אשם. אם גל אז ירוק. אם לנסוע אז רחוק. אם נעליים אז קלות. אם לחצות אז גבולות. אם לעשות אז שלום. אם שלום אז עכשיו. אם נותרנו, נאהב. אם נותרנו, נאהב. אם יש זמן הוא הולך ואוזל. אם לרקוד אז להשתולל. אם עבר אז לשכוח. אם אסיר אז לברוח. אם גדר אז חיה. אם להקים אז שערורייה. אם גבר אז אישה. אם אישה אז בבקשה. אם לחשוב אז לעשות. אם לעשות אז לטעות. אם לטעות אז עכשיו. אם נותרנו נאהב. אם נותרנו נאהב. אם נותרנו, נאהב
“.
In keeping with this week’s theme, let’s end with a couple of images of family life in all its glorious going-on-ness. There’s something to celebrate in just pitzelling around.
Today, let’s take a deep dive. Of necessity, a deep dive insulates you from all of the noise above the surface of the water. This means that I’m not going to wrestle with what will probably, in the next day or two, become Israel’s next unanswerable question: if and when we proceed on the understanding that Hamas will release ten abductees in return for a further day’s pause, and Hamas offers, instead, only nine or eight hostages, will we accept this, or will we tell Hamas to keep the hostages, and resume hostilities?
Similarly, I’m not going to discuss Hamas’s psychological torture of the Israeli public over the exchange of hostages for terror prisoners.
I’m not even going to discuss Kay Burley’s breathtaking assertion during her Sky News interview of Israeli Government spokesman Eylon Levy. (In this particular case, I’m not discussing it because words fail me – thankfully, they did not fail Eylon Levy, although, in his case, his eyebrows were even more eloquent than his mouth.)
Instead, I want to look at a phenomenon that only became prominent following the advent of mass media, and was, indeed, enabled by mass media: fake news. The world’s first big international fake news story revolved around what became known as The Rape of Belgium: the German invasion of Belgium in autumn 1914. This is a story in instalments, and it has relevance to what is happening today.
Between August and October 1914 German troops invaded and occupied Belgium. Rumours quickly spread of brutal acts of violence against civilians, including mass rape and mutilation of Belgian and French women. As a result, Belgium, France and Great Britain set up a committee of inquiry to document the German war crimes in accordance with the Hague Convention of 1907. The committee confirmed the reports of massive sexual assaults on the female civilian population by German soldiers.
The Allies considered the rapes to be a central component of the atrocities committed by the German troops, rendering the German enemy inhuman and impossible to negotiate a ceasefire with. These reports were used to justify the war and the continued killing so as to prevent further such acts and avenge the violence. The defence of family and sexual values became an essential element of Allied motivation. Apart from the mobilisation of the British and French people, the instrumentalisation for propaganda purposes of the German atrocities also served to influence neutral countries, particularly Italy and the United States.
Tabloid newspapers, popular literature, postcards and cartoons disseminated the image of German barbarians and their Belgian and French victims. Not just individuals but the entire German people were accused of the atrocities. Germany became the ultimate evil power capable of committing the most atrocious deeds. The German war atrocities and their exploitation for propaganda purposes contributed significantly to the image of Germany as an enemy and to the moral legitimation for the war by the Allies.
Many of the more sensational stories of German “outrages” are very hard to believe, much less corroborate. German soldiers eating Belgian babies; German soldiers hanging Belgian nuns between church bells and ringing them to death; German soldiers crucifying dozens of farmers by the roadside; and so on — these are stories that after the war became standard examples of why “propaganda” is not to be trusted, with the result that all stories of German atrocities were largely discredited. It is possible that this distrust led to the English-speaking peoples’ failure to react swiftly to the events of the years leading up to 1939.
In recent decades, historical research has indicated that, in fact, large-scale German atrocities were indeed committed against the Belgians. It turns out that it is not the atrocities that were fake news, but the discrediting of the atrocities.
Fast forward 109 years, and we see that fake news is alive and well, and flourishing in the modern world of social media and online video. Indeed, as media become more sophisticated, so does the range of tools and techniques available to propagators of fake news.
In a world where fake news passes for reliable information, how do we separate lies from the truth? Enter Fake Reporter, an Israeli online watchdog group that uses a combination of professional intelligence experts and an online crowd-sourced research platform to lead efforts against disinformation, Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour (CIB), hate speech, and online incitement.
In 2021, they logged over 9,000 reports, and this number has risen every year since.
The organisation was formed to protect and support Israel’s civil society and pro-democracy forces against targeted attacks, as well as expose the mechanisms and actors behind the distribution and weaponisation of malicious content online. Since October 7, Fake Reporter has been working around the clock to identify, expose, debunk and, where possible, take down, fake news around the events in Israel and Gaza.
For those of you who are Hebrew speakers, this 9-minute TV report on Fake Reporters’ activities in the last weeks gives a sense of the scale of the challenge. Six minutes in (at 2:34:36), it gives an example, in English, of AI-generated video that seems to me undetectable to the naked eye as fake.
If you want to learn more about the organisation’s work, this 25-minute presentation in English, made in 2022, gives an excellent overview of the spread of fake news and how it can be combatted. (Trigger warning: the organisation was founded at the height of the judicial reform demonstrations way back when, and is funded by the New Israel Fund. If the combination of those two facts tempts you to dismiss the organisation out of hand, I would recommend you read the rest of this post.)
If you encounter anything which you suspect is fake news or a fake profile, or which is an inciting post, you can use the following link to report it (in English or Hebrew) to Fake Reporter, who will then research it in depth.
What you should not do is respond to the incitement or the fake news online, since social media algorithms are built to promote any item that generates interest. By responding to the item, you will actually be promoting it.
Which begs the question: how do I spot fake news? The International Federation of Library Associations…. Remember libraries? They used to be large, imposing buildings where people went to google, back in the day. But I digress. The International Federation of Library Associations, as I was saying, has produced the following useful tips.
Let me now try to explain what led me to believe that I should turn my back on all of the headline issues this week, and focus my intention instead on what may seem like a comparatively academic topic.
In the last months, and especially since October 7, I have been puzzled, and sometimes dumbstruck, by the behaviour of much of Western intelligentsia. That a university professor felt exhilarated by the news and scenes of the atrocities of October 7 is astonishing; but it is not, arguably, unimaginable. All you have to do is imagine that degree and intensity of antisemitism. However, that functioning human beings should deny that the Hamas genocide of October 7 even happened seems at an entirely greater level of unimaginability. “But,” we say, open-mouthed, “they filmed their own video of it, and boasted of it in phone calls to their parents.”
In refusing to believe that evidence, I think that these people are saying that they refuse to believe any evidence. This may be a more extreme version of the allies’ inability to believe the evidence of the 1930s. As a consequence of the widening spread of fake news, and of the increasing difficulty of detecting it as fake, people are increasingly refusing to accept any news as true. Unable to judge what is true anymore, they give up the attempt, and reject all ‘objective’ evidence presented to them. What they are then left with is their belief system, their ideology.
What we are witnessing is, I fear, the beginning of what George Orwell documented with terrifying accuracy 75 years ago, in 1984. In Orwell’s words, these people are prepared to believe that “every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
There is no such thing as historical context, so any past action (such as slave ownership, or even manufacture that depends on purchasing raw materials that were made available using slave labour) must be judged solely by current sensibilities. There is no such thing as extenuating circumstances. There is only the one truth from which all moral judgement derives.
This renders the world binary. Everyone is either an oppressor, and evil, or oppressed, and good. No amount of rational thought will change that binary division, and, therefore, there is no practical benefit in rational thought. To quote Orwell again:
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?… Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?… The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking – not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
Clearly, Israel faces very real and tangible challenges: completing the return of all the hostages; destroying Hamas in the north and then the south of the Gaza Strip; finding a way of preventing the resurgence of Hamas or a similar terror army in the future. Equally clearly, if Israel does not meet these challenges successfully, there will be serious consequences not just for Israel and the Middle East, but for civilisation as a whole.
At the same time, the rise of fake news and the tightening chokehold of binary inter-sectionalism on the Western world may represent a no less serious threat to civilisation. 2050 is less than 27 years away, and Orwell’s prediction is looking more and more accurate every year.
I want this week to zoom in on a couple of small details, and also to zoom out to some much more general comments.
“…like a real hero”
Every day, on the morning’s news bulletin, the dreaded words: ‘Approved for publication…’, which always precede the announcement of the name of another one or two or, God forbid, more soldiers that have fallen in the last day.
Every day, in the morning interview programme, at least one item where the presenters speak to a family member who shares details of the fallen soldier.
Every day, details that are both common to so many families and unique to this one grieving family.
From one such interview with a bereaved sister last week: “He was so considerate. When we would go to the beach, and the sand was burning hot to walk on, he would carry his two sisters, one on each arm, like a real hero.”
We yearn for the days when the proof of a big brother’s heroism will only need to be his readiness to carry his sisters across the beach, and not also his readiness to lay down his life defending theirs.
Better than Home!
One reservist we know returned last week to his unit on the Gaza border after a brief home leave, to discover two lorries paying a visit to the unit. One was an initiative we had seen featured earlier on television: an enterprising citizen has fitted a lorry trailer with a row of washing machines and a generator, and is touring army bases offering laundry service (including doing the ironing himself).
However, the other seemed even more surreal. This was a lorry trailer fitted with a generator that heats and aerates a jacuzzi for the reservists to relax in!
Yes, Ma’am!
Let’s play a game. If I say: ‘Israeli army reservist major’, what image comes into your head?
I’m guessing something like the following, an American-Israeli reservist major who watched the events of Black Shabbat unfold, on TV, from his Chicago home, and by Sunday evening was with his unit on the Gaza border.
Well, here’s another Israeli army reservist major, brought to my attention by a good friend:
As I think I mentioned last week, after individual acts of heroism by women in Otef Aza on October 7, and with mixed infantry units now on the ground in Gaza, the question of women combat soldiers will, from now on, no longer be a debating point in Israel. I don’t actually know what unit of the army this major is attached to; if she is a combat officer (which I doubt), then I suspect she trimmed her fingernails and was advised to “Get yer ‘air cut!” before actually going into Gaza. If you want to know what made her as animated as she is in the photo above, listen to what she has to say to the world.
“They did not distinguish between Jews and non-Jews”
It is a truism of the interpretation of Jewish law by rabbinical authorities that it is important to be aware of, and to take account of, the specific circumstances of every case. It is also true that Jewish law, as a general rule, allows for leniency or stringency of interpretation, in light of those specific circumstances.
One of the great failures in Israel’s development in the last decades has been the surrender of religious authority to the ultra-orthodox, who do not always subscribe to this view of religious law. This rigidity is reflected in Israeli state practice regarding such central issues as marriage, kashrut certification, and conversion.
I don’t want to get into the larger debate here, but just to bring one painful instance of the religious authorities showing a level of tone-deafness that, given where the country is at the moment, is almost inconceivable and seems to me totally unforgivable.
21 years ago, Olga Falahati came to Israel from Russia. Her daughter, Alina, grew up in Israel, served in the army, and, during her army service, began the process of conversion to Judaism. Before she could complete the process, while she was enjoying the Nova party on October 7, she was brutally murdered, by Hamas. Her burnt body was identified only last week, and, on the eve of her burial in the family’s hometown of Bet Shean, the rabbinate informed the family that Alina would be buried just outside the Jewish cemetery wall, since she was not Jewish.
The story became public after the funeral, when the matter was raised at a meeting of the Knesset’s Aliyah, Absorption, and Diaspora Affairs Committee by the committee chair MK Oded Forer, who stated that he was “ashamed on behalf of the State of Israel that [the family] were treated this way.”. Rabbi Eliezer Simcha Weiss, who sits on the rabbinate’s committee for honoring the dead, said he would propose a special representative to find solutions to problems like these, “so that there will not be a great trouble like this.” He added that “they did not distinguish between Jews and non-Jews in the brutal attack. We can do everything in line with Jewish law.”
Eventually, the fence separating Alina from the cemetery was removed, leaving only a low fence similar to many other internal fences in the cemetery. In a functioning country, this is what would have been done, discreetly, on the evening before the funeral, with no attention being drawn to the internal discussion that would have preceded the adoption of this halachically acceptable solution.
The People of the Book, Part 1
The National Library of Israel moved into its new, spectacular, building just a couple of weeks after October 7. I had planned to devote an entire blog post to this breathtaking edifice (which we were privileged to enjoy a private tour of, a couple of months ago, courtesy of another good friend, who just happens to be the civil engineer attached to the project). I still hope to do so, and, meanwhile, I urge any of you who are in or around Jerusalem to take advantage of the free 90-minute guided tour.
I mention the library here because of an extraordinary display they have created.
This view down into the main library reading hall gives you a sense of the sweep of the architecture. You will also notice the seats arranged in an arc of three rows, including adult seats and little children’s chairs. On each seat has been placed a picture of one of the 237 abductees, together with a book selected by the library, from its shelves, on the basis of information gleaned from the media and the families about that particular abductee.
Thus, for example, quoting from the library’s website: “We chose the book The Kiss That Got Lost for 3-year-old Avigail Idan, who is likely missing the hugs and kisses of her parents Smadar and Roy, who did not survive the attack by Hamas.”
Each book also contains a personal library card, each one marked with a return date – NOW.
The People of the Book, Part 2
In the good old days before Amazon axed it, most Israeli Anglo bibliophiles ordered books from Book Depository, because of the range it offered, the user-friendliness of its website, its excellent customer service and (perhaps above all) its FREE DELIVERY WORLDWIDE! Since then, we have all, largely unsuccessfully, been hunting for a viable alternative. Adapting to the new reality, Bernice and I have joined a local bookswap WhatsApp group, which works very simply and quite effectively. Members post photos of books they are happy to part with. Other members fire back a message – “Finnegan’s Wake, please”, for example – and whoever is quickest on the draw gets a free book.
The other day someone posted a message on this group informing us that an army unit was currently located not far from us, and was desperately looking for books. “Isn’t it wonderful!” I thought to myself. “These guys have been fighting in Gaza for weeks and, as soon as they get the chance, the first thing they want is a good read! Shortly afterwards, someone else posted, pointing out that a closer examination of the original message revealed that they were actually looking not for sefarim (books), but for something that is (in unvowelled Hebrew) a homograph: saparim (barbers). What they were actually desperate for was a haircut!
Not the ugliest of things
As the weeks go on, the resolve within Israel to continue the war in Gaza until its ends are achieved seems as strong as ever. In the last couple of weeks, the conversation has turned more and more to questioning what the elimination of Hamas actually means, whether it is achievable, and what will happen the day after the war ends. However, certainly at the moment, and, I am confident in saying, until the abductees are returned safely, Israelis are not discussing ending the war.
At the same time, we know very well that this is not true in the rest of the world, even among some of our friends abroad. It is therefore to them that I offer the following words, written by John Stuart Mill in a magazine article published during the American Civil War, but no less relevant today than they were 160 years ago:
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.
Fault Lines
In many respects, the sense of national cohesion remains as it has been since the day our world changed. However, as the weeks go by, the chasm between the people and the government gapes ever wider.
There are some good reasons for this. One of the most prominent ones is Netanyahu’s continued refusal to take responsibility for the failures on October 7, and his insistence that all such discussions must wait until after the war. This leaves a wound that is, with time, only festering.
Another target for people’s expressions of disappointment with the authorities is that even now, over six weeks since October 7, many desperately needed mechanisms are not in place or not functioning smoothly. Here are a couple of examples. The Government has agreed to offer financial compensation to some businesses and some self-employed whose income has been drastically affected by the war. As of this morning, the website on which candidates for the compensation have to register their application was not yet up and running. It is difficult to escape the feeling that, at the same time as civilian volunteers in their thousands are working around the clock to provide support and care, civil servants in government departments are working their usual 9 to 5.
A volunteer on the radio this morning described how suitcase donations from abroad of goods requested by frontline soldiers have been held up by Israeli customs officials, because one or two individual items infringe import laws (medications, for example). The officials have not been prepared to isolate these items and release the rest of the consignment, and the independent storage company that is holding the consignments at the airport is now demanding payment for storage before releasing the consignments. The storage charges in some cases exceed the value of the consignment.
I understand that it is impossible to ride roughshod over the law of the land. However, this volunteer described how she is wasting days being referred from one office to another, and nobody in authority has seen fit to act on their own initiative, recognise the need here, and expedite this process.
The level of contempt for Netanyahu particularly is very high. A long-running gently satirical TV show has launched a new season to cover the war. The troupe who present the show began as young lions, and are now in their 70s. Their show pokes wry fun at the situation, and they also include two nostalgic, tender songs in every programme.
In fairly stark contrast to this gentle attempt to bring a smile to a traumatized nation’s lips, and to offer a moment’s balm, is the line they take when satirizing Netanyahu. This is not a gentle joshing, but an unsmiling attack on his authority. Please don’t misunderstand me. I believe that Netanyahu deserves every poisoned dart they aim at him, and more. However, I still find myself surprised that they feel their approach is what the country needs, at this particular time, at this stage of the war, given that nothing anyone says will lead Netanyahu to resign now. There is a sense in which their approach seems to me counter-productive, although I know that they would argue (and it is a reasonable line to take) that it is as patriotic as it could possibly be.
Which brings me back to the hardest, the saddest, the most painful, the most complex, of this week’s stories: the continuing story of the families of the abductees. Depressingly, this seems to be yet another area where the government’s behaviour has fallen woefully short. The government seems to have decided that it wants to avoid having anything to do with the families, while the families (or at least a sizeable number of them) have spent the last seven weeks demanding to be updated by the authorities.
Let me say first that every action taken and every word spoken by any of the abductees’ family members is completely understandable. They will naturally do all they can to ensure the safe return of their loved ones, and it would be inhuman to criticize them for the decisions they have made. I believe some of their words and actions may have been counter-productive, but I cannot fault them for what they said and did.
As I write these lines on Sunday evening, there are reports that a deal including a partial release of abductees is imminent. Rumour has it that 50 abductees – children and women – will be released at the rate of ten a day over five days. For those five days, there will be a suspension of hostilities, and an increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza, including fuel. In addition, Israel will release 100 security prisoners, including women and children,
Let me offer a number of observations, not necessarily internally consistent, certainly not building to a coherent case for a particular line of action, but each, I believe, worthy of serious thought.
Deciding what information to share with the families will involve the government making a decision as to the reliability of statements conveyed to Israel, through the mediators, ostensibly stating Hamas’s stand. How does the government decide what to believe?
The very act of sharing any information with the families of the abductees will add an additional dimension to the government’s process of decision-making over any exchange deal. This dimension will be complex, since there will be no unanimity of response from the families, and its existence will inefficiently complicate the process. How would the government factor the families’ multiple stands into its decision-making process?
It is inconceivable that Israel would agree to the safe passage out of Gaza of the Hamas leadership. If the leadership is indeed trapped in Gaza, then there is, for Israel, only one way this ends: with the destruction of Hamas’s capabilities and the death of its leaders. In that case, what can Israel give Hamas that Hamas wants, in exchange for the release of abductees?
As weeks turn to months and the abductees are not returned, the frustration in Israel at our inability to achieve their return will only grow, hardening into resentment at the government’s inability. Already, the tension between the families and the government led today to a screaming match in the Knesset. I can only imagine the glee with which this was watched by the Hamas leadership. What can we offer Hamas that will be worth more to them than to see Israeli society once again falling into disunity?
Which is why my expectations of a return of all of the abductees is low. I pray I am wrong, but everything we have seen from Hamas in the last 15 years tells me I am not.
You will, I am sure, believe me when I say that I would far rather end on an optimistic note. However, I can only call it as I see it, and this is how I see it at this moment. I pray that, by the time you read these words, I will have been proven wrong.
Since I wrote last week, I have spent too many of my waking hours reading summaries, perspectives, analyses, of the situation in Israel and around the world, especially in England. I have tried to watch fewer videos, and to listen to fewer first- and second-hand accounts, of unimaginable atrocities, and of equally unimaginable acts of bravery. For news, I have depended almost exclusively on the three daily WhatsApp bulletins I mentioned last week, and another three or four of the on-the-hour radio bulletins through the day.
A Very Israeli Story
However, some narratives I have found it impossible to ignore. One of these is the story of Shura, which I see as a microcosm of the story of Israel.
The Army Rabbinate performs many functions, one of which is the preparation for burial of the bodies of fallen soldiers. This work is carried out at their headquarters in Shura Camp in the centre of the country, which has the capacity to store 200 bodies.
The police national forensic centre at Abu Kabir, in Tel Aviv, receives civilian terrorist victims, and conducts autopsies of other civilians. It is a small and understaffed facility.
By the end of October 7, it was already clear that Abu Kabir could not handle the civilian victims and that Shura would need to scale up its capacity by six or seven times. It also soon became clear that the identification of the bodies would be, in many, many cases, far more challenging than is usually the case, both because of the degree of butchery committed and because of the intense heat of the housefires (fed by fuel) in which many victims were burnt alive.
By the end of October 8, Shura had made itself ready for this unimaginable task. 25 empty shipping containers had been brought in. Each was equipped to be able to store the remains of 48 victims. A thousand reservists were called up, including army rabbis, dentists (to identify victims from their dental records) and pathologists. Hundreds of volunteers also stepped up.
Meanwhile, the officer in charge of the operation of locating bodies in the killing fields and sending them to Shura soon realised that identifying sometimes very small fragments of bone in the ash of a burnt house was a highly specialised job. So he phoned an acquaintance who is one of Israel’s leading archaeologists and asked him if he could bring a team of volunteer senior archaeologists to Otef Aza to carry out this work. They arrived the following day and immediately began working throughout the daylight hours.
Since then, in the Shura camp, one team of police investigators have been conducting basic police work: establishing cause of death, identifying murder weapons, taking fingerprints and DNA, recording any identifying characteristics such as tattoos or items such as jewellery. Following that, the remains go to a second team of crime scene investigators, who photograph and carry out other tests. At the end of this conveyor built, the remains pass through a CT scanner.
Even with all of this activity, it has proven heartbreakingly difficult to achieve identification in all cases. The criteria for positive identification are intentionally very demanding, to minimise the danger of misidentification. In cases where victims were incinerated, temperatures were sometimes high enough to distort the teeth beyond recognition and to make it impossible to detect DNA. Despite all of the technology, the huge databank available, the expertise and dedication of the teams working, it is still a fact that, even now, over five weeks since the atrocity, every day or two the identity of another person who died on October 7 is confirmed.
You can hear Dr Qanta Ahmed, a medical professional and a world expert on genocide who spent time at Shura, addressing the Haifa Technion here.
You can view a TV report , subtitled in English, on this sacred work, here. (I’m not sure this link will work for you. If so, this is a very moving and powerful report. If not, I apologise.)
We all wish with our entire being that this whole project were unnecessary. However, the project is essential, to honour the dead and to bring the mourners closure. In its humanity, in its multi-disciplinary co-operation, in its deeply religious commitment, in its cutting-edge technology, in its improvisation and speed of execution, and in its creative answer to a completely unforeseen challenge, Shura seems to me to encapsulate much of what is best in Israel.
The Day Israel Changed
I’ve also been struck, this week, by some of the dramatic changes that we have seen since October 7. It certainly makes sense to talk about Israel before and after Hashabbat Hashchora – the Black Shabbat.
For example, consider Gershon Baskin. He is arguably the Israeli most single-mindedly dedicated to furthering coexistence between Jews and Arabs in Israel and peace between Israel and the Palestinians throughout the last forty years. If the name means nothing to you, read his CV here.
Two weeks ago he wrote an open letter to the Deputy Foreign Minister in the Hamas government. (How surreal these civilised titles seem in the post-10/7 world!) You can read the letter here. In the last two weeks, I have reread it several times, because I cannot actually believe that I have read it correctly.
Almost as remarkable is an article by Thomas Friedman in The New York Times. While I wouldn’t endorse every word Friedman writes, his attitude to Israel seems to me to have changed. He now seems able to separate his feelings about the Government from his feelings about Israel. You can read the article here.
As well as these changes among media personalities, there are also changes at the personal, anonymous level. The world sometimes seems to have been stood on its head.
For instance, here’s a Gazan civilian, evacuating south along the Israel-provided humanitarian corridor, telling his Al-Jazeera interviewer that “Arab traitors are conspiring against us. Arabs, and only Arabs are betraying us. The Jews are kind with us.”
On the same subject: Israeli tanks and infantry in Gaza are deployed to protect Gazan civilian evacuees from Hamas fire.
Meanwhile, in Britain, police stood by, apparently oblivious, while Palestinian protestors made people selling poppies for Remembrance Day so uncomfortable that they eventually picked up their stand and moved to a different part of the railway station. However, two police officers were ready to pose, smiling, for a selfie with a child dressed as a Hamas terrorist. I have watched British police captured on video this week and seen nothing in their behaviour that I recognise.
Back in Israel, not only ultra-orthodox men but also over 200 ultra-orthodox women have applied to the IDF to enlist and assist in the war effort. The IDF is considering establishing a dedicated conscription program for the women. At the same time, 350 ultra-orthodox volunteer groups are among the thousands who have volunteered to help farmers harvest their crops.
That’s it for this week, except for the weather report. Winter may not have arrived in Israel, but it certainly has in Portugal, although the indoor hats may be more of a fashion statement than a reflection on the season.
Before we get down to business this week: I just want to thank all of you who have contacted Bernice and myself to ask how our daughter-in-law, Maayan, is coping. As I mentioned previously, in the framework of her work with the organisation Elem, she was leading a team of volunteers at the Nova party in Re’im on October 7.
Last Friday evening, in a 13-minute report, Israel’s leading mainstream TV channel featured the team’s experiences on Black Shabbat. The report does not include graphic visual content, and, by the horrific standards of that terrible day, the narration is not, I feel, disturbingly harrowing. (Having typed that last sentence, I am sitting here rereading it and reflecting on how October 7 has for me, perhaps forever, redefined the disturbingly harrowing.)
I was not able to subtitle it in English, but I have prepared an English transcript of the soundtrack, because I felt that many of my non-Hebrew-speaking readers might appreciate viewing it. You can view the TV segment here. The translated transcript is available for download here.
Day 31
Yesterday, Day 30 (Sunday), marked the shloshim; for individual mourners, this represents the end of the second stage of mourning. Israel’s President Herzog asked all citizens to light a memorial light last night to mark this staging post, a further symbol of the way the country has been bonded together by the glue of Hamas’s unspeakable atrocity.
In May 2021, Arabs rioted in some mixed (Arab and Jewish) Israeli cities – Akko, Yaffo and Lod. It is reasonable to assume that Hamas hoped that their October 7 pogrom would spark similar rioting. However, so far there has been remarkably little visible tension within Israel between Arabs and Jews. The cohesion of the nation has seemed to cross ethnic and religious boundaries.
Individual Arabs have been tweeting that they now identify primarily as Israelis and secondarily as Palestinians, having realised that they would not be prepared to live in a state governed by Hamas. Among the stories that are still emerging are some that involve several Bedouin from Rahat, a predominantly Arab Bedouin city in the Negev. In more than one case, Bedouin who drove to the Nova festival or to one of the Otef Aza kibbutzim to rescue relatives also rescued tens of other, Jewish, survivors they encountered. Hamas did not discriminate between their Jewish and Arab victims; neither did the rescuers.
That cohesion was threatened by the story of Member of Knesset (MK) Iman Khatib-Yassin (of the Arab opposition party Ra’am), who claimed, yesterday, that the Hamas terrorists raped no women and slaughtered no babies on October 7. This morning I watched her interview on the Knesset TV channel, in which she made this claim.
What she is saying in the interview is a little more nuanced than the simple, bald statement: ‘The Hamas terrorists raped no women and slaughtered no babies.’ Rather, she claims that she has been informed by MKs who viewed it that the film screened by Israel for MKs and foreign diplomats showed no rape of women or slaughter of babies. She certainly expresses her horror at what happened, and, as a religious woman, condemns it as being against the principles of Islam.
At the same time, of course, Khatib-Yassin’s attempt, at the end of the interview, to ‘understand’ the pogrom in the context of Israel’s prior treatment of Gaza is difficult to read as anything other than an attempt to justify it, despite her protestations.
Two more points need to be made about this story. First, Khatib-Yassin’s party leader, Mansour Abbas, called immediately for her to resign as an MK, stating that “there is and will be no space in our ranks for anyone who denies or minimizes the severity of the actions which negate our values and also the religion of Islam.” Second, Khatib-Yassin on the same evening issued the following statement: “I made a mistake, I am sorry and I apologize. I had no intention to minimize or deny the horrifying massacre of October 7 and the terrible acts against women, babies, or the elderly who were killed in the south.”
Had I watched the interview first, I know that the level of my outrage would have been rather less than it was having read the brief news report first. The richer the context in which we view a story, the more sensitive we are to the nuances of the story.
And now, in the interest of balance, let me present you with a specimen from the other end of Israel’s colourful political spectrum. Yesterday (Sunday), MK Amichai Eliyahu of Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party was interviewed on an ultra-orthodox radio station, Kol Barama. He was reported as saying, in answer to a question, that a nuclear bomb was “one way” to end the war in Gaza. Put like that, the answer seems little short of imbecilic, in light of the battle for the hearts and minds of the free world that Israel is attempting to fight, quite apart from the ludicrous impracticality of a nuclear bomb as a solution.
However, a look at the transcript of the interview highlights a couple of not-irrelevant points.
Interviewer: “Your expectation is that tomorrow morning we’d drop what amounts to some kind of a nuclear bomb on all of Gaza, flattening them, eliminating everybody there…,”
Eliyahu: “That’s one way. The second way is to work out what’s important to them, what scares them, what deters them… They’re not scared of death.”
It’s worth noting, first, that the lunatic idea was raised by the interviewer and not the interviewee. In addition, the interviewer is clearly using ‘nuclear bomb’ as a metaphor (“what amounts to some kind of a nuclear bomb”).
Eliyahu then clearly rejects the idea and proposes instead looking for some solution that will deter them without wiping them all out.
Don’t misunderstand me. Eliyahu’s response was stupidly ill-considered. He should have said explicitly what he implied: “That’s, of course, a ridiculous idea, but we do have to find some solution that will utterly deter them. They’re not scared of death.” In not responding in those terms, Eliyahu demonstrated eloquently (if that’s the right word) his unsuitability to be a Government minister, particularly at this sensitive time.
It would have been very easy for Netanyahu to fire him, particularly since his Government ministry (he is the Minister of Jerusalem and Israel Tradition) is a meaningless entity created only to manufacture a ministerial seat that could then be given to Otzma Yehudit to cement their position in the Government coalition.
However, Netanyahu chose only to suspend Eliyahu from Cabinet meetings for an indefinite period. Demonstrating the Government’s extraordinary fragmentation, Government ministers mocked the ineffectuality of this disciplinary action. “This is a joke, there barely are any cabinet meetings anyway, and most of the work is being done in rounds of votes by phone,” an unnamed minister was quoted as saying.
A couple of hours later, Eliyahu tweeted: “It is clear to anyone with a mind that the statement about an atom [bomb] is metaphorical. But we definitely need a powerful and disproportionate response to terrorism, which will make it clear to the Nazis and their supporters that terrorism is not worthwhile. This is the only formula that democratic countries can use to deal with terrorism.”
He is not wrong about ‘anyone with a mind’. However, it should also be clear to anyone with a mind that a Government minister needs to engage his brain before engaging his tongue when being interviewed on live media.
Which brings us to Netanyahu himself. As the whole country rallies round and pulls together, Netanyahu continues sowing seeds of discord. Having attacked the fellow members of his security cabinet, and then tweeted his support of them, Netanyahu apparently announced that: “The day after the war, the effect, on Hamas’s plans for October 7, of reservists refusing to serve will be probed.”
The remarks were reportedly made in response to a reporter’s question at a briefing for diplomatic correspondents.
According to tweets by Channel 13 reporter Moriah Asraf Wolberg: “I asked the prime minister if he felt guilty and if he had prepared for war as the IDF had warned, and he replied: 1. No warning was received. 2. I warned about [reservists’] refusal to serve and I said that at the moment of truth, it wouldn’t happen[my emphasis]. The day after [the war], the connection between the refusals [to serve] and [Hamas leader] Sinwar’s moves will be probed.”
I would add to this that, on the radio this morning (Monday), another correspondent who was present at the briefing stated that Netanyahu further qualified his comment by presenting the refusal to serve as only one of several possible influences on Hamas’s decision to attack that will be investigated immediately after the war.
Once again, there are mitigating nuances here, even though, once again, Netanyahu’s response was remarkably ill-considered, particularly for a politician as cagey as he is. Unless, of course, he had a Machiavellian agenda that I am missing… but that seems far-fetched… doesn’t it?
My takeaway from all of this is that I shall endeavour, in future, not to react with a jerk of the knee every time I read a breaking story. I will try to read around the subject a little, and to acquire as much as possible of the context. We are living in an atmosphere that encourages instant reactions. No sooner does a message arrive by WhatsApp than we send it on to others. We need, perhaps, to guard against being quite so trigger-happy. Let’s strive to focus a bit less on the breaking news and a bit more on the mending nuance.
Changing the subject, your homework for this week is to come up with a realistic plan for what happens after (if) Israel completely destroys Hamas in Gaza. That is, of course, the huge question that is increasingly occupying everyone’s mind here… and elsewhere.
On a less controversial note: Raphael still thinks gan is the greatest thing since blueberries, Ollie seems a mite bemused, and Tao, having entirely missed the terrible twos, is now embracing the for-crying-out-loud fours.
Day 23, as I write, and what is extraordinary is the way in which our new reality has become routine. By which I don’t mean that the pain has become dulled. If I am careless or undisciplined enough to follow one TV or radio story too many, I am still liable to find myself fighting back tears on a daily basis. And, yes, those individual stories of, on the one hand, unimaginable atrocities, and, on the other, inconceivable heroism, continue to surface, even more than 20 days later.
No, the pain hasn’t dulled. As one newspaper columnist put it, in the Shabbat supplement, the entire country is suffering from primary trauma, secondary traumatisation or collective trauma. On top of which, as Israel steps up its incursions into Gaza, the likelihood of more of our soldiers being killed or wounded is, once again, increasing
However, I don’t plan to write this week about the indescribable loss or the heroic altruism, or the trauma. I don’t even have any appetite to attempt political or strategic ‘analysis’. Instead, I just want to offer you a couple of snapshots of life under the shadow of the new reality, as the country becomes aware that this previously unthinkable reality is, for the moment at least, and for an indeterminate time to be, the new routine.
Overheard at the off-licence/liquor store. (Bernice and I are punctilious in ensuring that we always have a good supply of bottled liquid in the house; the Home Front Command suggested water, but we felt it was legitimate to interpret that liberally.) A conversation between the owner and a customer (these are both amcha – the ordinary man-in-the-street):
“Of course, it’s not enough to make sure your gun is ready to use; you have to make sure you have enough ammunition.”
“At least they’ve relaxed the daily limit, and now you can buy 100 bullets a day, instead of 50.”
And I find myself feeling as matter-of-fact about that conversation as the participants themselves.
These days, when I am in shul, I find myself looking around to check which of the people who I know carry a gun are there. Since the mass call-up of reservists, our armed congregants are almost as likely to be carrying an M-16 semi-automatic assault rifle (the standard-issue Israeli infantry weapon) as a handgun.
Speaking of shul: we have started saying daily the Avinu Malkeinu prayer, normally said only during the 10 Days of Repentance and on fast days. This prayer comprises 44 supplications, each beginning Our Father, Our King; for example, Our Father, our King, forgive and pardon all our iniquities. The congregation read the first 14 lines as individuals; then the person leading the prayers and the congregation say each of the next 9 lines antiphonally (first the cantor recites the line, then the congregation repeats it in unison); then the last 23 lines are said again by each individual.
Now, for me this presents a problem, one I often encounter in shul. My Hebrew is good enough for me to understand what I am reading, but not good enough for me to absorb it instantly. I also have this madness that I like to think of my prayer as a conscious thought process, rather than a rote recitation. As a consequence, I seldom quite manage to keep pace with the congregation as a whole. I have various strategies for reconciling this situation.
In Avinu Malkeinu, I always read the first 14 lines at my own pace, knowing that I will be able to catch up with everyone else at some point during the 9 lines recited antiphonally. For the last 23 lines, I have no chance of keeping up, and so I usually read some of the lines without any conscious thought. This always includes five particular lines that I have never found it easy to connect with personally. They have always seemed to me to be harking back to some earlier painful period in Jewish history; I have always associated them specifically, for some reason, with the medieval massacre of the Jewish communities of France and Germany by the Crusaders on their way to the Holy Land.
In the new world we inhabit, these five lines have become, for me, among the most powerful lines in the entire prayer:
Our Father, our King, have pity on us, our children and our infants. Our Father, our King, act for the sake of those who were killed for Your holy name. Our Father, our King, act for the sake of those who were slaughtered for proclaiming Your Unity. Our Father, our King, act for the sake of those who went through fire and water to sanctify Your name. Our Father, our King, avenge before our eyes the spilt blood of Your servants.
We have also introduced, at the end of each service, the reciting of one or two from a list of eight or nine psalms that speak uncannily to our new reality. They serve as a vivid reminder of the majesty of the Book of Psalms in spanning the entire human condition.
These two acts of absorbing something additional into the daily routine of prayer make it easier to continue living day to day in these abnormal circumstances.
Changing the focus: I subscribe to two ‘weekly email update’ services: one from the National Library of Israel, and the other from the Academy of the Hebrew Language. (What can I tell you? I’m an intellectual snob…and if that hasn’t changed in 73 years, it’s unlikely to change now.) Both of these august bodies have succeeding in integrating the utterly new part into their particular same old with consummate ease.
In the world before October 7, both the Library and the Academy would always include in their weekly newsletters some item relevant to the season. So, the Library might present, from their archive, at Rosh Hashana, early 20th Century New Year greetings cards, and discuss the iconography used to illustrate the cards. The Academy might discuss the origins of the names given to the various notes produced on the shofar, and list the correct names for producing music on other specific instruments.
Last week, the Library’s email, and their site, featured the story of the printing press at Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the kibbutzim most horrendously attacked on October 7. It’s a fascinating and uplifting read in English.
The Academy, on the other hand, (and I apologise in advance to those of you who have no Hebrew) looked at the slogans which have sprung up on motorway bridges and inspirational newspaper announcements: נעבור את זה ביחד (‘We’ll get through this together’) and יחד נצליח (‘Together we shall be victorious’).There followed a discussion of the relative merits, and interchangeability, of יחד and ביחד in these slogans. This was followed by a piece about the traditional farewell to soldiers going off to the army: שוב בשלום…..or should that be שוב לשלום. (‘Return in peace’ or ‘…to peace’, respectively)?
I can put you out of your misery by telling you that the Academy rules that the two (-ל-, ב, ‘in’ and ‘to’) are interchangeable in everyday use. However, they then follow that conclusion by pointing out that our Sages distinguished between the two, and they follow that with a detailed discussion of Biblical sources that indicate nuanced differences. I warmly recommend the analysis (in Hebrew, of course), which you can read here.
Aside from this, what adjustments have I made in my own life. Well, on Shabbat I now carry my driving licence with me when I walk to shul, so that in any circumstances I will be easily identifiable. When I go out in the car, I make sure I have a full water bottle and take it with me when I park and walk to wherever I am going, so that, whatever happens, I will have half a litre of water to drink.
Does all that sound slightly paranoid to you? Well, it sounds slightly paranoid to part of me, but there’s another part of me that is prepared to ignore that and do it anyway. Earlier this week, I read the new revised guidelines for eligibility for gun ownership and realized that I am probably eligible, thanks to my three-and-a-half weeks’ basic training 33 years ago and my several years of reserve duty. I then mused, for a short while, about whether I should apply for a gun licence. In this particular case, one glance at Bernice’s face when I ran that idea up the flagpole one evening led me to reconsider.
Since you ask, Bernice and I are doing pretty well. Bernice is basically using me to pass all relevant news on to her, and blocks out the radio, because she finds too much of what leaps out at her without warning too painful. I have cut down on my listening, and particularly viewing, drastically. There is a thrice-daily Hebrew-language news summary that is distributed by WhatsApp that keeps me pretty tuned in, and I catch the hourly news bulletin between times. Beyond that, I am striving to be very selective. (This news bulletin has, in the last couple of days, begun to appear in English as well. I highly recommend it as a non-graphic snapshot of the news in Israel.)
Because of our specific generational position and the ages in our family (including siblings’ families), the generation beneath us are just too old to have been called up, and the generation below them are just too young, so that none of our immediate relatives are at the front. This is, naturally, one less thing to worry about. However, when I think of our friends in shul and elsewhere, and our more extended family, and count those who have children at the front, I realise that this only means I have more spare worry that I can deploy to share their worry.
As part of my effort to keep a handle on normality, I feel I can resume offering you pictures of the grandsons, who are blessedly still too young to be aware of the times we are living in. Tao and Ollie were on the train to Lisbon for a couple of days, and Raphael was on the train in gan, where he is now really feeling at home.
Last week I wrote about the mood in the country, as captured/created in the mainstream media, in the first two days of the war. I also wrote, but did not publish last week, a description of how that mood changed from the third or fourth day of that first week.
A couple of days ago, I started thinking about how I could expand and complete that description as this week’s post. However, having struggled with it for some time, I eventually realised that it made no sense to write an update that, by the time I published it, would be a week and a half out of date.
Instead, let me try to identify and describe all of the successive waves of national mood that we have experienced until now.
“All he wanted to do was to protect his family”
Let’s start by revisiting the same clip from Golda that I asked you to look at last week. You can view it again here.
After Day 2, stories began to emerge of individual heroism: of Israelis who, on that first Shabbat Chag, saw on their phones WhatsApp messages from children, parents, friends, acquaintances, and reacted by grabbing their handguns and ammunition, jumping in their vehicles, and driving to the scene of the carnage. If you’re not Israeli, that may sound surreal. What you must remember is that there is a large, self-selecting group of forty-to-sixty-something men in Israel who all served in combat units. Some of them became career soldiers; others joined police force special units. All have seen live action during their regular and then reservist service over the last twenty years. They all keep a licensed handgun at home. They keep in good physical shape, and practise at the shooting range.
So, when their daughters called them from the festival to say that they were being shot at and there were no police or soldiers to be seen, or when their children called from their safe-room on the kibbutz, where they were sheltering with the grandchildren, and said that terrorists were firing at the door of the safe-room, these men did what their instinct and their training both told them to do: they drove to the ‘front’. On the way they lied their way through army roadblocks by claiming to be policemen called as reinforcement’, or bypassed the roadblocks in their all-terrain vehicles, or pleaded with the soldiers manning the roadblocks to let them through, or, having failed to persuade, they simply said: “I’m driving through. If you have to shoot me, shoot me, but you won’t turn me back”. They passed bullet-ridden cars and abandoned corpses littering the road. They brought the fight to the terrorists in the kibbutzim, moshavim and towns of Otef Aza, and in and around the festival, and in many, many cases they rescued trapped civilians.
As the first week went on, more and more of these stories were featured on the mainstream media. If you have not heard any of them, here is one featured on CBS’s 60 Minutes. The point I want to stress is that, as outlier as this story sounds, it is one of many that I could reference, each with a storyline that, in a Bruce Willis action film, would make me smile wryly at its far-fetchedness.
Among those civilian first responders were many members of Achim LaNeshek – Brothers in Arms – the reservist group that has, throughout the year, been heavily involved in the judicial reform protests. After members of the group who are Air Force pilots stated, earlier in the year, that they would no longer turn up for their regular reserve training – a step that some commentators argued would significantly undermine the Air Force’s effectiveness – Netanyahu condemned their action in very strong and divisive terms. On that Shabbat, 7 October, when a member of the group who lives in Otef Aza posted what was happening on their WhatsApp group, members of the group responded by making their way to the front.
Over that first week, the country was reeling under the weight of details uncovered every day of atrocities committed. The number confirmed as killed on that first day continued to rise, as did the number kidnapped. At the same time, the country began to rally around and to be inspired by the stories of individual courage. Some of those stories ended as well as could be hoped– such as the father who, in his tender, rescued from a bomb shelter next to a bus stop not far from the festival not only his daughter but also another 29 girls who had managed to stay quiet under the pile of bodies covering the floor of the shelter. Others ended as well as possible; there was more than one story of an individual deliberately taking the full force of an exploding grenade and thereby saving the lives of others close by.
Start-up nation
As the days went by, and civilians were evacuated from Otef Aza, and then as the call-up of over 300,000 reservists began, the national mood changed again. Now the narrative became one of 360,000 responding to the call-up – even though only 300,000 were called. Israelis cut short post-army trips, or other holidays, fighting to get a plane home in order to enlist. In 1967, Israeli black humour asked the last person leaving the country to turn out the lights; now the request was for the last Israeli leaving Europe to turn out the lights.
The massive call-up (of 3% of Israel’s population, the equivalent of calling up over two million in the UK or 10 million in the US) of course meant that the entire population was even more closely involved in the war.. Taking our 50-member-family shul as a microcosm, two of our members have been called up, as well as another 40 children, grandchildren, siblings, brothers-in-law and sons-in-law of members.
With reservists being called to the front, and with communities being evacuated from Otef Aza, individuals and groups began organising volunteer activities: collecting clothes, toys and toiletries for evacuated families, or food, toiletries and ancillary equipment for soldiers at the front; organising activities for evacuated children; even going into the abandoned Otef Aza communities – before they were declared sterile (clear of all terrorists) – to rescue ‘orphaned’ dogs and cats from the homes of massacred or kidnapped families and arrange foster families for them. Some hotels and hostels opened their doors to the evacuees. Some builders made newly completed but not yet occupied apartment buildings available. Brothers in Arms used its existing highly organised structure to open a massive logistics centre for food distribution and other support.
The whole country embraced the therapy of ‘doing something’. Alongside the countless modest neighbourhood initiatives, larger and more innovative projects were launched. As I write this, on Sunday evening, there are still several hundred bodies that have not been identified. Despite Israel’s forensic scientists working around the clock, with expert help from abroad, some bodies are so mutilated and so badly burnt that neither dental records nor DNA are available. There are still a large number of people officially deemed to be missing, whose families do not yet know whether they have been murdered or kidnapped.
Recognising the anguish of these families, a group of hi-tech workers set up what has become a massive database. They have collected from the families all possible photographic and video evidence of those missing. They have also collected all the video and photographic documentation available from the events of that Shabbat and subsequently. Using AI and specially written algorithms, they are searching for matches, both facial recognition and possible matches of clothing. When I watched a television report on this centre a few days ago, they had been able to pass to the relevant authorities positive identification of many individuals.
Where are our leaders?
As the first week drew to a close, there was another change of tone in the national debate, as conducted in the media, and, increasingly, on the streets. Where was the leadership? This was a two-pronged question: Where was the leadership before October 7? Where is the leadership now? While there was initially widespread agreement that the investigation of any military, security and government failures or errors of judgement in the days, weeks and months leading up to October 7 should wait until after the war, Netanyahu was quick to announce that he had not been made aware of any potential situation until 6:29AM on October 7, when the attacks began.
In the last few days, the Commander-in-Chief, the Intelligence chief and the Minister of Defence have all accepted responsibility for the failure. Netanyahu has not. Government ministers unfortunate enough to be interviewed in the media have given carefully-worded responses along the following lines: “Of course we are responsible”, without mentioning Netanyahu by name or the Prime Minister by position.
Channel 11, a very mainstream broadcaster not overly sympathetic to Netanyahu at the best of times, displayed photos of the other three leading members of the War Cabinet in one column, under the heading: ‘Accept Responsibility’; in the second column, headed ‘Does not Accept Responsibility’, was the lone photo of Netanyahu.
While voluntary initiatives seem to get up to speed in virtually no time, and to run with incredible efficiency and a spirit of co-operation, this weekend saw what seems to be an appalling failure to co-ordinate. The Government offered inhabitants of Kiryat Shemona, very near the Lebanese border, the option to evacuate to hotels in the centre. Individual families were told which hotel was holding rooms for them. When some of the evacuees arrived at the hotels, they were told there were no rooms for them. On the radio this morning, the Mayor of Kiryat Shemona was furious at the incompetence of the Tourism Ministry, while the Minister of Tourism was unable to provide a coherent explanation of what had happened.
Two weeks into the war, there is still no single body to co-ordinate the Government’s initiatives for the home front. Initial attempts to organise such a body under the leadership of the Prime Minister’s office failed, because the directors-general of several of the various relevant ministries simply refused to ‘waste their time’ attending meetings of a body which would not achieve anything. Increasingly, this breakdown seems like an inevitable consequence of offering Government ministries to inexperienced members of minority parties, as a reward for joining the Government, and to incompetent members of the majority party, as a reward for remaining faithful to Netanyahu,
Members of the Government were very slow in visiting affected families in the South. This is, in fairness, partly out of a very real fear that they would encounter hostility, as one minister did when she attempted to enter a hospital to visit the wounded. At least one family warned Government representatives not to attempt to attend the funeral of their family member killed in the attack.
Where now?
Without a doubt, the country is more united, at the grassroots level, than it has been since the beginning of the year. Tzahal has announced that it has received 2000 requests from ultra-orthodox men to serve, and that it will be launching a suitable program tomorrow (Monday).
However, this unity does not move upwards. The open criticism of the Government, and especially of Netanyahu, both in the media and on the street, is becoming more strident. Given the fact that we are at war, this criticism seems to me very troubling, although I completely understand it.
The one issue above all others on which the nation will, I am sure, be truly, and savagely, divided, is the question of the country’s priorities. The basic question to consider is: How do you rank in importance the following three goals: The complete destruction of Hamas; the safe return of the hostages; the minimising of loss of life among Israel’s forces.
Adding to the complexity of the situation is the question of what will happen in Gaza after Hamas is completely destroyed (if that goal is even achievable). Further added to the complexity is the question: How is Israel most likely to achieve the safe return of the hostages? I have heard experts argue that a prisoner exchange is the only way; others argue that when we have Hamas by the throat they will release the hostages; yet others say that we need to carry out an Entebbe-style rescue.
These questions are, of course, immensely complex. I have not even added in the question of how Israel’s action in Gaza, against Hamas, will affect the stability of the Northern border. Will our action trigger Hizbollah to escalate hostilities? Will Iran be drawn in through Syria?
When I started thinking about this week’s post, I planned to call it ‘The Start-Up Nation’ and I intended to focus on how Hamas’s miscalculation was to think that its pogrom would destroy our morale rather than uniting us and leading us to forget our differences. That was the mood a week ago. Since then, the mood has shifted. The government, and the Prime Minister, have appeared to lack purpose, ability, and sensitivity to the mood of the nation. In addition, the geo-political ramifications of the situation have become clearer to us. As our ground troops wait impatiently on the Gaza border, and drown in home-made cake and shaving foam sent from the home front, and wait, and wait; as our troops wait anxiously on the northern border, and drown in coca-cola and soap sent from the home front, the way forward through the next weeks and months seems very far from certain.
However uncertain they seem for us, how much more so must they be for the families of the hostages – and for the hostages themselves?
What seems like a lifetime ago, but was, so the calendar tells me, less than two weeks ago, Bernice and I went to see Golda. One of the most powerful moments in the film occurs during a telephone conversation between Golda Meir and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. To understand today’s post, you must first watch this clip.
In the cinema, at that moment, the feeling among the audience of national pride was visceral. You could taste it in your mouth.
I don’t intend to analyse in detail what made the events of Shabbat/Simchat Torah ten days ago possible, but it looks increasingly like a combination of a whole kitbag-ful of elements: a level of planning, training, and secrecy from Hamas that far exceeded anything they had previously displayed; a disproportionate deployment of troops to the West Bank leaving the border with Gaza woefully under-protected; an over-reliance on technology and an accompanying decline in the level of training and discipline of the troops on the ground. Underlying all of these was a mistaken confidence on the part of Israel – its political leadership, its military and security leadership, many of its people.
Ten days ago, the national pride we had tasted in the cinema was exposed as hubris, and the confidence we had felt was revealed to have been complacency.
We have been heartened by the many, many messages of support we have received from family and friends abroad. One such message expressed the hope that “this unrest ends very soon”. I hope that, by now, nobody abroad mistakenly believes that what Israel underwent in the first half of last week was “unrest”. I am not going to post any links to videos from those first days: messages from families trapped in their houses for more than a day and begging for soldiers to come and rescue them; videos of acts of unspeakable atrocity committed by Hamas terrorists and filmed by them on their victims’ phones then uploaded to those victims’ families via social media.
The residents of the towns, kibbutzim and moshavim in Otef Aza – the area inside Israel bordering the Gaza Strip to the North and East – and the thousands attending a music festival in the same area were subjected to a pogrom, or, perhaps even more accurately, an Einsatzgruppen attack. As the details of the full extent and the exact nature of that massacre emerged over Sunday, Israel sank into a mood that it has not known since 1948, and possibly has never known.
As always happens during a war in Israel, the mainstream Israeli broadcaster switched all of its programming to news, analysis and background stories around the situation. For the first two days, these programs all focussed almost exclusively on interviews with survivors of the massacres, or with the families of those either known to be dead or declared missing presumed dead or abducted across the border into Gaza. From Day Two, added to these were interviews with soldiers and civilians who had gone into the towns and settlements that had been massacred, speaking about what they had found. There was an almost exclusive focus on the loss, the deaths, the carnage, the suffering, the anguish.
It is true that the family that is Israel always embraces those grieving, and encourages them to speak of the loved ones they have lost. However, this time the media experience was qualitatively different in two ways. First, the focus was exclusively on the way in which the victims had suffered and died, or been abducted, rather than the usual focus on celebrating the life that had been lived rather than the murder that had been inflicted. Second, the radio station I listen to (Reshet Bet) devoted virtually no time to any story other than those of individual suffering.
Let me offer two statistical comparisons to attempt to put the ‘size’ of the suffering into perspective.
Every day last week, the numbers of total dead announced rose by at least 100. Only a handful of that number were ‘new’ deaths; the remaining 90 or more were bodies that had been discovered over the previous 24 hours, bodies from the carnage of one day, Shabbat/Simchat Torah. On that day, I estimate (at the time of writing) that 1000 or more civilians were murdered. (By the time you read this, that horrendous number may even seem optimistic.) By comparison, in the entire Yom Kippur War, which, until 9 days ago was Israel’s greatest security failure, not a single civilian died.
1000 civilians murdered in a single Einsatzgruppen Hamas action constitute just over 0.001% of the total population of Israel. An equivalent percentage of the population of the UK is 6,750 people; of the US: 33,500. (2,600 died in 9/11.)
Two levels of remove: there cannot be a single family in Israel that does not have a relative, a friend, a work colleague, a fellow-congregant or a near neighbour who does not have a relative who was murdered or abducted or who experienced first hand the terror of the pogrom and survived deeply scarred emotionally, even if physically unharmed.
On a personal note: Bernice and I belong to a shul that has some 50 member-families. Two of those families have, between them, five cousins who are missing (presumed abducted), and our own daughter-in-law narrowly survived, thankfully physically unharmed, the massacre at the music festival. Every shul, every school, every social club in the country could tell the same story.
And even if you don’t know a particular victim personally… Here’s a piece that has been doing the rounds on social media that captures my point eloquently.
Someone asked me if I know anyone who was killed in Israel. I was puzzled by his question. “I know all of them,” I answered. He was puzzled by my response. So I wrote this to explain it. ——————————– I don’t know you, but I saw you at that bar. I don’t know you, but you took my parking spot. I don’t know you, but our parents are friends. I don’t know you, but I can hear you playing matkot on the beach. I don’t know you, but your smile made me smile. I don’t know you, but we argued in a WhatsApp group. I don’t know you, but we ate together at Chabad. I don’t know you, but you almost ran me over with your korkinet. I don’t know you, but you were once my waitress. I don’t know you, but you gave me your seat on the bus. I don’t know you, but I saved your place in line at the bank, at the post office, and at the grocery store. I don’t know you, but we loved the same music. I don’t know you, but we learned Torah together. I don’t know you, but we shared a joint in Sinai. I don’t know you, but we stood next to each other at Mount Sinai. I don’t know you, but we stood next to each other on Kaplan. I don’t know you, but I know you. I don’t know you, but I love you. I don’t know you, but I will always remember you.
The mood in the radio studios was unnaturally subdued over those first few days; radio and TV presenters were sometimes close to tears, and even, occasionally, more than close. There was no sense, as there usually is during a war, of needing, of being able to attempt, to rally national morale. For a couple of days, until Tzahal was seen to be taking control in Otef Aza, the whole country felt powerless. The Prime Minister and the other political (and military) leaders seemed to be missing in action; there were no rousing addresses to the nation. A cartoon depicting all of the Government ministers cowering under the Cabinet table, some clutching their draft sectarian legislation, some wetting themselves, required no caption.
For over two days, we were that little girl hiding in the cellar, and those were the most chilling two days the country has ever experienced.
-o0o-
In the second half of last week, as Otef Aza was gradually cleared of all terrorists, and as 300,000 reservists were called up, some to the Gaza front, and some to the Northern border, there was a distinct and significant change of mood.
However, I want to leave writing about that change of mood until next week. (At this moment, I feel I want to switch back to publishing every week in the current situation.)
For today, I want to leave you with two last thoughts.
As I came downstairs to ask Bernice to read this post (as she always does, and offers her wise advice), I saw that she had lit a yahrzeit light – a memorial candle. She told me that we had all been invited to light a candle at 6PM as a mark of solidarity with Kibbutz Be’eri, a kibbutz less than five kilometres from the Gaza border. At that exact time, on Kibbutz Be’eri, the funerals were being held of 100 members of the kibbutz.
If what happened in Israel last week moved you, if your heart and your mind are with Israel at this dreadful time, please remember what this massacre is really about.
Some people will tell you it’s about removing Israeli control of Gaza. They don’t understand. Some people will tell you it’s about removing Israel from the map. They don’t understand. Some people will tell you it’s about removing Jews from the face of the earth. They don’t understand.
To understand what it’s really about, read and internalise the words of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Zahar, as reported last year by MEMRI: “The entire planet will be under our law, there will be no more Jews or Christian traitors.”
And please read this week’s post as a dispatch from the world’s canary cage.
As soon as I have published this post, Bernice and I will be setting off for Zichron to visit Raphael. The grandparents of these children are, at this moment, unable to do the same.
