According to almost all public opinion polls in Israel, up to 80% of Israelis want the war in Gaza to end and want all of the Israeli hostages to be brought home. This large majority exists with the knowledge that ending the war means that Hamas might remain the ruling power in Gaza. The majority of Israelis know that a deal with Hamas to end the war and to bring the hostages homes also include the release of what might be more than a few thousand Palestinian prisoners, including about 200 who are sentenced to life in prison for murdering Israelis. After 22 months of war, the majority of Israelis want it to end. But how much of the demand to end the war has a moral base to it? Do Israelis still believe that the Israeli army is the most moral army in the world? Do Israelis believe that there is no starvation in Gaza caused by Israel? Do the Israelis believe that Israel is innocent of committing war crimes in Gaza? Crime against humanity? Genocide? Do the Israelis believe that Israel is also not committing war crimes in the West Bank where it is in fact engaged in deFacto annexation, which is explicitly against international law? Do Israelis care about international law? Do Israelis understand that what is being done by Israel, its government and its army is being done in their names and on their behalf?
Israelis have had a very high regard for their country and for themselves. Israel’s achievements since its birth in 1948 are nothing short of a miracle. There are a lot of things to be proud of in Israel as Israelis. The rebirth of the Hebrew language, the development of a vibrant, exciting and compelling Israeli Hebrew culture of music, theater, literature, and culinary delights. The emergence of Israel as a high-tech giant with a booming economy (at the macro level). Israel has also been a vibrant liberal democracy for many years, enjoyed particularly by its 80% Jewish majority, much less so by its 20% Palestinian Arab minority. And the military might of Israel is also something that Israelis are very proud of. Israel has developed and lived by many national myths which have become part of the national ethos - the few against the many, the weak against the strong, the moral against the immoral, and that we never leave anyone behind. In reality, Israel is very strong – much stronger than all of its enemies combined. But Israel does leave soldiers and now civilians behind. Israel abandoned its citizens and its border on October 7 2023. There is no such thing as a moral army, and let’s face it – it is very difficult to find an ounce of morality in what Israel has been doing in Gaza over the past 22 months. We are no longer the weak against the strong and we have to question very seriously if we are the moral against the immoral.
Today Israel is accused by the IPC -The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) which is the most senior United Nations watchdog on hunger and famine, of being responsible for famine in Gaza. IPC defines famine as an extreme deprivation of food. Starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition are or will likely be evident. According to the IPC report,over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death. Another 1.07 million people (54 percent) are in Emergency (IPC Phase 4), and 396,000 people (20 percent) are in Crisis (IPC Phase 3). Israel of course denies the validity of the report, calls it lies and distortion and undoubtedly members of the Israeli government and the Prime Minister himself will call it an antisemitic report. There is no reason whatsoever to believe the Israeli response. Israel can provide no evidence that the report is false. If Israel wants to prove that it is false, all it has to do is open the borders of Gaza for international journalists to enter Gaza with the uninhibited ability to move around, to get the facts and the pictures, not be embedded with the Israeli army, but doing the job that Israel has prevented them from doing for 22 months. These journalists would go in with the knowledge that they are entering an active war zone and without Israeli protection, but also with the knowledge that Israel will not be intentionally targeting them, as it has done with Palestinian Gazan journalists. Let the truth come out – this is my response to the Israeli denials.
What Israel and its army are doing in Gaza is being done in my name because I am an Israeli citizen. Because I am completely opposed to what Israel is doing in my name, I have the responsibility and the obligation to call it out for what it is: war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Israel is not doing in Gaza what the Nazis did to the Jews in Europe during World War II. And the definition of genocide is not determined by the number of people killed. But there are more than 60,000 people killed in Gaza. We don’t know how many of them were combatants – e.i. legitimate targets, but we do know that a majority of those killed were non-combatants, tens of thousands of women, children, elderly people. Israel has eased the cities of Khan Yunis, Rafah, Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun and now is in the process of doing the same to Gaza city, the rest of Jabalia, Nussierat, Deir elBalah and more. Gaza has been rendered uninhabitable for its 2.2+ million inhabitants. Israel has destroyed the infrastructure of roads, electricity, water, and sewage. Israel has demolished most schools, hospitals, universities, government buildings, courthouses, mosques, churches, and public buildings. Israeli contractors are being paid per building demolished under the protection of the Israeli army. More than 2 million people are homeless and are living in tents or in semi-demolished buildings. Now those living in and around Gaza city are being pushed into the 15% of Gaza in the southwest corner of the strip where this pressure cooker of humanitarian disaster will explode.
It seems that most Israelis don’t want to know this. They don’t want to hear it. They certainly don’t want to see it. The mainstream Israeli media is mostly complicit in what the government and the army are doing by open denial, by self-censorship, and by direct instructions of the editors and the owners of the media not to show it or to call it lies and antisemitism. Israel is becoming or has already become the most hated country in the world. But the knee-jerk response that all of the criticism and hatred of Israel is blatant antisemitism enables Israelis a and their government to push the legitimate criticism against Israel off the table. They simply say: the world hates Jews and has always hated Jews. Israelis then feel relieved because the criticism of almost the entire world has nothing to do with what Israel is doing, it is antisemitism. This is the lies that Israelis tell themselves. There are antisemites among those who criticize Israel, but almost all of the criticism of Israel is justified and has nothing to do with antisemitism.
When the Australian Prime Minister denied the visa to right wing anti-democratic messianic fanatic Member of Knesset Simcha Rothman it had nothing to do with antisemitism. It was because Rothman was invited by a right-wing extremist Australian Jewish organization that most of the Jewish community of Australia oppose and because the visit of this hate filled extremist would cause public unrest and possible unnecessary strife between Jewish and Arab or Muslim Australian citizens. When French President Macron announced plans to recognize the State of Palestine, he was called antisemitic and his act of recognizing Palestine as being antisemitic. It is not, and he is not. Macron has done more for the Israeli hostages that most of the members of the Israeli government. Macron and France aided Israel in its attacks against Iran. Macron and France memorialized French Jewish citizens killed on October 7 with a great deal of respect and honor that should be recognized by Israelis as true friendship.
If there is a moral majority in Israel, and I want to believe that there is one, it is now time to stop being a silent moral majority. It is not enough to demonstrate for the release of the hostages. This is very important, but it is not enough. We, the moral majority in Israel have a responsibility to ourselves, to our peoplehood, to our legacy as Jews and to our future as Israelis to stop the war in Gaza and to bring down our government. We can no longer stand silent in the face of the war crimes that our army is committing in Gaza. I know how difficult it is for us to see our army and our soldiers as anything less than heroes. It is now time for us to tell our heroes that the only heroism now called for is that which sees the huge black flag hanging over everything that we are doing in Gaza. The black flag is the illegality of our actions and the immorality of what Israel is trying to achieve in Gaza. The same black flag is flying over the crimes being committed by Israel in the West Bank with the forced removal of Palestinian communities in the Jordan valley and in the Hebron hills. It is flying over the continuation of the settlement building and the confiscation of Palestinian land all over the West Bank. The black flag is flying high above our heads and we cannot ignore it.
If we as Israelis don’t do everything possible to stop the war in Gaza, then we are in fact complicit in what Israel is doing in Gaza and in the West Bank. This stain will stay with us for years to come. The Netanyahu legacy will be personally attached to him as the worst leader of the Jewish people in all times. His legacy will also stick to all of us and this period of our history will be labeled the dark age of Israel. We have a chance to change that. Our behavior as citizens at this time now, will determine the extent of our morality and the extent of our humanity. We can either continue to be silent or we can all, each an everyone of us in our way, do something to save our souls as a nation and to save our country from our leaders.
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Is there a moral majority in Israel?