Hebrew Newspaper: Has Israel become stronger or more secure? What have we gained from this war?

After 150 days of war, it is the duty of every Israeli to answer honestly the following question: Is the situation of his country better now than it was on October 6, 2023? Has his country become stronger? Safer? More established? Is it becoming more popular? Have I become more capable of deterrence? Is he more proud of himself? Has he become more autistic? anything?? The surprising fact is that the only logical answer to all the questions posed above is no. Clear and definitive denial.

150 cruel and brutal days did not benefit Israel at all, and will not benefit it in the future. Not in the immediate term, nor in the near future. No goal has been achieved, nothing good for Israel has grown in the soil of this war, and it will not grow. As for Hamas, it has become stronger. It is true that thousands of its fighters fell, but its status as the heroine of the Arab nation rose sharply. Despite this, the Israelis would like an additional 150 days, at the very least. There is zero public opposition to the war, even after 5 months of killing and destruction of insane proportions, global ostracism and hatred of Israel, bloodshed, and economic harm to Israel.

One cannot put his finger on a single place in which the country improved during the aforementioned months, the darkest in its history. Today, Israel has become less secure than it was before the war, in light of the risk of a regional war, and under the sword of global sanctions and the loss of American support. Israel has become a much less democratic state: the damage inflicted by the war on Israel's regime was more serious than any judicial coup one can think of, and the cumulative damage from this war will remain in place even after the army withdraws from the Gaza Strip.

As for Israel's international standing, there is nothing wrong with it, as Israel has never been treated, throughout its history, as a leper afflicted with leprosy and should be isolated, as it is today. Indeed, its normal relations with the United States have deteriorated to a level that we have never witnessed before, not to mention the daily bleeding of dead soldiers, the failure to release the majority of the kidnapped, the thousands of Israelis who are still displaced from their homes, and half of the country that has become a dangerous place that cannot be Walk around in it. As for the West Bank, it is on the verge of an uprising, and as for the deep hatred that we have sown today in Gaza, the West Bank, the Arab world, and in the entire world, there is nothing that will help us uproot it.

All this, and there are no expectations on the foreseeable horizon regarding an improvement in the situation, while Israel stubbornly rejects any proposal to change reality from its foundations. Despite all this, the Israelis are still demanding more, just like the gambler who lost all his wealth in the gambling halls, and is still convinced that what remains for him is another small additional round, to achieve his crushing blow.

In a situation in which 100 Palestinians are killed every day, the Israelis are convinced that an additional 30,000 deaths in Gaza will make Israel a paradise, or at least a safe place. It is difficult for one to remember that such blindness has struck any country in the world, even in Israel. It is also difficult for one to recall a similar case of loss of moral compass. “Let the Gazans hunger, let them thirst, let them suffocate, let them die,” this rhetoric is embraced by even the Israeli left, even the Israeli media. We are being led with our eyes blindfolded, and none of us dares to ask the question: Where to? And How long?? What is important now is to continue fighting the war. Why? Because Hamas wants to stop the war, and we are here to raise it.

We need to ask the question: “What did Israel gain from this war?” We also need to answer this question with courage: Was it right to go to war? We must put aside the (honest) slogans that say that no country would have acted indifferently in the face of such a “brutal” attack on its population, and that any country has the right to defend itself, and respond with a question: What do you want us to do in the face of the attack that occurred? We fell victim to it? Let's look at the outcome of the war and measure our answers based on the outcome: Was our decision correct? After 150 days of finding nothing positive other than continuing to bear the heavy costs, can we begin to question the wisdom of Israel's decision to go to war?

All of this, without even mentioning a single word about the heavy price that Gaza paid, and which was also paid, to some extent, by the residents of the West Bank, whom Israel is now abusing under the dust of war, as it has never been aggrieved in its lifetime.

The majority of Israelis who do not care about the catastrophe that befell the Palestinians, or even make them happy, these many Israelis, must answer the question: Aside from your joy in the catastrophe that befell Gaza, what did you gain from the war? Judge according to the results. Starting now, things will get worse. Do you really want this to happen?

Haaretz