The Gaza War and transformations within Israeli society

From time to time I talk to some Israelis I know through my work in politics and writing. Those I am talking to are academics, thinkers and community activists, and they are from the camp that opposes the occupation and settlement and that supports the political solution based on the two-state solution, a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital, with a minimum land exchange agreed upon by both parties and an acceptable solution to the refugee issue. All of this is in accordance with the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. The picture I have from my conversations with them is very dark and disturbing.

Many of them do not hesitate to express their sense of loss of security after the 7/10 attack, and many of them believe the stereotype that was and is still being drawn for the Hamas movement as an ISIS movement that kills civilians, beheads children, and rapes women. Some of them see the elimination of the Hamas movement as a vital matter in order to restore the Israelis’ sense of security, while there are others who believe that it is impossible to eliminate Hamas because it is not a person, but an idea, and the idea is transmitted from one person to another, and therefore it will not be possible to eliminate it.

Those who believe that it is not possible to eliminate Hamas because it is an idea are divided into two groups. The first believes that the current war must result in a military defeat for Hamas that leads directly to a political process that leads to a permanent political solution to the conflict on the basis of the two-state solution. The second is confused and waiting for the results of the ongoing war and does not rule out the idea of immigration or temporary residency outside Israel if this war does not produce decisive results.

To understand the truth of these changes, even in the camp that was against the occupation and settlement and supported the two-state solution, a camp that has diminished greatly in the past two decades, but remains present and influential among the elite of academics and intellectuals, we must know what happened on October 7 and how it was transmitted to Israeli citizen.

The truth is that we do not know what happened because we did not listen to or read any documented reports about it, and everything that reached public opinion in Israel and abroad was the work of the Israeli official body, whose story cannot in any way be accepted or trusted because it lacks any evidence to support it. The quality of credibility.

However, the matter from which we can start the analysis is the fact that the attack of October 7 inflicted a military and moral defeat on the invincible army and even an insult that the official side could not swallow, and all that it is doing now is an attempt to restore respect, restore self-confidence and raise morale. The southern colonies were invaded, hundreds were killed, hundreds were kidnapped, and some were controlled for hours, and some for days, before Israeli military control was restored over them.

This defeat and the violent shock that resulted from it prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, from day one, and his famous call with US President Joe Biden, to promote the narrative that Hamas fighters brutally beheaded children and raped women, and that what they did had no parallel since the Holocaust!

The matter did not stop at these allegations, but a campaign began to promote videos of atrocities committed during the attack. Some of these videos that have been and are still being circulated on social media relate to actions carried out by ISIS gangs in the past and are not related to the attack. There are videos that must be examined and verified for authenticity, and this cannot be done except after the end of the war and by neutral parties.

Promoting horrific stories and videos about what allegedly took place during the October 7 attack is the reason behind the change that struck the small camp that was affiliated with those who support the political solution and the two-state solution, putting it in a state of anxiety and hesitation, and it is also the reason for inciting Israeli public opinion against the Palestinians and aroused feelings of hatred against the Arabs and the desire to take revenge on them in the most horrific ways.

There is no doubt that as the war continues and deaths continue to fall among the ranks of the Israelis, this feeling of hatred and resentment will become more ferocious and the gap between them will become deeper, especially between the Jews and the Arab citizens of Israel, as we live today in a unique state of distance between the two sides, such that the Arabs do not dare to go to the Jewish areas or Jews dare to go to Arab regions. It happened two days ago that an Arab woman, eight months pregnant, and her daughter were subjected to severe beating in the town of Netanya, which led to her miscarriage, just because someone heard her speaking in Arabic.

By the way, the settlers in the West Bank have found in the atmosphere of this war an opportunity to attack the Arabs, and there is no place without settlers attacking the Arabs and their property. It has happened in more than one place that the settlers have opened fire and killed unarmed Palestinian citizens, especially villagers who are heading to their fields to pick olives, which have been harvested since the middle of last month, without these settlers being held accountable for their crimes. There are still hundreds of dunams planted with olive trees whose owners have not been able to reach them, either because of settler attacks or because the army has dismembered the West Bank, closing the entrances and exits of the villages, and isolating them from each other and from the fields around them.

The picture in general is that the Israeli mouthpieces are still promoting news and tapes about what they claim was committed by Hamas on October 7, and they are also inciting national and fascist sentiments among the Jews, the latest of which is the frenzied campaign that began yesterday by calling on the Israelis to raise Israeli flags On their homes, shops, and cars, which will lead to creating a state of polarization and separation between Arabs and Jews, citizens of Israel, and make Arabs an easy target for Jewish attacks inside Israel. This serves a plan to spread terror and displacement among Arabs, even among those who are citizens of Israel.

I lived through the wars of June 1967, 1973, and 1982, and the first and second intifadas, and I do not recall that the hatred between Arabs and Jews, whether inside Israel or in the occupied territories, reached the very disturbing level it has reached these days, which warns that it will become more ferocious with the continuation of the war on Gaza and the continuation of the war of extermination being practiced against our people In Gaza. The horrific videos and pictures circulated by the media about the brutal crimes committed against our people there are in full view of the hypocritical world that has proven its complicity with this war, whether by remaining silent about it or justifying it.
We are living in a very complex phase of this conflict and in the relationship between Arabs and Jews, and the main criterion that can restrain or unleash it remains whether this war will continue for a longer period or will it stop. There is no doubt that everyone who is concerned about the future of the relationship between Jews and Arabs in this part of the world must realize that the seeds of hatred that are being sown in great numbers these days through the current war of extermination will bear fruit in the not-too-distant future, and that the one who sows these seeds is the one who will be definitely a victim.

Everyone is in dire need of an immediate halt to the fighting and destruction and to stop matters from getting worse so that they do not reach the point of no return.
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