On Israeli Apathy

At one of the recent mass demonstrations in Tel Aviv calling for a hostage deal and for early elections to replace the Israeli government, one protester held up a sign reading: “Who are we without them?” referring to the hostages. Another placard read: “Give me one reason to raise kids here.”

The messages encapsulate questions many Israelis are asking themselves, a year into the longest war in the country’s history: What is the value of a Jewish homeland if it doesn’t prioritize — or it gives up on — saving the lives of its civilians, kidnapped from their homes? Will I ever feel safe again? And what kind of future do I have here if the only vision our leaders are offering is endless war?

A year since the murderous Oct. 7 Hamas attack set off the war in Gaza, Israel is sinking deeper into an existential crisis. It is a shrunken country, with tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from northern towns and kibbutzim, as well as southern border villages, as it fights a multifront war that is only intensifying and expanding. And, in addition to having to cope throughout the year with loss, shock, rocket fire and overwhelming fear for their safety from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran itself, that anxiety is compounded by turmoil from within.

Thousands of Israelis with the means to do so have chosen to leave Israel since Oct. 7; others are considering or planning emigrating. Many thousands more have also taken to the streets week after week, engaging in acts of civil disobedience, which began before the Oct. 7 attacks with protests against the Netanyahu government’s proposed judicial overhaul and, after a brief pause, resumed with a new focus on the hostage crisis and demand for early elections. In September, images of the former Israeli army chief of staff Dan Halutz being forcibly removed by the police from the street at a sit-in in front of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence, and of relatives of hostages being roughed up by law enforcement officers, were a further manifestation of the internal crisis.

The way many Israelis protesting across the country see it — a group largely identified as the secular liberal elite — this is not just about saving the hostages; it is a battle over the state’s character and identity. This, then, is the state’s existential inflection point: between a democracy and authoritarianism, between having an independent court system and one beholden to the executive office, between a country with the freedom to protest and hold leaders accountable, and one where open speech is squelched and leaders run roughshod over the populace.

And yet, somehow, this battle is completely detached from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and from Palestinians themselves, as if they do not breathe the same air we breathe, in Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza. The outrage in the streets is largely confined to the Israeli government’s failure to save the Israeli hostages. There is almost no outrage over the indiscriminate destruction of Gaza and the killing of over 40,000 people, many of them civilians, over the past year. Few are protesting Israel’s excessive use of force. It simply does not register that even if Israelis are in an existential crisis, Palestinians are in a battle for their very existence. Israeli disregard for Palestinian suffering, whether conscious or not, has been one of the most palpable and disturbing features of life in Israel since Oct. 7. Of course it existed well before then, but it is all the more stark and consequential now.