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Dispatch from Israel [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-10-24  

I am writing this diary (my first) as an outlet from the days that we are currently living through. I am a Jewish Israeli and I also have relatives in the US and in many other countries around the world. I spend time these days talking and writing to friends and relatives abroad. It helps them to understand what is going on here, and also helps me to understand what is the perspective of the broader world. The wife of my cousin was murdered in the Hamas attacks on the kibbutzim bordering Gaza on October 7. Those that survived the Hamas attack are currently homeless and traumatized. I also realize that Palestinians in Gaza, most of them innocent, are being killed and traumatized by Israeli efforts to respond to the Hamas attack and secure its borders and its citizens.

One of the points that I want to communicate is that the current mood in Israel is different than at any other time than I can remember. You would think that after an attack that was more devastating than anything that occurred here since the Yom Kippur War in 1973, that Israel would be united and burning with a desire for revenge. But that is not really the case. Instead, we are a country in mourning. We are traumatized. We are disoriented. It has been 17 days since the Hamas attack. There has been a general army mobilization of 300,000 soldiers. And yet they are sitting on the borders of Gaza and Lebanon, and it seems that the Army and the government are undecided what to do. And there is no obvious answer. We have been hurt so badly that we have begun to see ourselves differently. In the past, we have always reacted instinctively to an attack, or to a provocation, with overwhelming force, putting out the fire until the next round, and not wanting to address the hard questions because they too difficult and because we felt that we didn’t need to. Somehow this latest attack has broken through this shell. Some might see this as a victory for Hamas. And I suppose it is. But maybe we are finally starting to grow up.

Until now we have seen ourselves largely (although less and less recently it must be said) as self-sufficient, able to take care of ourselves in a tough neighborhood. Now many of us are scared. Suddenly we have nightmares of a multi-front war, with missiles coming in not only from Gaza, but also from Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran, and perhaps even deterioration of the relationships with the neighbors with which we have peace treaties—Egypt and Jordan--and an uprising of the Palestinians in the West Bank and even in Israel itself. US President Biden’s visit was very well-received and appreciated here. We feel that only the US can prevent the current situation from deteriorating into a general regional war where many of us will be killed. But along with that understanding, we are beginning to accept that we cannot survive alone. Of course this has always been true, but we have not been good at admitting it to ourselves. Perhaps with this admission, we will be more open to finding and accepting an end to the conflict with the Palestinians, which is at the basis of so many of our problems.

In the meantime we wait. The waiting seems almost like a blessed moment before the next wave of destruction. And I, for one, am glad that we are waiting. Maybe the waiting can last one more day, and then one more, and then one more. And then slowly we will begin to open our eyes, and breathe, and open ourselves up to a new reality that finally, finally, may lead to peace.

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