From IFTI's archives, March 23, 2023: "What you just witnessed was one of the greatest weeks in Israel's history"
But first, Hamas' videos designed to put pressure on Israel's government may be working. Many Israelis applaud the pressure, as long as it works, no matter where it comes from.
The second hostage video released by Hamas in the last few days has had the impact Hamas probably sought—increased pressure on the Israeli government to come to some deal.
If Hamas wanted to break some Israeli hearts, they succeeded. You don’t need to know any Hebrew at all to understand the gist of this clip, in which Keith Siegel recalls last year’s Passover and begins to speak about future ones:
What began as whispers a few weeks ago, namely that top Israeli negotiators on the hostage front were saying that it was Netanyahu who was holding up the deal, is no longer a matter of mere whispers. It’s now the stuff of mainstream headlines, such as on YNet today (Google translated screenshot follows):
The YNet article goes on to say (again, Google translation, with only major gaffes fixed) that
A senior official in negotiations for the hostage deal last night (Saturday) pointed to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as the one holding up a deal - and accused him of surrendering to ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir. According to the official, who is familiar with the details of the negotiations, Netanyahu is now in the minority in the smaller war cabinet- and also with respect to the heads of the security establishment, as far as the deal is concerned.
"Even when he accepts the terms of the deal in limited forums, the opposition of Smotrich and Ben Gvir causes him to say something else in the broad political-security cabinet," the official claimed, adding that Netanyahu "neuters the decisions and dissolves the possibility of closing a deal." So far, the prime minister has not commented on the signs of life received from the three abductees Amri Mirren, Keith Siegel and Hersh Goldberg Polin in recent days.
As part of the Egyptian proposal, there is now a discussion on the second phase of it - which includes a one-year ceasefire. Israel has not agreed to this, and this is a major challenge on the way to a deal.
According to senior officials in Israel, the videos published by the terrorist organization in recent days are intended to put pressure on Jerusalem in order to close a deal that will bring the war to an end. According to them, "this is why in the videos (the abductees) appeal to the public to put pressure on the decision makers here." While Hamas is still "examining" Israel's proposal that was forwarded to the terrorist organization through the mediators, Israel says that there is still no indication of what the terrorist organization's answer will be.
"Despite the enthusiasm and efforts of Egypt which seem significant, we will have to be patient," they said. "There were good talks during the last two days. We hope that we are on track towards a deal, Hamas needs to return an answer and it is also under pressure from the expected entry into Rafah." It was reported in Saudi Arabia that Hamas forwarded the proposal to the Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, who is examining it. "We are waiting for an answer within days," said officials in the terrorist organization.
Many Israelis believe that it is is only the real threat of an invasion of Rafah that has the Egyptians and Saudi working furiously to get a hostage deal done, in exchange for which Israel would presumably give up on that invasion. Smotrich and Ben Gvir will go ballistic over such a deal,
but polls show that most Israelis are not with them.
Whatever respite Netanyahu got from the hostage pressure as a result of Iran attacking Israel has now completely abated.
Israeli news is reporting that Biden wants to speak to Netanyahu later today.
Might the Festival of Freedom bring progress towards freedom?
By and large, though there is much to say (and weep over), we’re staying away from the disaster that has become the American university campus. But it’s worth noting that Israelis are following it closely. While many American commentators are splitting hairs over what the protests are really about, to many leading Israeli pundits, it’s all pretty simple.
Haviv Rettig Gur, one of the most insightful Israeli political commentators around, is one of those who doesn’t think it’s that complicated. I happen to agree with him, though I’d never succeed in putting it as succinctly.
And elsewhere in the Hebrew press, an Israeli publication called Epoch Magazine is sharing with Israelis what the root cause of all this may be. Here’s a Google translated screenshot:
As the world’s frenzy over the destruction of Gaza and the horrible body count there takes over international headlines, Israelis are talking about it, too. As soon as Passover is behind us, we’ll post two podcasts from leading Israeli intellectuals: one who believes that the number of children Israel has killed in Gaza is simply unconscionable, and another who asserts that Israel is not using nearly enough force in Gaza. Both views are widely held here, which is why we’ll share them both shortly. As always, we’ll post an excerpt for everyone, and the full conversations with a transcript for our paid subscribers.
During Passover, we’re reaching into our archives….
For those who are observing, we hope you are having a meaningful and joyous Pesach. We are not posting on days that are Yom Tov in either Israel or the Diaspora out of respect for those who are off the grid on those days. Still, we thought we would take the opportunity of the intermediate days of Passover to share with our readers—many of whom joined us after this past October 7—a few posts from “the world that was” when Israel was battling internal demons, that garnered particular attention.
Israel from the Inside was created in May 2021, when Israel was in a much smaller war with Hamas. We covered history, culture, music, art, extraordinary people—and more. Then came the Judicial Reform crisis of 2023, and from January through September, much (though certainly not all) of our focus was on that.
Then came October 7th and the world of 2023 now seems an ancient, almost “quaint” time. “All we had to worry about back then,” Israelis quip, “was democracy.”
For these three posts from our Archive we’re revisiting a few of the posts that then garnered a bit of attention. Today we return to March 2023, at the height of the protests ….
In retrospect ….
It’s been interesting for me to revisit those posts. Israel feels so different, and some of our decisions and alliances are now worth questioning. It is still obvious to me that had the judicial reform passed the way that it had been proposed, Israel’s days as a Western democracy would have ended.
And yet …
Some people protested the government, while others of us (including me) made a point of saying we were protesting the legislation, not the government. But was the distinction clear enough? Was there some other way that we could have or should have blocked the legislation? I can’t think of one, but maybe there was.
Ari Shavit, as we’ve noted in recent weeks, wrote during the protests (and he himself was a staunch opponent of the proposed judicial reform) that the divide in the nation would tempt our enemies to attack us. He thought it would be Hezbollah, and it was Hamas, but he was incredibly prescient. Do those of us who protested have any personal accounting to do? Perhaps. What, though, were our alternatives?
Looking in the other direction, maybe we were wrong not to protest the government. Maybe we were naive not to demand that the government resign—now, more than a year later, it’s clear that we need change, and it’s still not clear how it might come about.
To me, it’s still obvious that even once the legislation had been proposed, the right thing for a responsible government would have been to pull back, engage in a national conversation about constitutional matters, and then move forward carefully. Many of us would have embraced that, but Levin and Smotrich said to Bibi that they’d tear down his coalition. Should he have called their bluff? Brought in others to make up for those he’d lose?
Where would we be now if people had acted differently and responded differently throughout 2023?
It’s impossible to know, of course, but at this devastating moment in Israeli history, a time of deep introspection, I find it compelling to look back. And, quite honestly, to see how much of my enthusiasm for “those greatest days” has largely evaporated.
The post below was written as Israel’s 75th Independence Day loomed—we were all disappointed that the 75th, of all years, wasn’t going to feel terribly celebratory. Little could we have imagined how much worse things would be on the 76th.
Here is the link to the original post published on March 27, 2023.
And here’s the post itself:
This is far from over. It could be very, very far from over. And I’m about to get on a plane for fourteen hours, so that by the time I land, things might well have changed. Perhaps dramatically.
Still, I will go out on a limb, type this out very quickly with no time to proof it or to wait to see if things hold, and I will tell you what you have just seen:
You have just witnessed one of the most extraordinary weeks in Israeli history.
Israel’s 75th Independence Day is just weeks away.
Six months ago,
before the most recent elections and the introduction of the “gang of thugs” into the government, had you asked anyone what the 75th anniversary would be like, they would likely have said “It’ll be a great party.” If we usually have a lot of fireworks, we’ll have a ton of fireworks. If the national ceremony with dancers and singers and military flags is usually kind of cool, this year it’ll be very cool. If people usually booze it up a bit, this year, they’ll party away.”
But then there was an election. There was the “gang of thugs,” which led Thomas Friedman to declare in a NYT op-ed, “The Israel We Knew is Gone.” No, “the Israel we knew is not gone,” I replied on this platform, and throughout, I’d hoped and prayed that I was right.
But to be honest, there were many dark days in the intervening months. If when Friedman wrote, what had us worried was Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Avi Maoz, they began to seem like small fry relative to the judicial overhaul / regime change (depends on whom you ask) which Yariv Levin and Simcha Rothman, Minister of Justice and Chair of the Knesset’s Constitution Committee, respectively, began to unleash.
Six weeks ago,
if you’d asked most Israelis what kind of Independence Day we’re going to have, they would have said, “a sh*tty one.” The country will be depressed. We may be on the verge of becoming an illiberal democracy or a non-democracy. We’re going to be pariahs in the western world. Forget the Israeli dancing. Who needs fireworks? Who will possibly want to party? On the 75th anniversary, we’re not going to celebrate what we’ve created, but instead, we’re going to mourn what we’ve destroyed.
And now?
Yes, things could change, and bad things could still happen. So I say the following with hesitation, but also with great relief and profound pride:
I think you just witnessed one of the greatest weeks in Israeli history.
It doesn’t matter whether you were for the reforms or against them (or both, which is the position of Professor Netta Barak-Corren, whose monumental analysis of the issues I heartily urged everyone to read carefully). It doesn’t matter whether you were a Bibi fan or not, a Likud sympathizer or not.
What matters is that what you have seen play out in recent weeks has been an extraordinary exhibition of love of country, of devotion to Zionism, of almost completely violence-free protests by hundreds of thousands of people for three months. What you have seen is the melding of (whatever little bit remains of) the left and the center, joined by many on the right who were so deeply worried about the split in the nation that they, too, though they favored the reforms, said it was time to stop. You saw Orthodox rabbis come out and say it was time to heed the people. (If you haven’t listened to our podcast with the extraordinary Rabbi David Stav, you really should.)
What you witnessed was the left-center adopting and embracing the flag, embracing and loving the country that many people thought they’d long since stopped caring about. “All they want is to code, go public, have exits,” it was said. “Their Zionist-pioneers grandparents and great-grandparents must be turning in their graves,” people said about them.
But no. Those Zionist-pioneer grandparents and great-grandparents must be staring down at their kids’ kids with proverbial tears of pride and joy, a deep sense of satisfaction that three quarters of a century in, the young, successful, secular, “spoiled” Ashkenazi elites love this country. They took to the streets to defend it, to protect it, to preserve it. And they want to preserve it not against those who are not like them, but now, in concert with those who are not like them.
And here’s what you didn’t see:
You saw virtually no violence. You saw no guns. You saw virtually no police violence. You saw signs dripping with anger and irony, but no one hung in effigy, no pictures of politicians being burned. You saw no gallows. You heard no “lock him up!” This was never about hate—this was about love.
You saw no looting. None. Zero. This was not Seattle or Portland. This was not about detesting any part of this country, or even Bibi for that matter—it was about a love of the Jewish people and its nation-state.
Yes, they burst through the barricades and blocked traffic on the highways. If they wanted to win, and they were determined to win and to save their country, they had no choice. Research shows that 100% law abiding protests get absolutely nothing done—even Martin Luther King understood that when he crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 9th, 1965. the trick was to break the law to build something better, not to break the law as a way of breaking the state.
But having burst through the barricades and having blocked the highway, the “anarchists” and “terrorists” (as the coalition called them) remained fundamentally law-abiding. Watch this video, taken by someone in my family, in the wee hours of the morning between Sunday night and Monday morning this week, as an ambulance needed to get through the many thousands of “law-violating” protesters on the highway).
No one blocked the ambulance. No one said, “You’re not going anywhere.” People moved aside. Because someone was sick. Or in labor. Or needed help.
And this was about love.
And here’s what you also saw.
You saw profiles in courage. Women and men who took stands, who showed spine, who placed love of country above their careers and their personal well-being.
There’s Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, a virtual unknown when she was picked as AG just over a year ago. She stood up to the Prime Minister. She represented the law. She remained unflappable. They threatened to fire her. The police had to protect her. And she did her job, day after relentless day—and helped save this country.
You saw Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, who locked horns with Bezalel Smotrich from almost day one, warn the country that the madness had to stop. There could be reform, or there might not be. But it had to be a result of dialogue, not a coalition in heat.
So Netanyahu fired him, and thus inadvertently created a new national hero, bringing tens of thousands of people into the streets, and essentially ending any hope his government had of pressing on.
And this is a Jewish country. So after he got sacked, the press actually covered the story that Gallant’s mother called him to tell him she was proud of him. “You have intelligence and courage,” she told her (very adult) kid—and she made the headlines.
You saw Asaf Zamir, Israel’s Consul General in NYC, who had already been reprimanded for critiquing the government, resign in protest after Gallant was fired. Yes, he was in New York to serve his country—but he felt he could serve the country better by refusing to serve this government.
You saw hundreds of pilots, special forces soldiers, officers and non-officers alike, say that the IDF is the people’s army. The people’s army, they said, carries out orders, but only if they are the orders of a Jewish democratic state. And with the country looking like it might not stay democratic, they said they were out. Done. Not training. Not flying. Not reporting.
That’s a very edgy, morally complicated step to take, and reasonable minds can severely critique it. But make no mistake. You saw courage, not cowardice. And you saw love.
A few weeks from now,
We’re going to celebrate Independence Day. It will not be a carefree party. It will not be unsullied by what has happened. But it will be profound. It will be a day of thanksgiving. A day of pride. A day of hope. A day of commitment to healing the deep rifts in our society that got us where we are.
It will be a day much, much more important and memorable than anything we might have imagined just a few months ago.
What you saw throughout this week was love, and what you saw was a long-standing Jewish/biblical tradition. It was the tradition that Mordecai expressed when he said to an Esther hesitant to approach the King because she’d not been given permission:
“Who knows? Maybe it was for his very moment that you’ve achieved your position.” (Esther 4:14).
Esther did the right thing. She helped to save the Jewish people. So, too, did these men and women. So, too, did the hundreds of thousands of young Israelis who took to the streets in anger and in fear, but not in hate. With determination to save, not to destroy. With a love of land, with a love of the Jewish people, with a love of what Israel has been, and what Israel still can be.
What you saw this week was the very, very best of Israel. What you saw this week is what got so many of us to fall in love with this country.
Let’s pray it holds.
And in the meantime, here’s the famous song by Ehud Manor, which became one of the unofficial anthems of these weeks of protest.
As we’ve mentioned for the past several weeks, we will be taking Passover off as people will be vacationing and traveling. Depending on what develops, we might send something out. We’ll see.
While we are taking off for Passover, though, there will still be 133 hostages stuck in hell, whose families do not get a moment of reprieve from the anguish, heartache and fear they’ve been living with for six months. Pray for them. Pray that the captives return home soon, so that they and their families can begin to heal.