Israeli Opinion| Israelis want to become Arabs

Rogel Alvear

The second intifada killed the Israeli left and the two-state vision, and created a state of absolute distrust of the Palestinians within Israeli society, and a desire for revenge against them. 

The massacre carried out by Hamas on October 7, and the kidnapping of Israelis to Gaza, will bury the two-state solution as deep as nuclear garbage, where the world will never see it. It is not clear where the Biden administration derives its optimism to revive this solution after the war. This blindness stems from wishful thinking. 

In the eyes of Israeli citizens, this is politically impossible.

First, we have before us the model of the Second Intifada: the violent Palestinian uprising that cost the lives of civilians, led to the strengthening of the power of the right in society, both horizontally and vertically. Now, in the wake of October 7, the Israeli narrative being formulated is based on the following: “Hamas = Gaza = Nazism = all Palestinians.” This is the new equation. All Palestinians, including Palestinians in the West Bank, are from now on considered “monsters” who must be killed. Society and the media completely ignore the death of civilians in Gaza by air force bombing, regardless of army and gender, and this is at best. The Israeli moral standard also includes a desire to annihilate them, or allow them to be annihilated, depending on the operational need.

Also, the emphasis in Israel is that a humanitarian view of the Gazans is a demand of “the world.” Palestinian life has never been this cheap in the eyes of Israelis. Fear of the Holocaust strengthened; It "happened again." The feeling of “we are right” has been strengthened, as has the feeling of victimhood, which creates a feeling of ownership of the entire country. Feelings of superiority over the gentiles also strengthened, and no one should look down on us. They say: Thank you Biden, but don't you dare tell us what to do. Widespread anti-Semitism reinforces Israeli fear, making it closer to a feeling of existential danger. As a result, the religious and national fighting spirit is strengthened. The two-state solution is considered madness, weakness, and betrayal.

Rejection of liberal Western values is strengthened. One of the most striking manifestations in the aftermath of the massacre is the desire of many Israelis and Jews to conform to their preconceived image of Arabs. Dialectically, fueled by racism and fear, everything Arab is now treated as strength, respect and victory. In the new narrative, Post-Traumatic narrative, it is emphasized that elephants who want to survive in the forest must stop behaving like elephants, and behave as part of the forest, and according to its rules. Elephants cannot hold out. Now, the Israelis treat Arab values as “violent and brutal,” capable of victory in the name of Allah and the land. Western Israeli values are presented as naive and will lead to ruin.

Many believe that Netanyahu is responsible for the failure, but they fear Sinwar more than they fear him. The massacre created a feeling that all Palestinians wanted to "slaughter all the Jews" and, therefore, the Jews should kill them. A large section of the left is “maturing” and refuses to place the massacre in any context; “Hamas’s brutality” was born out of vacuum. All of Israel is in shock from the global left. At the same time, intellectual affiliation and emotional affiliation to the global right, Islamophobia, is strengthening.

Critical discussion of the occupation is rejected, and is outside the boundaries of the Israeli camp. Settler terrorism almost always has the support of the majority of society, even if it is silent. 

In the end, Netanyahu will not resign, which will push us to one of two choices: either the protests against him will decline, under the pretext of “we will win together”; Or a civil war will break out, after the war, which will be prolonged as much as possible. In any case, Netanyahu's presence will thwart any possibility of serious dialogue regarding the two states.