War of opinion exposes Israel’s deep divisions

Four informed but disparate views of those on the ground made for a heated panel discussion tackling Israel’s political minefield at Limmud Johannesburg this past weekend. From the hostages to genocide accusations, to the future of Israel and Gaza, no topic was off limits.

“A child is a child is a child. Compassion has no borders. Israelis mourn all sides.” These words were recently placed on an advert on an Egged bus in Jerusalem. While he touched on the headlines, Ittay Flescher decided to tell this lesser-known story when addressing the question of what South Africans need to understand about what is happening in Israel today.

Flescher, the education director of interfaith movement Kids4Peace Jerusalem, and the Jerusalem correspondent for Australian publication, The Jewish Independent, established that most of the audience agreed with the words on the bus. Yet, he revealed that a man wrote a letter to Egged, complaining about the advert. “In the letter he wrote, he said, ‘How is a soldier who lost his friends supposed to feel when faced with a sign that portrays his enemies as innocent children? Signs of this nature cross every moral line, comparing terrorists who use children as human shields to IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers who act with unparalleled morality in a serious moral distortion.’”

Egged ultimately removed the advert from its buses. Flescher chose to tell this story as it shows how difficult it is right now for Israelis to show empathy for Gaza. “This war can’t end,” he said, “if we don’t end the war on empathy.”

A lot of things we see in the media today are either not true, or are sponsored by those with an agenda, seasoned media and foreign affairs consultant Akiva Spiegelman argued. He questioned who had paid for the advert Flescher referred to. “When we’re getting information, we have to make sure we’re getting it from a source that’s actually accurate,” he said. “In Israel today, there’s a divide, there’s big conflict over issues where there should be a consensus.” The biggest issues, including how to bring home the hostages, have become highly politicised, he said.

“If you remember 2005, a very difficult time in Israel, you were either for the disengagement [from Gaza] or you were a pariah. That’s why it’s important today to be open minded, to hear both sides, but to be aware of who is passing you the information.”

Lahav Harkov, a senior political correspondent for Jewish Insider and a former Knesset correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, began her argument by declaring something she acknowledged is controversial in Israel – optimism.

“I think Israel is winning the war,” she said, “and that it’s a safer country than it was on 6 October 2023.” Backing up her statement, she said that the Iranian nuclear threat had been rolled back years; Hezbollah was doing very badly, and Hamas was significantly weakened. She argued that Israel was close to achieving its goals in Gaza.

Israel’s youth also give Harkov hope. She referred to how the country rallied after 7 October 2023, with hundreds of thousands reporting for reserve duty, and tens of thousands still fighting now. While the cost of living is high and political divisions remain, Israel’s broader economy is doing well, Harkov said. “In the past year and a half, I have found so many things inspiring among Israelis, and especially young Israelis, that I look to the future, and I’m so glad to be raising my children there.”

“So, where’s this country you talk about?” countered Nir Hasson, expressing pessimism for Israel’s future. Hasson is a journalist who has been working for Haaretz for more than 20 years, and is covering beats including the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

“We are in the darkest days in the history of the state of Israel. We have a leadership from hell,” he said. Hasson argued that an overwhelming number of people are leaving the country. He referred to “Qatargate”, where people who were close to the Israeli prime minister were on the payroll of Qatar, “the same country that founded Hamas”. The Watergate scandal paled in comparison, Hasson said.

Calling the government corrupt, he said that it was responsible for the 7 October massacre. “But the worst thing they’ve done is to involve all of Israeli society, and all of the IDF in the worst crime one can ever imagine.” It doesn’t matter if years from now the International Court of Justice concludes that there was no genocide in Gaza, he said. “Just the fact that the word ‘genocide’ will, from now on, stick to the name of Israel is a disaster that I have no words to describe.”

Hasson argued that the way that the war in Gaza had been managed by Netanyahu “destroyed the foundation of the state of Israel”. Israel’s international legitimacy is lost, he said, and the war is only running in the interest of the political ambitions of Netanyahu and his far-right supporters like Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.

In response, Harkov stressed that the foundation of the state of Israel wasn’t based on international support. “The reason I live in Israel, and that my ancestors and so many moved to Israel, is not because the United Nations voted to approve it in 1947,” she said. “Rather, the foundation of the state of Israel is to be the national home for the Jewish people. It’s to ensure that the Jewish people have a place of our own, a place where we can be protected. It’s so that the true textbook definition of genocide, the one that happened in the 1940s, doesn’t happen to us again.”

Yet Hasson believes the current war has destroyed the fabric of Israeli society. “People like me don’t want anything to do with such a regime, with such an army. That’s why I’m afraid for the future of my kids in this country. This war will not end in the surrendering of Hamas because we don’t know what Hamas is anymore.”

In response, Spiegelman urged people to remember that the war with Hamas began only on 7 October 2023. “It started after thousands of terrorists butchered, raped, and mutilated children and women at a festival, or in their homes over a holiday.” He argued that Israel is doing what it has to in order to protect its residents, who are still constantly under attack. “Obviously, there are political powers in the country but the only thing that moves us, people who like me who did 150 days of reserve duty, is that we’re here to protect our people.”

Flescher stressed the need for new elections for both the Israelis and Palestinians. “When that happens,” he said, “another reality is possible.”