Since the 1990s, when Benjamin Netanyahu ran for prime minister and began an incitement campaign against Yitzhak Rabin - a campaign that ended with Rabin's assassination and Netanyahu's rise to power - he has not stopped inciting, dividing Israeli society and tearing apart the delicate cultural-ethical infrastructure to rule.
Over the years, the campaign to destroy Israel as we know it has gotten worse; and as it continues, Netanyahu and his family have committed a series of crimes; his wife has even been convicted of several of them, and he is currently on trial while showing no respect for the Israeli justice system and doing everything he can to destroy it.
For years, demonstrations have been taking place in Israel against him and against his government; I have personally documented them since late September 2017. The question that never ceases to be asked is: “Is this the end of democracy in Israel”? And the definitive answer is - no!
The peak came on October 7, 2023; Hamas squads crossed the border with Israel and committed mass murder, sexual crimes and kidnapping of civilians without any distinction. More than 1600 were murdered, of whom 56 were children, 251 people, infants, elderly women and men were kidnapped to Gaza. All this under the auspices of Netanyahu's doctrine that Hamas is an asset. That money will buy quiet. The security forces that were supposed to protect were diverted to protect extremist settlers in the territories of Judea and Samaria.
And so the national trauma began.
Immediately after the massacre, Israel embarked on a war that turned from defense into a campaign of revenge. And in a way that was never conceivable, the kidnapped became a “burden”; their families became “leftists,” a word that has long since become synonymous with “traitors” on the right.
As of the date of this article, 630 days have passed since the abandonment. The abandonment of the kidnapped, the abandonment of the families. And since then I have been documenting the protest at Begin Gate, calling for the return of the kidnapped in the deal and for an end to the war.
Over time, the rift in Israeli society deepened; the right-wing's hatred of everything that is liberal, secular, inclusive, and accepting overflowed. Robbery of the public purse and transfer of public funds to certain sectors, changes in school curricula, changes in the legal system, unprecedented incitement against the legal advisor to the government, against the outgoing head of the Shin Bet, against senior military officials, against anyone who dares to oppose the regime. Violent, arbitrary arrests, repeated despite court rulings, and the right wing call "traitors" to anyone who dares to protest. According to them, one can get by without pilots, without scientists, without values, and without the working and productive sector; but one cannot get by without exploiters, racists, and the corrupt.
The families of the abductees understood that their loved ones were abandoned to their fate; Netanyahu is not interested in returning them and has also turned this human issue, which was one of the cornerstones of Israeli society - mutual guarantee, leaving no one behind - into a political issue. And they were left helpless.
The big cry that went out into the streets was - Save! Save the kidnapped, save us - because we are all kidnapped by Netanyahu's bloody government.
One of the things that was said throughout the protests at Begin Gate was "Today it's them, tomorrow it's you," in reference to the government's abandonment of its citizens.
And then came the war with Iran and this bitter truth was revealed in its nakedness.
Despite the many years of military planning, the civilian home front was left without protection. Without shelters in private homes, without proper public shelters. The shaky sense of security also disappeared completely. While the heads of state fled to fortified underground shelters, the citizens were left to their fate.
As after the October disaster, civic organizations immediately mobilized to use public parking lots to protect the defenseless.
Photos from a public parking lot converted into a shelter, Tel Aviv
The home front suffered fatal casualties; during the 12 days of fighting, 28 civilians were killed and over 1,000 were injured; more than 11,000 people were evacuated and left homeless; and the disconnected prime minister says that his family was also affected.. His son was forced to postpone his wedding...
It became more apparent than ever how uninteresting the citizens are to the members of the government; how great and shameful the disconnect is. And under the cover of war, the police arrested people and invented new laws all the time; the incitement did not stop, and when people who were part of the protest against the regime were killed, people on the extreme right cheered and made statements such as "Wonderful, one less leftist."
All the values, all the glue that bound people who came from all corners of the world to create a state of refuge for the Jewish people, were trampled on by those who wanted to rule by the "divide and rule" method.
The destruction caused by the war exposed the nakedness of the leaders - depraved hedonists who only care about their own skin. The strongest crisis of trust that has ever been here; I personally have been sitting in shelters since I was 7 years old; and I have never felt as distrustful of the leadership running the war as I did this time. And that was the worst of all; the realization that as citizens, we are being depraved.
Even during the war, people went out to intersections near their homes to remind and not forget the issue of the kidnapped. While it was very convenient for those responsible to ignore them, the people I call "non-abandoners" did not let the issue fall off the agenda.
Immediately after the war ended, we returned to stand at the Begin Gate. The incitement continues, but we cannot let it stop us. The belief that without the return of the abductees - all of them, the living for rehabilitation and the dead for burial - we will not be able to continue living here; we will have no resurrection. In a place where mothers and fathers are demanded to send their 18-year-old children to the army and risk their lives, we must bear responsibility for their fate and return them to the country from which they were abducted and for whose security they were killed. This applies to soldiers and even more so to civilians.
What will Israel's future look like, how will it continue to operate, and whether it will continue to exist as a secular and liberal democratic state is the biggest question. Will it become a messianic and racist religious law state, a state whose citizens will leave because they cannot live under a dictatorial regime, or is there still a chance for restoration and healing of the terrible rift?
Hope died last.
And our hope is not yet lost.
