We got together with friends last night, just to cap off a long, stressful week. We ordered in burgers and made gin and tonics at home, and sat down to eat. It didn’t take long for someone to mention something from the news, at which point someone else at the table said, “When was it, exactly, that we stopped believing anything at all that we’re being told?”
The moment is hard to pinpoint — for it’s been a gradual process. But the assumption behind the question is true—very few people (at least in our circles) believe very much we’re being told by official channels anymore.
* “There’s progress on the hostage negotiations”? Right, we’ve heard that more than a few times. We’ll believe it when they’re home.
* “Army bases weren’t hit by the Iranian ballistic missiles.” Well, that’s a relief. Oh, oops. It turns out, they were.
* “But none were seriously damaged.” We’ll see how long it takes for that to get revised.
Some of this is politics, just as it would be in any other country. Some of it is the army censor, which both decides what it wants released and is also told by the political echelon what it can release.
But some of what’s happening here is different, and changing. There’s a cynicism, born of exhaustion, that is setting in. Hang around here and sit in enough cafés and restaurants and listen to the tables around you, and you can’t help but hear it and feel it. The whole thing is reminding me more and more of the tidal wave of cynicism that lies at the very core of Robin William’s brilliant performance in the clip (and the movie of which it’s a part) above.
The cynicism hasn’t yet reached the epic proportions that it had in America long before Good Morning Vietnam was produced (in 1987), but those at the helm of this country would be well advised to monitor the cynicism-meter closely and to take it dead-seriously.
For months, even more, we’ve been told that only military pressure will get all the hostages back, but that the army is making steady progress in destroying Hamas and getting us to that point. What sort of military progress is being made is anyone’s guess (the army censors, and all that), but the number of IDF coffins coming back is much less subjective.
So when Israelis read things like this headline on YNet from just this morning, the cynicism bubbling starts again:
The testimony that the political echelon has demanded be censored: “Hamas has not been defeated.”
Testimonies from commanders, conversations with senior officials, and monitoring of data reveal the reality that the IDF has been ordered to censor: it is employing a method of combat that is merely scattering the militants, concern over [IDF] casualties that is leading to slow progress, and complex tunnels that are still being discovered near the border.
It is now clear that the fighting, which was marketed as “Oz VeCherev” (“Valor and Sword”) and “Merkavot Gideon” (“Gideon’s Chariots”), was not planned for 2025—and on the ground, people are saying: “They’re selling the public a false image, even in another five years we’ll still be fighting here.”
We’ll be fighting here in another five years? Perhaps not. But perhaps yes? With what to show for it?
Those are the sorts of questions that remind some of us, of a certain age, of a different war. Hence Robin Williams’ unforgettable scene in the very brief clip above.
Speaking of the military censor. …
All news from the front, including casualties, is strictly controlled by the military censor. Very often our phones will start buzzing with rumors that soldiers were killed, but it will take hours, often until the next day, before anything is officially noted on the news—mostly to keep the enemy in the fog, and to have time to notify families.
Then, we hear the words everyone dreads: hutar le-pirsum. “The censor is now permitting us to report …” You know what’s coming. Somebody is dead. Sometimes many somebodies. The lives of another whole family, or many whole families, were just destroyed.
Moshe Shapiro, whose son Aner was murdered on October 7th after valiantly defending those in his small shelter by tossing grenades out of the shelter (where he and other Nova Festival participants had take refuge) and back at the Hamas murderers who had thrown them in, is among many other gifts also a very talented artist. He posted on his social media page this week a chilling sketch.
As those who live here understand immediately when they see it, it’s quite obviously a drawing of an Israeli military gravestone. They all look exactly the same, all the tens and thens of thousands of them spread across the country.
Typically, they list the name the soldier’s name, rank, date of birth, date of death, his/ her age upon death and (often) in what war s/he was killed, or where. That’s it. Except for the army insignia at the top right.
But not in Shapiro’s caustic, painful post this week:
Here, the tombstone reads, “hutar le-pirsum”: “The censor is now permitting us to report … He didn’t manage to get an exemption from army service.”
The reference to the Haredim is obvious, coming as the drawing does in a week when the Haredi parties left the coalition but have not yet brought down the government. They’re not going to vote with the government, but neither will they (for now) side with the opposition on votes of no confidence. Many of us are praying they take the long threatened hike, though the smart money is that Bibi will do just fine if they force elections.
I told my wife over a quick lunch today about Shapiro’s sketch, and her first words were “Oh, my God.”
Just like in the video clip above.
Then there’s Nir Dvori chiming in with more sobering news. Dvori is the widely admired and trusted military affairs correspondent on Channel 12. This clip was posted by Yaya Fink, a well known content producer and social and political activist, on his Facebook page.
By the way—and this is completely serious—try finding a therapist in Israel these days, especially one trained in trauma work. And then get on line ….
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And then there is Yaya Fink himself, with a message for Bezalel Smotrich. This clip is actually a few months old, but as the war grinds on and public frustration grows wider and deeper, the clip has enjoyed a bit of a comeback:
No one that I know here believes that the decisions our leadership needs to make are simple. Most people agree—the hostages have to come back. Now. But ask them, “Do you think there’s any way we’ll get them all?” and things get very quiet. Why in the world would Hamas ever do that?
Most people also agree that Hamas cannot be left in charge of Gaza. But after two years, if we haven’t dislodged them, do we really know how? Is it something we can even do? At what cost?
And if we can’t?
With many reservists having done 200, 300 and 400 days duty in this war, rage about the Haredim is about to explode. Will Bibi cave? How will the wider public respond if he does?
Earlier this week, the day 1,000 Israeli Druze crossed the border (in what was an exhibition of an extraordinary sense of obligation and duty to their fellow Druze, a subject about which I’ll post an essay next week), I wrote a friend who’d suggested we get together a few weeks ago — but I’d dropped the ball.
The crossed out name is his son—out of the army but in the reserves—who’s been in Gaza forever, I believe in the West Bank for a while and is now in Syria. This kid has served hundreds and hundreds of days.
I’d love to get a Haredi person across the table to stare this kid in the face and explain how what they’re demanding is just. I’d love to get the Likud MK’s who will invariably crumble and vote for a Haredi-demanded deal and ask them to explain to this kid how they sleep at night.
My friend is right. We do need to keep on laughing (and drinking gin and tonics). Those abroad who instead of drinking gin and tonics are drinking the “Israel’s winning everywhere” Kool-Aid (and we all know who’s sending those emails out) are missing a critical part of what is now the story of what it means to be Israeli.
It’s that part of being Israeli that will define the future of this place.
And it’s that part of being Israeli that desperately needs some rest.
With rest in mind … Shabbat Shalom.
