It’s Ruth Wasserman Lande’s call for greater mutual respect among the divided community that has the biggest significance in Israel today.
London
‘Crazy”, he said, “just crazy!” We were sitting in a restaurant in Jerusalem discussing the political situation in Israel with a well-known and respected journalist who had been reporting on the subject in major outlets for more than 40 years. The political scene in Israel has always been dynamic since the State was established 75 years ago, but it was clear from his voice that never has the future of Israel looked more uncertain.
Our visit of a small team of UK journalists to Israel two weeks ago was facilitated by Elnet, an NGO dedicated to strengthening Europe-Israel relations based on shared democratic values and strategic interests. This gave us the wonderful opportunity to discuss the complex issues in the country with the movers and shakers, including many politicians and journalists, and see at first-hand how the troubled Israeli-Palestinian relationship affects daily life for the ordinary citizen.
We didn’t have to wait long. Hours after our arrival the Israeli Defence Force launched a major operation in the West Bank city of Jenin to crack down on what it said was a hotbed of terror. According to the IDF, a number of attacks on Israelis in recent years had been carried out by Palestinians from the area. The operation, involving over 1,000 IDF troops, focussed on a local wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Terror group, known as the Jenin battalion. Palestinian health officials said 12 people were killed and at least 100 others were wounded, including 20 listed in serious conditions. The IDF claimed that their troops had located and demolished a large cache of weapons during the operation.
Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, traditionally high, have increased alarmingly across the West Bank and Gaza since the beginning of the year, inflamed by two ultra-nationalist far-right politicians, 42-year-old Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and 46-year-old National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Smotrich derides the concept of Palestine, saying “there’s no such thing as a Palestinian nation—there is no Palestinian history and there’s no Palestinian language”. Ben Gvir, who in the past was convicted of incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organisation, goes even further, allegedly calling for wider incursions into the West Bank to “blow up buildings and assassinate hundreds, or if needed, thousands of Palestinians”. Such rhetoric is unlikely to improve relations between the two sides and it’s no wonder that 24 Israelis have been killed in Israel and the West Bank since the beginning of the year, while 147 West Bank Palestinians, including many innocent civilians, have died during clashes with security forces.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s self-inflicted problem is that he needs the two parties headed by Smotrich and Ben-Gvir in order to have a majority in the Knesset, the Israel Parliament. Since 2019, Israelis have been to the polls no less than five times, because of the persistent deadlock between Netanyahu and his rivals on the left, right and centre. Only after the elections on 1 November last year, when Netanyahu’s Likud Party joined forces with the two ascendant ultra-nationalist parties of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, was there a coalition majority in the Knesset. This has created a lurch to extreme nationalism which has ratcheted up an already unstable situation in Israel. Few were surprised when Netanyahu was admitted to hospital last weekend suffering from dizziness, probably from stress, although he claimed the actual cause was de-hydration.
This was the political environment as we travelled along the border with Gaza, that narrow strip of land bordering Israel and Egypt, where more than two million Palestinians live, 40% of whom are below the age of 14. The Gaza strip, an area no more than twice that of Washington DC, is controlled by the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas. Following the violent intifada more than 20 years ago, Israel dismantled all its settlements in September 2005 and since then Gaza has had no Jewish population. Each day Israel allows some 25,000 Palestinians from Gaza to cross the border into Israel, where they can earn more than ten times the salaries available under Hamas, providing an income vital for Gaza’s economy.
You might think that this gesture by the Israelis would have been appreciated by Hamas. But no. Israeli towns and villages within a few miles of the border are regularly attacked by rockets fired from Gaza, especially after operations such as the one in Jenin. On return from witnessing how all goods entering Gaza are examined at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, a massive 24/7 operation, we lunched in the small city of Sderot which had been the target of three rockets fired from Gaza the night before. Sderot is a frequent goal of Hamas rockets, due to its close proximity to the border. Residents live under the constant fear of attack and even the children’s playground we visited has an air-raid shelter in the form of a snake. The youngsters have 10 seconds to scamper into it when they hear the warning sirens.
Fortunately, few rockets actually succeed in hitting Sderot because of the protective Iron Dome anti-rocket system close by. We visited this top-secret installation, operated by a team of young soldiers, several of whom were 18-year-old females who make critical decisions on firing the Iron Dome. All school-leavers in Israel are conscripted into the IDF, males for three years females for two, and the responsibility placed on these young shoulders is awesome.
Less awesome is the performance of the Netanyahu government which continues to divide the country. Over the past six months there have been huge crowds, some up to 150,000, protesting over a series of changes the government is making to Israel’s legal system aimed at weakening what Netanyahu claims is excessive powers of unelected judges. The proposed changes include giving Netanyahu’s allies control over the appointment of judges and the power to overturn court decisions they do not support. Opponents say the plan will destroy the country’s fragile system of checks and balances, and the real reason for the change is to protect Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges.
In all this turmoil, it was reassuring to come across a voice of reason in the country. Ruth Wasserman Lande is a former member of the Knesset for the National Unity Party who trained as a diplomat, serving in Egypt before working as an advisor to former Israeli President Shimon Peres. It took little time on meeting Ruth to realise that here was someone who clearly understood the main causes of the current dangers in Israel. Last month she criticised many Knesset members for their “uncouth and aggressive behaviour”, being a bad example for Israeli youth. Commenting on the poor state of the law enforcement mechanism in the country, the national police force, she wrote in June that “this long process of disintegration has received a seemingly fatal hit when six months ago Itamar Ben-Gvir, who until recently was himself a target for the Israeli police, was appointed to head the National Security Ministry”.
But it’s Ruth’s call for greater mutual respect among the divided community that has the biggest significance in Israel today. “Given the current tumultuous situation in the Israeli political arena, empathy and mutual respect must take a more prominent place among the public”, she wrote. “They exist in abundance among many in Israel. Many Israelis are, indeed, role models of selflessness and giving, generosity and kindness, yet their voices and impact do not succeed in rising above those who lack these virtues. The latter simply yell louder. It is the responsibility of each and every one of us to enhance and hail mutual respect and courtesy, not as a weakness, but as a heroic strength. I have little doubt that just a little respect from many will go a very long way”.
After our meeting with Ruth, we could only hope that her wise words will be heard in the corridors of power. Israel is divided on many fronts, not only between Israelis and Palestinians, but among Israelis themselves. The long-hoped-for “two-state solution” allowing Israelis and Palestinians to live peacefully side by side, is dead and buried, and ways must be found for a peaceful “one-state” solution. It’s also Israel’s great misfortune that the two ultra-Orthodox politicians, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, are less interested in integrating into a pluralist society than in strengthening their own autonomy and imposing Jewish religious law on the country. The growing number of Ultra-Orthodox Jews must learn to live alongside and understand those Israelis who are less extreme or even not religious, and vice versa.
If none of this happens the future of Israel is uncertain; and for a great country that would be “crazy, just crazy”.
John Dobson is a former British diplomat, who also worked in UK Prime Minister John Major’s office between 1995 and 1998. He is currently Visiting Fellow at the University of Plymouth.