The West Bank and Tel Aviv 2024 - Stanley Barkan

Israel is at a crossroads. The succession of radical events, starting in January 2023 with the putative judicial reform and intensifying to an unbearable level after October 7, continues to unfold. It feels like the country and its people are careening all over the place with no solid footing, and yet I believe it is incumbent on us to take stock. If the Israeli government does not wish to talk about "the day after,” we must. Paradoxically, thinking about the day after may offer footing for today.

I am not a professional writer and I claim no expertise in political analysis or current affairs. However, I do have a viewpoint, reached after many years of involvement in the political life of Israel at the individual and community level. This is my "take" on Israel in 2024, a "take" of one veteran graduate of Habonim South Africa.

The background I bring to this "take" is succinctly characterized by two recent activities: In the years 2018 to 2020 my wife and I organized and ran a community partnership project in the Carmel Coast area. The project brought Jewish and Arab primary schoolchildren together in an intensive framework, outside of the school system. In the last year, since October 7th, we have been attending a string of funerals and memorial ceremonies at Kibbutz Be’eri on the Gazan border, where my wife once lived. These two diverse activities have led me to intimate contact with two very different communities. Let me start from there.

Today, my Palestinian Israeli acquaintances in the towns of Fureidis and Jisr a Zarqa on the Carmel coast, some of whom participated in our partnership project, are hunkering down in reaction to a sharp change in attitude of Jewish Israel. (I say 'Palestinian Israelis' with intent, because that is exactly their conflictual identity; their country is Israel but their ethnic identity and culture are Palestinian Arab). In the first days after October 7th, the people from these towns did not venture out at all. After a few weeks, in late October, a WhatsApp chat group of several hundred Carmel Coast Jews and Arabs, started in 2020, organized a series of moderated, mixed circle meetings to enable local people to express their feelings. Despite the palpable tension, both Jews and Arabs spoke out. On the Palestinian side, I sensed genuine horror at what happened on October 7th but also great difficulty in accepting that it was done by other Palestinians, their ethnic compatriots. I felt their deep discomfort. They quickly wanted to change the subject from the Hamas massacres to the devastating IDF bombing in Gaza and to their own fears, raised by the sharp change in attitude towards them within Jewish Israel. The citizens of Fureidis said that in previous Gazan conflicts, they would donate money and humanitarian aid to Gazan refugee families, often their own relatives. This time they were certain that if they did so, they would be arrested. My impression was that they had been warned or threatened. Among the Jewish participants in the meetings, I sensed a strong desire to verify that the local Palestinian Arabs dissociated themselves from, and were opposed to, Hamas. That way perhaps co-operation might continue. Their desire was met. The Palestinian Arab participants expressed no sign of sympathy towards Hamas. This anti-Hamas stand is of course in marked distinction to the significant Palestinian support for Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza but more about that later.

With respect to my Jewish friends from Be’eri and other Gazan border settlements like Karmia and Ein Habsor, they seem to be split between those who have undergone a change of attitude and those who have undergone an affirmation of attitude. What the Hamas Nukhba forces did on October 7th has seared indelible marks on the consciousness of both groups. I cannot imagine a process other than the passage of time that will enable those marks to fade. But if our concern is the day after, the question is where those marks will lead.

My friends who underwent a change in attitude have basically lost trust in the Palestinians. They see justification for a prolonged, all-out war until Hamas is 'destroyed'. It seems reasonable to assume that they also inject an instinctive desire for revenge onto that platform. For them, the enormous loss of life and extreme damage to property in Gaza are seen as fair and legitimate costs. Only in the summer of 2024, when it became undeniably clear that hostages were dying because of the prolonged war, did that attitude become less total. A desire to end the war and bring them home also kicked in. A key characteristic of this group is the conviction that Hamas and the general Palestinian population cannot be separated. They are the same Jew-hating body and must be treated as such. Some are convinced that Israeli Palestinians also belong to that body. Apropos the day after, this group believes, and is reconciled to the 'fact', that Israel will be at war forever, or decades at the least.

My friends who have undergone what I call an affirmation of attitude have a variety of opinions about the current war with Hamas, from those in favor of all-out war till "final victory" is reached, to those favoring the immediate cessation of hostilities and a secured withdrawal. However, they do have something significant in common – they have been strengthened in their conviction that the only viable way forward the day after is definitely not a better military strategy, even if it brings a longer military standoff. What is needed is a diplomatic strategy that could lead to a really longlasting period of peace, based on secure agreements.

The events and consequences above relate to the here and now for the man in the street or the woman on the Gazan border. But the day after, and where we go from here, relate to the entire chain of events that led us here and to the people in power – the strategists and the politicians – who must manage what happens next. We need answers to questions like: Was it inevitable? Is Netanyahu responsible? Can someone else fix it? Put another way, is Netanyahu creating this history or is he just an incidental, even if powerful, character in the unfolding of something over which he has very little control?

A common view says the current coalition is a device engineered by Netanyahu to ensure his political survival, a quid-pro-quo arrangement in which each side has approximately equal agency. However, in my opinion, taking a wider view, it is actually the opposite – it is the ideas of the religious Zionists and the Haredim that have been directing our governments, including Netanyahu, for years. After all, Netanyahu has no declared, constructive vision, so he is not "using" his partners for anything other than himself. The Haredim too do not have a comprehensive political vision; their manipulations are focused solely on their own communities. On the other hand, the religious Zionists do have a well-defined, comprehensive political vision. It is not the original, religious Zionist vision, which was quite liberal, but an updated vision of untainted Jewish sovereignty and supremacy from the river to the sea, rooted in religious doctrine. Two hard pieces of evidence for the advanced state of that vision are the plethora of legal and illegal settlements on the West Bank and the current, pervasive presence of settler ideology in most branches and echelons of the government and the army. A third piece of evidence is the total absence of security control in the West Bank. Today, security forces do not dismantle new illegal settlements or oppose settler "pogroms" in Arab villages. They stand idly by. Indeed the entire gamut of life in the West bank is now under the aegis of the ministries led by Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. This fact is best explained by ascribing primary agency to the settler idea, which now drives both the settlers and the forces that ostensibly police them. The West Bank is no longer an extension of sovereign Israel; it is more like an independent sub-entity pushing the rest of Israel in the direction it wants. The tail really is wagging the dog. The realization that the religious Zionist idea is growing in influence and taking over key administrative positions in all areas of public life, and not only in the West Bank, is not new. It has been documented and analyzed since the founding of Gush Emunim in the 70s. Yet people still choose to view the Jewish political landscape as a battle between two familiar, opposing democratic forces – a liberal, progressive force versus a conservative, nationalist force, with Netanyahu seen as an exploitative opportunist riding one force and deriding the other. In this picture, the religious Zionists form a small, even if significant, part of the second force.

I suggest refining the picture. I think that what is really happening is a binary conflict between one extreme idea – the well-defined, almost messianic vision of a Jewish holy land – and a second imprecise, amorphous idea – that of a more or less liberal-democratic, more or less secular, more or less Jewish state. To put it succinctly – the conflict is the West Bank versus Tel Aviv and Haifa. The intricate Israeli politics we observe, which seemingly stem from a host of conflicting ethnic and cultural streams, is a surface illusion. The two core currents that dictate the surface movements are those of the binary ideological conflict. If this is true, clearly political actions such as dethroning Netanyahu and establishing a new government will yield no more than transient benefits.

The only way to overcome a successful, flourishing idea like the current religious Zionist vision is to actively offer and cultivate a better idea, a more attractive vision. The liberal secular movement has not succeeded in doing so. People who still support the liberal idea need to face up to the underlying problem and not concentrate on immediate political actions such as removing Netanyahu from power. I fear that even if Yair Golan, for example, succeeds in joining the coalition after Netanyahu's exit, it will do no more than briefly impede the country's current trajectory.

To actively offer and cultivate a better idea than the maximal, Jewish supremacist state requires three things: defining and articulating a clear, simple vision; developing a plan for disseminating that vision to the public, including how to penetrate the education system and governmental bodies; and patient implementation of the plan over an extended period – for years, if not decades. That is what the settler movement did from the 1970s to this day.

I believe that chaverim and ex-chaverim of Habonim who still maintain a liberal, democratic vision have an important role to play in bringing about the day after. The challenge is at our door. If we and others live up to that challenge, the consequences of that vision – a sensible government, a plan for peace with the Palestinians, a modicum of pluralistic unity, and so on, might actually be realized.

Epilogue

A few things I learned lately impressed me as apt examples of proactive contribution to the aim of restoring a liberal, democratic trajectory to Israeli politics.

Yair (Yaya) Fink is a well-known liberal religious activist. He recently initiated an impressive project aimed at the synagogue communities, which effectively encompass, among others, all religious Zionist supporters. Most of these communities distribute a weekly Shabbat Bulletin (an "Alon Shabbat") in which they invariably disseminate the current religious Zionist doctrine. Fink's idea is to print and distribute an alternative Shabbat Bulletin to all the synagogues he can reach. In the bulletin, he presents an alternative religious vision, one more like the original religious Zionist doctrine. To fund the initiative he appealed to his media followers and easily raised the required starting sum. I have no doubt that the project can and will become an ongoing venture.

A second example, which reinforced my belief that a simple alternative vision could be formulated, is what a totally secular friend of mine – Ukrainian in fact – had to say when I described to him the battle between two fundamental ideas. He said he believes the liberal forces need to define their vision on the basis of Jewish (as opposed to universal) sources. He says there must be acceptable, original Jewish sources that can support a liberal, democratic vision. I don't think that orthodox or traditional Jews will ever accept anything that looks like Reform Judaism but there is another approach. In Israel today, there is a steady stream of talented people taking up some form of Jewish religiosity. A good example is Kobi Oz. The covering text for his song Elohay says: "Written as an ode and duet to his deceased grandfather, a Tunisian rabbi and paytan, the song raises important questions about Judaism in Israeli society, such as religious coercion and pluralism, trends toward extremism, and the challenges of forming a personal relationship with God. This song is from Oz’s album “Psalms for the Perplexed,” which mixes Jewish ideas and liturgy with secular sensibilities." Artists like Kobi Oz (and there are many) view Jewishness as something more cultural than national.

Another alternative vision based on Jewish sources that already runs in Israeli "Mamlakhti" (secular) schools is the Be’eri Program for Pluralistic Jewish-Israeli Identity.

To sum up, a Jewish movement based on a pluralistic Jewish concept might just be the "better idea" that attracts younger people before they become locked into the Bnei Akiva movement with its religious Zionist ideology or the Shas movement with its orthodox, anti-military elite. A cultural Jewish movement might even push to separate religion from state in order to secure the expression of Judaism as a cultural rather than religious entity.

From the other direction, there are secular strategies for promoting a liberal vision. One such initiative tackles the challenge via local government. Because of Israel's proportional electoral system, central budget control is highly susceptible to ideological interests whereas local budget control is far less susceptible. "The One Hundred Initiative" is a new, politically independent, civil society organization that, among other things, lobbies for moving more of the national budget to municipalities and local authorities. This is highly advantageous to a liberal vision because it is much easier to get liberal people into government at the local level than at the national level. In fact, this strategy is already being successfully followed by small progressive parties.

And finally, what about our own heritage – the role of the youth movement? What should be considered Hagshama today? Enough said.