Last week the New England Journal of Medicine published a letter co-authored by four physicians — two Israeli Americans, an Israeli and an American — who addressed the levels of destruction in Gaza and the indifference of the American medical community to the effects of the genocide committed by the Israeli military. Ynet, Israel’s most popular news portal, published an article citing Israeli physicians who were highly critical of the letter. The reaction from Ynet and the physicians they cite speaks volumes about the ways in which Israelis understand themselves in “war” as well as in a ceasefire.
“Since Oct. 7,” the Ynet piece begins, “quite a few antisemitic or at least false articles have been published, accusing Israel of genocide and the intentional starvation of Gazans. This was also argued in an article published last week by the … New England Journal of Medicine.” The writer does not claim the article is false or antisemitic, because that could constitute slander. But the implication is clear.
According to the Ynet article, professor Amit Segev, head of the Israeli Cardiological Society, was outraged by the letter. Ynet reports that Segev initiated a scathing email correspondence with professor Naftali Kaminsky, one of its authors, in which he accuses Kaminsky of publishing an “anti-Israel piece in the most important medical journal in the world.” Segev writes that while “as a person, an Israeli and a physician, I personally do not support this government … I support Israel and the soldiers of the IDF. I am just a true Zionist. I would give my life for this country and will never leave it.”
This, in a nutshell, is how liberal Israelis understand their reality and respond to it. The ceasefire announced this week is simply another variation on a theme. According to their worldview, there is an enemy seeking their destruction. When they fight that enemy, they are allowed to do whatever they feel is necessary to defend themselves. (I did not translate Segev’s impassioned speeches in which he claimed 90% of Palestinians in Gaza support Hamas, there is no famine in Gaza and the Israeli military is the most moral military in the world.) When they fight that enemy, they can do no wrong. Regardless of one’s personal position, a loyal citizen and a true Zionist would never air their dirty laundry and would do whatever is asked of them by the state. Political differences pale before this unity. Palestinians exist as a blurry enemy if they exist at all. Fantasies about destruction and annihilation used to be the quiet part Israelis could never say out loud if they wanted to belong. Now those fantasies have been incorporated into the collective understanding as a fact.
Once this article of faith is understood, it is easier to approach the ceasefire from the Israeli side as a convergence of political interests devoid of any reckoning or change of heart. This understanding can actually make one cautiously optimistic with regard to the prospects of this ceasefire. Its success or failure on the Israeli side does not depend on generating a significant process, accepting responsibility or envisioning a long-term regional future. The success of the ceasefire depends on the ability of Israelis to continue living in their self-enclosed, solipsistic bubble while causing as little damage as possible to other countries in the region and to the Palestinians. As long as Israelis are allowed to go back to their endless, domestic tagging wars — claiming to be liberal while also insisting on the democratic right of their prime minister to order and perpetrate a genocide — they will remain content. Israelis know what their army did in Gaza. They know because they did it. Israelis understand that Israel is now identified not just with occupation and racism, but with genocide. They reason, as they always have, that this only proves the inherent antisemitism of that world. Israelis will make do, find the cracks, employ charm and chutzpah and cyberweapons for sale to all and sundry and hope for the best.
In fact, Israelis on social media platforms have already begun this process. In widely shared posts with dozens of responses, they have already forgotten every aspect of the war except the hostages and their imminent release. They interpret the release of the hostages as proof that the mass demonstrations and other forms of public pressure generated by the liberal Israelis succeeded. They feel reassured that their country is, indeed, still a paragon of Jewish solidarity despite the attempts of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cohorts to make “Israeliness” a partisan identity, by practicing wedge politics that label those in the anti-Netanyahu camp as traitors and anti-Zionists. They remind one another that the settlers, who opposed any hostage deal based on the claim that it would reward terrorism, have once again proved themselves to be fanatic messianists and must be fought as such. Liberal Israelis will, as journalist Moran Sharir wrote in Haaretz, “return to feeling happy without guilt.”
Such sentiments are beneficial to Netanyahu, the man who is, seemingly, the enemy of the liberal camp. He is the one who abandoned the hostages to their fate. He is also the one who was in charge on Oct. 7, 2023. To add insult to injury, he is on trial for corruption. The anti-Netanyahu protesters who demanded the immediate return of the hostages believed they were continuing the protests against the government’s plan to end the judiciary’s independence, which would have been the final nail in the coffin of their liberal Israel. But Netanyahu knows the liberals much better than they know themselves. He is very much aware of the fact that while his liberal opponents called for an end to “Netanyahu’s war,” they never mentioned the fate of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Netanyahu knows that his opponents in parliament, the politicians who represent the liberals, have repudiated the idea of forming an alliance between the non-Zionist parties that represent Palestinian citizens and the anti-Netanyahu Zionist parties, even though such an alliance could have toppled the Netanyahu government. The liberals continue to position themselves as opponents of the occupation and of war crimes. Still, they believe — as they always have — that the single most important goal is getting rid of Netanyahu. Once that goal is accomplished, they say, they will be in a position to address issues like the integration of Palestinian citizens or the end of the occupation.
This rhetoric makes Netanyahu stronger. All of his liberal political opponents are aligned with him on his so-called security policies, from the reckless and futile war with Iran to the genocide in Gaza. None of them is willing to consider the notion of a Palestinian state, let alone a single state with equal civil and human rights for all. The settlers have never liked Netanyahu. They have always seen him as a leader who lacks courage and who does not share their values. The liberals have always hated Netanyahu as a person. They believe he is motivated solely by greed and venality. Both sides fail to see Netanyahu as what he really is — the representative of a quintessentially Israeli middle ground. Not particularly ideological, his dismissal of Palestinian lives is as effortless as his new alliance with the global far right. Focused on survival (his own and, he believes, that of the Jewish people), he will stop at nothing to ensure his own supremacy in any struggle over resources or stature. Having signed the deal, Netanyahu has now received permission from U.S. President Donald Trump, who will not support Israel indefinitely, to be as disruptive as he can be while positioning himself, in the eyes of Israelis, as the grown-up in the room. After all, say Israelis, he managed to sign this deal despite his obligation to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, whose constituents are the settlers, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has become the mascot of the populist far right. Both men had threatened to withdraw from the governing coalition if Netanyahu agreed to a ceasefire deal; now, their threats have been proven empty. They like being in power too much.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu continues to destroy Hamas and kill Palestinian civilians. On Thursday, the headlines in Israeli newspapers blared: “Four Dead and 40 Missing,” celebrating yet another “successful” attack on Hamas that left dozens of Palestinians buried under the rubble of their apartment building. Netanyahu must be doing something right! When he finally calls the next election, he can win by accusing some of his potential rivals of extremism to appease the liberals, and others of appeasing “the Arabs,” to signal to his right-wing base that he is still aligned with their values. This is how he will stand out in a remarkably uninspiring field of purported opponents who are in reality his pale imitations.
This, alongside pressure from an irate Trump — as military correspondent Amos Harel said on the Haaretz podcast, when Trump starts to talk like Tony Soprano, Netanyahu knows he means business — is why the prime minister signed the ceasefire deal. He is counting on those tens of thousands who thought they were demonstrating against him for three years, first in protest against the government’s judicial reform plan and then to demand a ceasefire deal for the release of the hostages, to support his decision. He knows they have no interest in settling Gaza. He also understands that while they accept the genocide, there is a limit to their acceptance of failure. Israel, after all, has failed abysmally in achieving its own goals. Hamas has not been destroyed, and only 20 of the 48 remaining hostages are alive. The Israeli military, while excelling at demolition, bombing and ethnic cleansing, has no desire to take the fall for the political authorization of a genocide. Israel no longer enjoys full impunity. It has become a liability to its greatest friends, from the U.K. to Germany and even the Oval Office. Israelis long for the return of their solipsistic politics, characterized by invoking the wrath of the world and the conviction that the world judges them unfairly, the world places them under a microscope and the world doesn’t care about them. Netanyahu knows he is at the end of his rope and that there must be an election by 2026, so why delay?
Of course, all the other players have immediate interests as well. Trump wants a reprieve from the Epstein files and growing MAGA criticism of his attempts at domestic war. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wants to be relevant again as his opposition grows from strength to strength in Turkey. The Gulf monarchies, once afraid of Iran as the most significant foil to their dominance, now fear Israel and its recklessness even more. Nobody is endorsing this ceasefire for the sake of the Palestinians. The Talmud famously says: “He will come to the truth even when he starts from an untruth,” referring to a man studying Torah for remuneration who gradually opens his heart and soul to the Torah’s eternal truths. After two years of genocide, it is impossible to expect a genuine process of reckoning and acknowledgment. Genocide is not resolved by peace, whatever that word may mean. In the case of Gaza, perhaps the most optimistic approach would be a massive gesture of misdirection. If all-powerful players can be convinced to impose broad obligations and vouch for them under the guise of meeting the most specific of constraints and desires, there may be hope yet.
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