In a war that’s far from over, renewed infighting is a luxury Israel cannot afford
We are fighting an enemy that wants to kill us all. Surely, after October 7, that challenge is sufficiently tangible and dangerous as to at least temporarily banish our differences
David Horovitz is the founding editor of The Times of Israel. He is the author of "Still Life with Bombers" (2004) and "A Little Too Close to God" (2000), and co-author of "Shalom Friend: The Life and Legacy of Yitzhak Rabin" (1996). He previously edited The Jerusalem Post (2004-2011) and The Jerusalem Report (1998-2004).
This Editor’s Note was sent out earlier Wednesday in ToI’s weekly update email to members of the Times of Israel Community. To receive these Editor’s Notes as they’re released, join the ToI Community here.
Always present, but relatively marginalized in the immediate aftermath of the horrors of October 7, Israel’s deep internal divisions have been coming to the surface again these last few days.
Somehow, we have to keep those divisions at bay. We cannot afford the luxury of revived national infighting.
We are nowhere near the “day after” our war to destroy Hamas. Much of the international community has placed itself firmly against us, and for that matter, a devastating proportion has turned against the Jews. The supportive United States is under pressure. And the war against an evil and pernicious enemy is proving predictably bloody, protracted and complex.
One of the factors that led Hamas to believe that it would be able to smash across the border into Israel on October 7 and massacre our people, and that we would not be able to muster the long-term national will to fight back and destroy it, was the profoundly debilitating rift in our society over the nature of the Israel we want to live in, as evidenced by the months of infighting over the Netanyahu government’s judicial overhaul.
Hamas saw an Israel divided; an Israel whose defense minister had warned that the rifts had entered the ranks of the military; and an Israel whose limited military resources were being strained by challenges on multiple fronts.
With consequences that we are far from having fully internalized and from which we will never fully recover, Hamas’s monstrous terrorist army was indeed able to burst into southern Israel and carry out its exultant orgy of mass murder two and a half months ago. We have yet even to begin to properly mourn those 1,200 lost lives and come to terms with the unconscionable policy failures and irresponsible security misconceptions that left southern Israel utterly vulnerable.
But Hamas was mistaken in thinking Israel would not be able to fight back. Outnumbered heroes fought with extraordinary valor on the day, and the Israel Defense Forces managed to organize itself, albeit so terribly belatedly, overcome the 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists who had invaded, and then quickly take the fight into Hamas-ruled territory.
At the lowest point in modern Israeli history, we unified and fought back. Reservists reported in higher numbers than sought; volunteerism filled the abyss left by a dysfunctional government.
The determination to battle until Hamas is dismantled and the hostages are returned remains firm even as the war deepens and the losses mount.
But Hamas is skillfully sowing divides among the families of the hostages. The tragic IDF shooting of three hostages who had managed to escape has exacerbated the fears for those who have now been held in captivity for an unthinkable 75 days.
The prime minister, as is his wont, is fueling division by meeting with carefully selected relatives of hostages; by refusing to take the elementary step of acknowledging his overall responsibility for the failures that paved the way to Hamas’s onslaught; by playing politics in picking a public fight with the Biden administration over postwar Gaza; by planting self-serving questions at press conferences, and more.
And he presides over a government that, rather than govern effectively when so badly needed — in supporting the workforce, in taking care of the displaced from south and north, in organizing education, in providing for the families of the hundreds of thousands of reservists — we now see devoting its meetings to bickering of unbelievable infantilism.
Reading the leaks from Monday’s security cabinet meeting, it is evident that many of the ministers charged with running the country lack the most basic understanding of how the war is being waged and that they combine this ignorance with contemptible disrespect for the IDF commanders who are leading it. Basically, on Monday, they were asking IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi why it was taking so long to destroy a Hamas that had spent 16 years building up its ability to counter precisely the air and ground offensive on which the army of Israel is now embarked. The shameless Itamar Ben Gvir, an extremist who, of course, should have no place at any leadership table, led the verbal assault, and Benjamin Netanyahu, who empowered him, was largely silent.
The war, as the generals have said from the start, will be long and arduous. A new generation of Israeli conscripts is proving emphatically willing and capable of waging it, and prepared to put its lives on the line in the existential defense of this country. Yes, existential — because neither Hamas nor any other entity in Gaza must ever be able to threaten Israel, because our other enemies must be deterred, and because Israelis need to be confident that this country can keep them safe. Vast numbers of reservists have now been wrenched away from their normal lives, their families, their work, for two months or more — and, pitched into a battlefield where death lurks at every corner, are fighting uncomplainingly.
The logistics and practicalities of the war are stunningly complicated: Israel is tackling the Hamas terror army on its home turf; it is fighting gunmen masquerading as civilians; as it moves south, the challenges of seeking out Hamas in ever closer proximity to the vast displaced populace from the north of the Strip become ever more intricate; and it is discovering that Hamas’s underworld and other defenses are far more extensive and sophisticated than it had previously recognized.
All this while Hamas gloats over its “successes” on October 7 and since, vows to do it all again and again and again, while simultaneously lying to a delightedly gullible international community about what happened on that blackest day and what is happening every day in Gaza.
As with Israeli society overall, the divisions in our people’s army were obviously all extant from the very start of the war. Personal politics and beliefs didn’t evaporate when reservists put on their uniforms. Some soldiers went into Gaza hoping Israel will now stay there for good, and will revive the settlement enterprise that was dismantled in 2005. Others put down their anti-government “Democracy or Revolt” banners to pick up their guns. Those unsurprising divisions, if they widen — under the strain of mounting losses, exhaustion, and growing national dissent — will impact the IDF’s capacity to win this war.
Disunity left Israel tragically vulnerable to Hamas’s evil. Cohesion amid the national crisis gave Israel the resolve and the strength to fight back. The entry of Benny Gantz’s National Unity party into the emergency coalition, and the support from most of the opposition for the war effort, should have, and must, enable something close to unity being maintained by the political leadership.
Hamas does not think for one moment that the conflict it started is over. Its Gaza leadership is largely intact, and believes that it will survive this war, regroup, and get to keep on killing us. Wisdom from our generals, valor from our soldiers, and responsible leadership from our politicians are essential to ensuring that is not the case.
But above all, we need cohesion and the continued recognition of our shared purpose. We are fighting an enemy that wants to kill us all. Surely, after October 7, that challenge is sufficiently tangible and dangerous as to banish our differences, at least until we have restored our magnificent and vital state’s ability to function safely and our people’s capacity to live securely in our own land.
