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Opinion The Hamas horror is also a lesson on the price of populism
By Yuval Noah Harari
October 11, 2023 at 10:54 a.m. EDT
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem on Sept. 27. (Abir Sultan/Pool via Reuters)
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Yuval Noah Harari is the author of āSapiens,ā āHomo Deusā and āUnstoppable Usā and a professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Israelis are struggling to understand what has just hit us. We first compared the current disaster to the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Fifty years ago, the armies of Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack and inflicted on Israel a string of military defeats, before the Israel Defense Forces regrouped, regained the initiative and turned the tables.
But as more and more horrific stories and images emerge about the massacre of entire communities, it dawned on us that what has happened is nothing like the Yom Kippur War. In newspapers, on social media and in family gatherings, people are making comparisons to the Jewish peopleās darkest hours ā as when the mobile killing units of the Nazi Einsatzgruppen surrounded and murdered Jewish villagers during the Holocaust, and when pogroms were waged against Jews in the Russian Empire.
I personally have family and friends in the kibbutzim Beāeri and Kfar Aza, and have heard many horrifying stories. Hamas had full control of these two communities for hours. The terrorists went from house to house, systematically murdering families, killing parents in front of their children and taking hostages, even babies and grandmothers. Terrified survivors locked themselves inside cupboards and cellars, calling to the army and police for help that failed to come until, often, too late.
My 99-year-old uncle and his 89-year-old wife are members of Beāeri. All contact with them was cut shortly after Hamas took over the kibbutz. They hid in their house for hours as dozens of terrorists went rampaging and butchering. I received word that they survived. I know many people who have just received the worst news of their lives.
My aunt and uncle are two tough Jews ā born in Eastern Europe in the interwar years, they have already lost one world in the Holocaust. We grew up with stories about defenseless Jews hiding from the Nazis in cupboards and cellars, with no one coming to help them. The state of Israel was founded to ensure that this would never happen again.
So how did it happen? How did the state of Israel go missing in action?
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On one level, Israelis are paying the price for years of hubris, during which our governments and many ordinary Israelis felt we were so much stronger than the Palestinians, that we could just ignore them. There is much to criticize about the way Israel has abandoned the attempt to make peace with the Palestinians and has held for decades millions of Palestinians under occupation.
But this does not justify the atrocities committed by Hamas, which in any case has never countenanced any possibility for a peace treaty with Israel and has done everything in its power to sabotage the Oslo peace process. Anyone who wants peace must condemn and impose sanctions on Hamas and demand the immediate release of all hostages and Hamasās complete disarmament.
Moreover, irrespective of how much blame one ascribes to Israel, this does not explain the dysfunction of the state. History isnāt a morality tale.
The real explanation for Israelās dysfunction is populism rather than any alleged immorality. For many years, Israel has been governed by a populist strongman, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a public-relations genius but an incompetent prime minister. He has repeatedly preferred his personal interests over the national interest and has built his career on dividing the nation against itself. He has appointed people to key positions based on loyalty more than qualifications, took credit for every success while never taking responsibility for failures, and seemed to give little importance to either telling or hearing the truth.
The coalition Netanyahu established in December 2022 has been by far the worst. It is an alliance of messianic zealots and shameless opportunists, who ignored Israelās many problems ā including the deteriorating security situation ā and focused instead on grabbing unlimited power for themselves. In pursuit of this goal, they adopted extremely divisive policies, spread outrageous conspiracy theories about state institutions that oppose their policies, and labeled the countryās serving elites as ādeep stateā traitors.
The government was repeatedly warned by its own security forces and by numerous experts that its policies were endangering Israel and eroding Israeli deterrence at a time of mounting external threats. Yet when the IDFās chief of staff asked for a meeting with Netanyahu to warn him about the security implications of the governmentās policies, Netanyahu refused to meet him. When Defense Minister Yoav Gallant nevertheless raised the alarm, Netanyahu fired him. He was then forced to reinstate Gallant only because of an outbreak of popular outrage. Such behavior over many years enabled a calamity to strike Israel.
No matter what one thinks of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the way populism corroded the Israeli state should serve as a warning to other democracies all over the world.
Israel can still save itself from catastrophe. It still enjoys a decisive military edge over Hamas, as well as over its many other enemies. The long memory of Jewish suffering is now galvanizing the nation. The IDF and other state organs are recovering from their initial shock. Civil society is mobilizing like never before, filling many gaps left by governmental dysfunction. Citizens stand in long queues to donate blood, welcome refugees from the war zone into their homes and donate food, clothes and other necessities.
In this hour of need, we also call upon our friends throughout the world to stand by us. There is much to criticize about Israelās past behavior. The past cannot be changed, but hopefully once victory over Hamas is secured, Israelis will not only hold our current government to account, but will also abandon populist conspiracies and messianic fantasies ā and make an honest effort to realize Israelās founding ideals of democracy at home and peace abroad.
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Is there a chance Israel could be wiped off the map in the medium term? They have Palestine to the west, Lebanon to the north, Iran and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia to the east - with all of these players backed by Russia, intent on their downfall from various scales of total obliteration downwards. Thereās a fair pincer movement against them if they all start moving in simultaneously and bombard them aerially and indeed on the ground. No real inhospitable ground there like Ukraine has for example and in comparison a fairly small land mass to fight for/in. If all of these countries are hell bent on colluding then they are possibly goosed. World War 3 fought on their turf with the Americanās wading in to support them.
No chance all of those groups ever align.
No chance. America will cluster bomb the fuck out of the middle east again
So Biden says he saw pictures of babies beheaded.
Sad thing is you wouldnāt believe me him either
Netanyahu is a busted flush. Heāll be done from within
Itās in his interest to drag this whole sorry affair out for as long as he can.
It probably is and youāre right, but thereās opposition within Israel now who fundamentally disagree with that approach. Heās a dead man walking
Theyāll simply resort to nukes.
Do they not see the contradiction in this?
Israeli retalitory strikes on Gaza have killed 1,100 Palestinians, including 326 children with 5,339 people injured. More than 260,000 people have fled their homes in the Gaza Strip as heavy Israeli bombardments from the air, land and sea continued, the UN said.
Biden has pledged to send more US munitions and military hardware and expressed revulsion at the āsheer evilā of the slaughter of civilians.
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Heās up for election. He canāt afford to lose the jewish vote, or jewish donors to all the democratic campaigns. He needs to be seen to be tough on any aggression towards Israel, even if himself and Obama lost patience with them and treated their politicians with open scorn, and largely ignored them.
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Follow the campaign sponsorship money.
Heās as venal as any of them.
Biden on about terrorists beheading children now.
Is this actually substantiated?
It would essentially give Israel carte blanche to do what they wanted with Gaza in much the way David Kellys dossier on WMD gave US pretty much licence to do whatever they wanted in Iraq without fear of any condemnation. But it appears we are already and truly past that point now with carpet bombings and denying of basic aid.
They donāt see Palestinians as human
Itās all politics, if he is seen as anything other than hardline on this the Republicans will beat him over the head with it and say heās weak.
The truth is he is weak for nothing standing up to the Republicans.
Probably lucky Israeli asset Jared Kushner isnāt in the White House though. Heād probably have boots on the ground already
Meanwhile thousands will die, probably tens of thousands.
A sad World
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This is like an old fashioned Medevil siege. Cut off the food and water and let them starve to death.
Israel have said they wonāt give them water again until they get their hostages back.
2 million people. Thatās a genocide
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