Haaretz
Written by: Gideon Levy 5/14/2023
Is this how you want to continue living? On the sword, from war to war, one less feasible than the previous, all wars of choice. An Israeli option, without a future and without interest? Operation No. 17 in Gaza in 19 years. Almost every year – war or operation. Sometimes, like in 2004, two operations. The last so far is coming to an end on the eve of its sixth day, the Six Day War.
Perhaps the most ordinary and vulgar of them all. Just a war that few cared about, Tel Aviv went at its climax to hear Aviv Geffen in Park and towards the end watched the Eurovision Song Contest. This war was triggered by the deliberate killing of a prisoner. Also her formal pretensions turn into trivialities. What came next was repeated exactly as the blood froze in the veins – the beginning, the middle, and the end, as in the previous one and the previous one. Only the amount of blood and destruction has changed, always the absolute majority of which is Palestinian.
It is the frightening banality of the latest war that makes it so dangerous. The Israelis are used to it being like this, and there is nothing that can be done, rain in the winter and war in the summer. A war every year, without reason, without benefit, without results, without victors, without defeated, just periodic bloodshed, like maintenance after 10,000 kilometers on a car. Do you really want to continue living? This question is more crucial than any other question, including the judicial coup, and it is not even raised for discussion.
To continue to live like this means to accept the situation as a predestination from heaven, or as a judgment from cynical politicians and generals eager to go to battle, with the enthusiastic encouragement of analysts and correspondents who start wars, and from the cheerleaders for every war in Israel. There is no opposition to the war in Israel, certainly not at its inception, and therefore no alternative is offered to it either. Do you really want to live like this? The answer is always: what choice is there before us? There is an option, an option that has never been tried, but it is not even possible to suggest it. The range of opportunities before the Israelis ranges between slaughter and killing, between bombing from the air and a ground operation. We are at war. There is nothing else.
To continue living like this means to kill disgusting numbers of human beings including children and women in order to please the warlords, and every time also to kill and then of course to take the role of the victim; Living in terror in the south, occasionally also in the center, ignoring with fearful closure the terrible horror that exists in Gaza, and being enslaved to the media, most of which do not report on the suffering there, and when they do, it is preferable not to do so.
Again, there was no way to understand the degree of horror of this little war without Al Jazeera. At a time when they were busy in the Israeli media publishing about weddings that were postponed and parties that were canceled, Al-Jazeera showed the horrors of Gaza. The world did not care this time, it is exhausted, to bleed. Condemnation, yawn, and go to sleep.
When the Israelis start asking themselves, do they really want to continue living like this, options will be presented, there are no magic solutions and there are no guarantees of success, there is only one thing that is guaranteed: it has never been tried. We never thought about self-control, this is for the weak. We never asked what would result from all these liquidations and frustrations. We have never examined whether these wars contributed to security or weakened it. Now, too, the jihad is reaching Tel Aviv and under conditions of siege. One day they will learn to appreciate the determination and courage of those who have managed to create such caged resistance, even if we continue to scream, killing organizations.
Do we want to continue living like this? Okay. No doubt. If we wanted to live differently, we would have changed direction long ago, lifted the blockade on Gaza and talked to its leaders about its future. If we don’t try, this is a sign that we want to continue living like this.
2023 © 
