The majority of the Israeli public, which opposes the war, thinks that the war jeopardizes the hostages’ lives and that the fighting was resumed for political reasons. I was somehow able to understand the Israeli reaction at the start of the war, after October 7, 2023, even though it did not directly refer to the Palestinian victims. At that time, the response was intended to protect against being labeled as “traitors.” But after 18 months of mass killing, which will enter the history books as an eternal disgrace, that mechanism can no longer work.

Although resuming the war will kill the hostages, it mainly kills masses of Palestinian men, women, children and the elderly. At what point will anti-war Israelis say aloud what should be said and stop being euphemistic? I understand there has been some coming to terms with being labeled “child murderers.” Is it possible to reach a lower moral nadir? Doesn’t it frighten them to be labeled as such?

It’s already impossible to distinguish between things in Israel. It’s impossible to distinguish the media from the public. Because even those who oppose the war are afraid to say that Gazans are human, too. Because it’s impossible to separate the pilot from the bomb. He’s told to push the button and he pushes it. The majority of the people not only tolerate mass slaughter, but demand it, either explicitly or tacitly.

There is something warped in the narrative, which is currently being presented by the liberal Jewish public in Israel, as a struggle to save Israeli democracy. This struggle exists in the near total absence of reference to the war’s lethal consequences on Gaza and Gazans.