Only a few months ago, eighteen-year-old Johnny, a sturdy young man with glasses, was unsure whether he should join the military, even though it is legally required. Like many Israelis, he feared that the legal reforms that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government wants to implement would undermine democracy, and he was reluctant to risk his life for such a government.
Johnny – like many conscripts, he does not want his surname in the newspaper – has now been in service for two months and after Hamas’ bloody attack on southern Israel he is more motivated than ever. “A good friend of mine was killed by Hamas at a base near Gaza and I have heard all kinds of terrible stories,” he says, sweating in his uniform at a bus stop next to an armed forces training center in Tel Hashomer, a distant suburb of Tel Aviv.
“Now we all have to help as much as possible and protect the country. If we don’t do it, who will? We are young and strong.” And with surprising certainty he adds another Darwinian wisdom: “If you don’t fight, you die. Such is life in Israel. It’s kill or be killed.”
Rockets continued to be fired at Tel Aviv from the Gaza Strip on Tuesday. While most shops and offices have been closed for days, men and women in uniform are coming and going at the entrance to the military training center. Thanks to the war that broke out this weekend between Israel and Hamas, the armed forces are once again enjoying unprecedented popularity, a phenomenon that often occurs in times of war. At the same time, many citizens and analysts argue also critical questions about the military’s inability to prevent Hamas’ massive attacks and their slow response.
Also from abroad
The government wants now Mobilize 300,000 reservists, a lot for a country with more than nine million inhabitants. Yet this does not seem to require any effort. Even from abroad, reservists, traditionally important in Israel’s armed forces, are rushing home to report back to their unit. People who only recently vowed that they no longer wanted to be deployed because the Netanyahu government would squander democracy are also appearing again in large numbers.
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Young conscripts also see the dramatic events of recent days as proof that the army is indispensable. “We Jews have no other country in the world to which we can go. We all have to defend it now,” says twenty-year-old Shelly outside the gate of the training center, a complex lined with cypress trees. She is a small blonde woman whose family sought refuge in Israel from the Soviet Union. Shelly’s father, a 45-year-old reservist who works in the high-tech sector, also immediately offered his services again.
According to twenty-year-old Ofir, in the scorching sun on the way to the bus stop, there are so many people signing up that the army cannot even call everyone back. “A friend of mine who signed up was told he wasn’t needed because they already had too many volunteers,” he laughs. Ofir himself is feeling a bit uncomfortable these days. As a graphic designer, he helps develop military logos, among other things. “Some of my friends are on tanks, while I’m not doing anything special here. That frustrates me.”
One of the reservists who only recently decided with great certainty to no longer serve in the army out of dissatisfaction with the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu is Nir Avishai Cohen, major in a reserve infantry brigade. Over the weekend, Cohen was on a business trip to the United States when he heard about the Hamas raid. “I could not have imagined something so terrible in my worst dreams,” he says by telephone from southern Israel. “This is the worst thing that has happened to Israel since its founding in 1948. I did not hesitate for a moment and immediately flew back to Israel. I just rejoined my unit.”
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Photo Paolo Aguilar/EPA
Demonstrations have been suspended
Cohen says that the son of a good friend – not a soldier – was killed, as well as several people with whom he previously served in the army. “Everything is different now than a few months ago,” he says. “It is war now, this is no time for protests. First we have to defend our country, the rest will come later.” He predicts tough weeks of fighting, in which Israel will likely try to completely destroy Hamas. “I don’t see any other way.”
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No one is talking anymore about the legal reforms, which brought together hundreds of thousands of demonstrators for months in a row, especially in Tel Aviv, and which also led to great disagreement among reservists. The demonstrations have been suspended until further notice. Some of the activists are now helping to collect food parcels and other relief supplies for affected citizens in the south.
“Now that there is war, everything is different,” says former tank commander Gilad Bar-on. He is spokesperson for Brothers and Sisters in Arms, an organization of reservists founded earlier this year that is strongly against the reforms. “Of course you are not going to stand idle on the sidelines when people are being slaughtered. We must be united now,” he said by telephone. He himself did not return as a reservist. “But with other members of Brothers and Sisters in Arms we brought food and other aid to the south and. We also helped people evacuate.”
Despite the satisfaction that the country is now united behind the armed forces again, the criticism, which was heard in many places, especially over the weekend, has somewhat quieted down. Many Israelis blamed their own security services to have failed terribly. How could they be completely surprised by a Hamas operation of that magnitude? “People must have been sleeping there,” said Yoav Ossi (36) in Ashkelon, a city that has come under heavy fire from Hamas rockets in recent days. It was a sound that could also be heard elsewhere in Israel.
West Jordan River
The fact that the army was only painfully slow to push back the Hamas fighters from the Israeli border areas on Saturday and Sunday also led to criticism. Breaking the Silence, an organization of former soldiers critical of the Israeli army’s actions in the West Bank, suggested that the lack of response over the weekend was due to neglect of security around Gaza. “The unfortunate truth is that they were too busy with the West Bank,” Avner Gyaryahu, director of the organization, said in a statement on Sunday. This is said to have happened under the influence of the radical ministers Ben Gvir (National Security) and Bezalel Smotrich (Finance), themselves settlers in the West Bank.
Neither the government nor the armed forces have yet commented on these uncomfortable questions. For the time being, they can still hide behind the fact that it is counter-offensive against Hamas is now a priority but even now they are haunted by a painful corollary of Hamas’s actions and their own lack of preparedness: Hamas’s kidnapping of some 150 people from southern Israel, including military personnel.
In front of the building of the Ministry of Defense and the army leadership in the center of Tel Aviv, a mother of one of the kidnapped soldiers and several others stood on Tuesday evening demonstrating with large photos of her son, to remind the military leadership that they had must take action to save the lives of the hostages. Most of the cars entering the complex didn’t bother to stop. Sooner or later, however, the government and the military will also have to answer for this.
Also read: Why Israeli reservists refuse to serve in the army: ‘You write such a letter that you don’t want to anymore, with tears in your eyes‘