Yuval Noah Harari’s analysis of the Hamas massacre: What Israel did and what it should do

Israel is still reeling from the shock of Hamas’ surprise attack and the terrorism it unleashed, terrorism that is a lesson in the price of Benjamin Netanyahu’s populism, says the famous historian and writer Yuval Noah Harari.

As the famous Israeli historian points out in his Washington Post article, comparing the Hamas attack to the 1973 Yom Kippur War is unsuccessful as more and more horror stories and pictures of the massacre of entire communities in southern Israel emerge, such as the kibbutzim emerging from Kfar Azza and Peri, where he also had relatives. And friends. “Hamas controlled these two areas for hours. The terrorists went from house to house and systematically murdered families, killing parents in front of their children, and even taking children and grandmothers hostage. Terrified survivors locked themselves in closets and basements and called for help from the army and police, which were It often arrives too late.

The failure of the State of Israel

As he points out, his 99-year-old uncle and his 89-year-old wife are members of Kibbutz Beri. They hid for hours in their home and Harari learned they had managed to survive. “My aunt and uncle are Orthodox Jews – born in Eastern Europe in the interwar years, they actually lost a world in the Holocaust.

We grew up on stories of defenseless Jews hiding from the Nazis in closets and basements without anyone coming to their aid. The State of Israel was established to ensure that this never happens again.

On the one hand, Israelis are paying the price for years of humiliation, during which our governments and many ordinary Israelis felt that we were so much more powerful than the Palestinians that we could simply ignore them. There is a lot to be said about the way Israel has given up on trying to make peace with the Palestinians and on keeping millions of Palestinians under occupation for decades.

But this does not justify the atrocities committed by Hamas, which in any case never considered any possibility of reaching a peace treaty with Israel and did everything in its power to sabotage the Oslo peace process. Whoever wants peace must condemn Hamas, impose sanctions on it, and demand the immediate release of all hostages and the complete disarmament of Hamas.

Netanyahu’s populism

For the international best-selling author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humanity, the real cause of Israel’s dysfunction is the populism of its current prime minister. “Israel has been ruled for many years by populist autocrat Benjamin Netanyahu, a public relations genius but incompetent as prime minister. He has repeatedly put his personal interests before the national interest and built his career by dividing the nation. He has appointed people to key positions based on their loyalty rather than Of their qualifications, he took credit for every success and never took responsibility for failure, and seemed to care little about telling or hearing the truth.

Harari believes that the coalition government formed by Netanyahu last December was the worst ever, “an alliance of messianic fanatics and shameless opportunists, who ignored Israel’s many problems – including its deteriorating security situation – and focused instead on seizing Unlimited power. In pursuit of this goal, they have embraced divisive extremist politics, spread outrageous conspiracy theories about state institutions that oppose their policies, and branded the elites who serve the country as traitors to the “deep state.”

As Harari points out, the security services and many experts have repeatedly warned the Netanyahu government that its policies are endangering Israel and eroding its deterrent power at a time of increasing external threats. But when the Israeli army chief of staff asked to meet Netanyahu to warn him of the complexities of the government’s security policies, Netanyahu refused to meet him. When Defense Minister Yoav Gilad sounded the alarm, Netanyahu fired him and had to return him to his position due to popular anger. “Such behavior for many years allowed disaster to strike Israel.”

He concludes by appealing to Israel’s friends around the world to stand by it in these difficult times: “There is a lot to be said about Israel’s past behavior. The past cannot be changed, but let us hope that when victory over Hamas is achieved, the Israelis will not hold the government to account.” Not only will they abandon populist conspiracies and messianic delusions and make an honest attempt to implement basic Israeli ideals of democracy within Israel. “Walls and peace abroad,” Harari writes.