Orly Noy
+972 Magazine / November 27, 2024
Israel has turned ‘total victory’ into its Messiah — a redemption that can never be realized but dictates eternal war and destruction as a way of life.
The international media was awash yesterday with clips of people in Lebanon celebrating news of the looming ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, which came into force early this morning. As one report explained alongside a video, “The news has brought a moment of hope and relief to those affected by the ongoing conflict.”
The same video was shared by the Hebrew Instagram page “Push – Real-Time Reports,” which has more than 860,000 followers. They captioned it rather differently: “People in Lebanon celebrate the ceasefire agreement: ‘Israel surrenders to Hezbollah.’”
I double-checked with native Arabic-speaking friends, and not a word about “victory” or “defeat” can be heard in the clip. All it shows is people’s joy that the war that has destroyed much of their lives is about to end — as would be expected of most normal human beings suffering from conflict anywhere in the world.
The responses to the Instagram post, needless to say, were not joyous. The only thing they celebrated was the shattering of Lebanese lives. Comments expressed widespread anger over the emerging agreement, making cynical use of the memory of fallen soldiers whose deaths, they said, would be “in vain” if the agreement is signed. In Lebanon as in Gaza, Israelis demand nothing less than “total victory.”
This unenthusiastic reaction to the prospect of a ceasefire with Hezbollah extended far beyond the confines of social media. Among the first to oppose it were local leaders and residents of northern Israeli communities, who claimed that the emerging agreement failed to adequately address their security concerns. Eitan Davidi, chairman of Moshav Margaliot in the Upper Galilee, for instance, said any ceasefire agreement must include the condition of “a buffer zone of 2-3 kilometers, [so that] these villages, which have threatened us for many years, will belong to the past.”
On the Israeli side of the border, there are at least 28 communities within a similar radius of Lebanon — including Davidi’s own community — from which former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered residents to evacuate a year ago. How would Israel have responded to a Lebanese demand to establish a buffer zone on the Israeli side, erasing these communities from the map? Why does it seem so natural and self-evident to Israelis that their security concerns justify such massive destruction of other people’s lives?
After more than a year of warfare that has displaced tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes in the north, and which further escalated in intensity after Israeli ground troops invaded southern Lebanon nearly two months ago, one can certainly sympathize with their concerns. For many of them, this period has been hellish, the backbone of their communities has been shattered, and they’ve been left economically devastated. But displaced residents were far from alone in frowning at the prospect of a ceasefire.
In a mild panic on Monday, Channel 14, Netanyahu’s propaganda channel, rushed to publish a public opinion poll showing that 55 percent of the Israeli public oppose halting the war in the north. During a studio discussion, Yaron Buskila, secretary-general of the Israel Defense and Security Forum (known in Hebrew as “HaBithonistim”), emphasized that there is “wall-to-wall opposition” to the agreement within the Israeli defense establishment. They even found a Lebanese citizen who declared that “the IDF has achieved tremendous successes and must eliminate Hezbollah once and for all.”
Channel 14’s Pavlovian opposition to any attempt at de-escalation was predictable, but they were by no means the exception. Yossi Yehoshua, the military and defense correspondent for the centrist Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, for example, was also dissatisfied. “Those who achieve a clear victory dictate the terms of a ceasefire, and if the other side doesn’t accept them, then you keep pounding them,” he wrote in response to the emerging agreement. “Otherwise, it’s not a victory, and certainly not a total victory.”
While Yehoshua admitted that “entire villages [in southern Lebanon] have been flattened,” he quickly went on to wonder, “what will happen if a Lebanese resident wants to return and rebuild their home? And suppose they arrive in civilian clothes — who can guarantee us that they aren’t a Shiite affiliated with Hezbollah, maybe even a fighter?”
Again, try to imagine how Israel would react if a mainstream Lebanese reporter called to destroy any civilian town or community from which the Israeli military launched attacks on their territory. But Yehoshua was promised a total victory; anything less would simply be a broken promise.
Naturally, similar reactions were heard within the political sphere, and from both ends of the spectrum. In an impassioned appeal to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir pleaded: “Mr. Prime Minister, don’t make this mistake. We are on the verge of a historic victory; we must continue, continue, continue.”
Even Benny Gantz, the spineless opposition figure who supported every despicable war crime Netanyahu committed in Gaza and fervently defended him after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against him, chose to outflank the prime minister from the right, and criticize his intention to reach a ceasefire. “We must not do a half job,” he declared.
I asked a Palestinian journalist friend of mine to gather some reactions from Lebanese residents, some of them fellow journalists, about the forthcoming ceasefire. “We’re trying not to be overly optimistic because it is well-known that Israel often says no [to a ceasefire] at the last minute, but in general, everyone really wants the war to end,” one said. “Hezbollah supporters believe a ceasefire would be a victory, but other Lebanese people feel that the scale of destruction and death negates any notion of victory,” said another. “People from the south, from Baalbek and Dahiyeh are desperately yearning to return to their homes,” a third said. “Inshallah, one day soon in Gaza as well,” said a fourth.
It is astonishing how this normal human reaction — wishing for a war to end, instead of going on indefinitely — is completely inverted when it comes to the Israeli public. Presumably it has something to do with the fact that their leaders have been promising, for more than a year now, some kind of amorphous “total victory.” No one knows what exactly this is supposed to look like, but as long as there is something left to destroy, it’s clear that it has not yet been achieved, and the public remains unsatisfied.
Yeshayahu Leibowitz, the late Israeli polymath and philosopher, used to say that “the Messiah is he who always will come,” framing redemption in the future tense. This is the function that messianic longing is supposed to serve in the life of a Jew: constantly obliging us to correct our ways in anticipation of their arrival. In a horrifying twist, Israel has turned war, destruction, and devastation into its Messiah — a redemption that can never be realized but dictates eternal war as a way of life.
Orly Noy is an editor at Local Call, a political activist, and a translator of Farsi poetry and prose; she is the chair of B’Tselem’s executive board and an activist with the Balad political party
