Two and a half months have passed, and the sadness does not leave us, and its pain does not leave us. The days and nights are sad. Sadness has settled in Israel from the river to the sea, and the darkness that has descended upon us has not left even a small window through which a ray of light can enter from among the clouds. It’s sadness and nothing else. These are terrifying days without mercy or forgiveness.
With these words, full of strong emotions, laden with worries and frustration, Michael Sfard, an Israeli lawyer and political activist who specializes in international human rights law and the laws of war, began his article in the Israeli newspaper “Haaretz”.
The writer says that the atmosphere is dominated by two types of sadness: the type that penetrates the heart, squeezes tears from the depths and makes the soul tremble. A second type slowly sinks in, causing “the arteries of our existence to narrow, and our consciousness to darken.”
The depths of hell
He adds, as if lamenting his time, saying that the first type is pain. “The pain of loss, and the shock in the face of the horror that befell us from the outside. The hours we spend in front of the television, watching the stories of the prisoners, the painful grief that grips their families, and the loss of the soldiers who fell (on the battlefields), are like an infection of grief that seeps into our bodies and spreads.” It crawls into it until it is impossible to stop it, because we have brothers and sisters among the dead, those who have fallen, and those who suffer from the depths of hell.”
As for the second type of sadness – as Sfard explains – “it is really due to awareness and insight. These are terrifying visions that are overwhelming, and I try to expel them by any means… I wonder what we will be like after the war? And what kind of Israeli society is being shaped in the present?”
Watching and listening to stories of kidnapping, sadistic murder, abuse and sexual assault comes at a high price, says the Israeli lawyer.
Fear overwhelms us
He continues: “Immersing us in the horrors of (war) inevitably makes fear overwhelm us.” The poet Yehuda Amichai previously said: “From where we are, flowers will never grow in the spring.”
Sfard wonders: What will the image of a society that has killed tens of thousands, most of them children, women and the elderly, look like? In reference to what the Israelis are committing against the Palestinians.
Apathy and indifference
He continues his questions, saying: “What will our actions in recent weeks engrave in our souls: the destruction of cities, towns, villages and refugee camps, the complete destruction of residential neighborhoods and civilian infrastructure, the erasure of families and the making of hundreds, if not thousands, of children orphans?”
He adds: “How much apathy and indifference has settled within us to turn tall buildings into dust, parks and squares into ruins, and two and a half million people into displaced people who have nothing?”
What is the fate of our society?
The Israeli lawyer and political activist does not stop asking, saying: “What will be the fate of a society whose media has refused, for more than 10 weeks, to conduct even a single interview with a resident of Gaza to tell about what is happening to them? And who prevents the publication of pictures of the children we killed and the bereaved mothers who caused their tragedy?” “.
He goes on to criticize the Israeli media, saying that Israeli television channels shape our collective perceptions not only through what they show, but also, and perhaps mainly, through what they hide from us.
We are shocked – he adds – when 153 member states in the United Nations General Assembly demand a ceasefire in Gaza, while only 10 countries oppose, and when 13 out of 15 member states in the UN Security Council support a resolution calling for a halt to the fighting, and when one country uses veto; When universities become arenas for demonstrations against Israel.