Depression is hard to describe, but easily identified. Not since the dark days of the post-Yom Kippur War era, when life seemed to be fifty shades of impenetrable black, do I remember such despondency and despair in Israel. “How are you?” has become a loaded question, requiring a contorted differentiation between one’s personal state and that of the nation.
Israel’s north is in flames, and the danger of a large-scale, even multi-front war is growing by the day. Iran’s nuclear program is nearing the breakout point, and it is increasingly willing to risk direct confrontations with Israel, which remains mired in Gaza with no exit strategy. More and more of the hostages are dying in Hamas captivity, and Israel’s unique socio-military contract according to which citizens are assured that the state will go to every length to save them from harm has been rent, perhaps irreparably.
As these words are written at the end of July, Israel has just conducted targeted assassinations of Hezbollah’s top military leader in Beirut, and, even more dramatically, one of the most senior Hamas political leaders in Tehran. As a result, we are currently in hunkering-down mode, waiting to see how our enemies will respond and weighing our own counter-options. It has been a tense summer—and it is not over.