Israeli women take part in a protest demanding the end to the war in Gaza and the release of all hostages, near Kibbutz Nahal Oz, on Aug. 10.Ronen Zvulun/Reuters
Nearly two years into the war in Gaza, the voices of dissent within Israel are getting louder and stronger – as the military is growing weary.
Ahead of a planned Israeli offensive on Gaza City, tens of thousands of Israelis marched in the streets on Tuesday, urging the government to agree to a ceasefire deal, end the fighting and bring the remaining hostages home.
“A mother never gives up!” said Silvia Cunio, whose sons David and Ariel are still being held hostage. “I’ll never give up on any of them! Fifty hostages need to come home now! All of them! In a deal! Now!”
It’s not just hostages’ mothers begging for a ceasefire. This is a personal struggle for Israeli mothers in general. Because who wants to send their sons – or daughters – off to war?
In Israel, where military service is compulsory for most Jews (and some others), they are running out of soldiers. The military has said it needs 12,000 new recruits. And some, reservists in particular, are running out of steam.
According to The New York Times, more than 450 Israeli soldiers have died, suicides are increasing and fewer reservists – some of whom have spent more than 400 days serving since the war began – are reporting for duty.
The Israeli military announced last week that an additional 60,000 reservists would be called up and 20,000 would have their orders extended.
“What can you say to a reservist who has been at war for two years and tells you that his family is falling apart, or that his kids have started wetting the bed out of fear?” an unnamed lieutenant-colonel told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
It begins when they are teenagers and receive what’s known as Tzav Rishon, or First Calling, the first step in the Israel Defense Forces’ drafting process. A formal draft notice follows after they turn 18. Men serve 32 months, women two years, though compulsory reserve duty continues until the age of 40 (45 for officers, and 49 for those in specialized roles).
There are exemptions: married women, women with children and, until recently, ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Opinion: Notes from the middle: The impossible task of writing about Oct. 7 and the Israel-Hamas war
It became clear decades ago where that last exemption could lead; you just had to do the math. Ultra-Orthodox families have many children – far more than secular couples. Those children grow up to study, not enlist. (They also grow up to vote.)
Last year, an Israeli Supreme Court ruling ended the exemption. The military began drafting ultra-Orthodox men.
This alleviated not just the manpower issue, but resentment fuelled by the Gaza war. As Nechumi Yaffe, an ultra-Orthodox professor of public policy at Tel Aviv University, told the Times, secular Israelis are asking: “Why should our children die, and your children are just sitting drinking coffee and learning?”
Many ultra-Orthodox draftees have ignored the conscription notices. Haim Bamberger, 23, told the Times that his way of defending Israel was to study Torah, as God wants. “When we do what He wants, He protects us,” he said.
Haaretz reported this week that budget constraints have put soldiers in “impossible and dangerous situations.” The onerous plans for Gaza City will compound this. Tuesday’s protests appealed to the government to abandon the plan and agree to the ceasefire deal negotiated by Qatar and Egypt – even if it means freeing only half of the remaining hostages for now.
Hamas accepts 60-day Gaza ceasefire deal proposed by Arab mediators, official says
Things are dire – not just militarily. The respected Israeli author and thinker Yuval Noah Harari says Jews are facing one of the biggest turning points in their history.
“Judaism became the world champion in surviving catastrophes, but it never faced a catastrophe like we are dealing with right now, which is a spiritual catastrophe for Judaism itself,” he told the Unholy podcast in June. “Because what is happening right now in Israel could basically, I think, destroy, void 2,000 years of Jewish thinking and culture and existence.”
The IDF was built to defend the tiny state of Israel against hostile neighbours, not to engage in a prolonged campaign that is killing innocent civilians. Perhaps forcing ultra-Orthodox men to fight – and kill – will contribute to the urgency to end this.
To be clear: This war must end because of the humanitarian crisis, which has resulted in tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths. But perhaps pushback from within Israel and within the IDF itself could make a difference.
How any mother (or human being) can look at suffering Palestinian children and not feel the deepest upset is beyond me. But maybe it will be the Israeli mothers, having to send their teenagers and fathers of their children off to war, who will finally force their government to end this.