As an Israeli, I’ve learned to ignore my government’s attempt to stoke fear

As long as the state of Israel continues to occupy Palestinians’ land, violence will remain a part of our life, writes Alon-lee Green

These operations are part of a decades-long cycle of violence (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

The buzz of all our cell phones at once told us everything we needed to know. Even with national TV cameras pointed at you the feeling is the same: a surge of fear racing through your body.

Only three minutes prior, before learning of a terror attack near my mother’s home in Tel Aviv, I was introduced as a TV panellist to talk about the ongoing Israeli military operation in Jenin, a city in the West Bank. When my phone buzzed, I mentally checked out.

The surge of fear is already familiar to me. I grew up in Tel Aviv during the Second Intifada, when the anxiety of terror attacks was a much more ubiquitous part of our lives. So I knew exactly what to do at the TV studio – I messaged my mom to check if she was safe, and waited anxiously for her reply.

When her answer came, I was able to calm down and remember where I was. I was still sitting at a panel on live national TV, and Israeli soldiers were still occupying the city of Jenin. I mentally checked back into the conversation happening around me, and I was shocked.

The six Israeli panellists sitting in Jerusalem were discussing whether this terror attack in Tel Aviv was or wasn’t related to the ongoing military operation in Jenin. To determine the terrorist’s motive, they focused on the his hometown as well as his background, and went as far as to suggest the motive was antisemitic.

During this discussion they failed to remember the continuous cycle of violence in the West Bank, or the settlers’ attacks on Palestinian villages that reached unprecedentedly high levels. If you ask me, the panellists are so detached from reality that they also think the rockets fired last night from Gaza, for the first time in months, are unrelated to the Israeli operation in Jenin.

That detachment stayed with me. I was bothered by how my fellow panellists, supposedly educated and experienced Israelis who speak to huge audiences at home, couldn’t connect the simple dots between settlements, terror attacks, army raids, attacks committed by the settlers against Palestinian villages, more terror attacks and so on.

I realized it years ago, and I am not alone in that. The trend is shockingly simple, and yet it seems foreign, and even offensive to many Israelis. When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, many Israelis are driven by fear, like I was during that panel and so many other times. We forget to look at the facts logically.

This kind of thinking is encouraged by our government, who stoke this fear daily and utilize it to beat up public opinion and stoke support for politically driven military operations – like the one in Jenin of the past two days that took the lives of 12 Palestinians and one Israeli.

The government’s fear-driven strategy’s goal is to normalize the current situation in which the Israeli military controls millions of Palestinians, and detach that from Palestinian actions towards Israeli soldiers, settlers and less often ordinary citizens within the Green Line. By the way, this detachment is why Israelis often think the cause of Palestinian terror is antisemitism.

Along with the anger I hold towards my country’s actions, I am proud to say I don’t believe a word my government says.

I don’t believe their statements on their Judicial Overhaul; I don’t believe their statements about the rising cost of living; and I most certainly don’t believe their statements about Palestinians and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Over the years, I have lived through enough of these military operations in the West Bank and Gaza to know they don’t bring peace or safety to anyone. It is obvious the first who are hurt by them are the millions of innocent Palestinians whose lives are taken, and who continue to live under a brutal Israeli military occupation which has lasted 56 years and counting.

These operations are part of a decades-long cycle of violence. If I had to guess, before one operation is finished, Israeli military officers already plan the next one for when politicians want a boost in their polls.

As long as the state of Israel continues to occupy millions of Palestinians, the violence will remain a part of our life. As long as we continue to see Palestinian terrorism as detached from our military control over millions of Palestinians, the Israeli occupation will not end, and we Israelis will never know safety.

And as long as the Israeli occupation does not end, no matter what happens to our legal system, Israel cannot be a true democracy, and all 15 million people living in this land will be unable to live in peace and security.

Alon Lee Green, thenational co-direct director of Omdim Beyachad (Standing Together) – a Jewish-Palestinian led grassroots movement mobilizing Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel in pursuit of peace, equality, and social and climate justice