After I’ve returned from Israel a few days ago, I am still not sure if I can coherently express my feelings.

Things that we’ve seen cannot be unseen, words that we heard cannot be unheard. The images of the tiny burned houses of the youth village of Kfar Aza are forever etched into my mind.

I am not a political scientist, journalist, or government official. Yet, part of the purpose of my going to Israel was to try to listen to the stories and views of the regular citizens of Israel, mostly Russian speakers, and hear their versions of the answers to the age-long questions we’ve all learned in school, forever indebted to Nikolay Chernyshevsky:
Who is to blame?
What is there to do?
Additionally, I asked if they could share their views on what is called here “settler violence”. Some of them offered their views.
I will present these views with no comments, no judgements in my own translation if the words were spoken in Russian, or unedited from the recording if they were spoken in English with my own descriptions of my correspondents. I hope to at least preserve these views for the future. Maybe they will help people to understand the ‘average Israeli’ better. I could not record all of the conversations, so I will put the recorded words in quotation marks, and will paraphrase the rest.

A. A man in his late 70s, living in the city of Beer-Sheva for over 30 years. Not at all religious. Formally, an engineer from the predominantly muslim city of Grozny, Chechnya, USSR:
“Who, or what is to blame? The reason is that Israelis stopped feeling that they are a nation. Part of the Israelis go on feeling as Jews, but part of them wants to be cosmopolitan. This causes a big discord in the country. The wealthier class for the most part feels cosmopolitan, the regular, a bit poorer people for the most part feel Jewish. The connection is mostly reverse – those who have less money and feel Jewish are ready to give more, and those who are wealthier, and more cosmopolitan are happy to take more. They don’t have many children, not too many constraints, they have an easier time to move up. Those who feel like Israelis, but not Jews understood that they would never gain power by democratic means, since the population growth is based on those who have more children, generally more Jewish, and less wealthy. The Left and Right notions are no longer adequate. So the adversity grew over these years, and the country was thrown into the ‘balagan‘ in every sense of the word.” Consequently, no-one was ready to spend time and effort on something that was really needed – intelligence, preparations, etc.”

Z. A young, newly married, clearly idealistic American who lives in Israel for a fairly short time. Works in Hi-Tech, lives in Shomron with his pregnant young wife:

“We have intelligence, we have surveillance, they knew something was coming. From the zoom-out perspective this was permitted to happen. Every year close to elections there is always some sort of violence … Bibi was told that there would be something small. We also see seeming incapabilities of our army, but our soldiers are strong. We just have to understand that this is OUR land, and not everyone wants to know and understand this. But if the Israeli government doesn’t know that this is our land (including the Temple Mount, Judea and Shomron), why do other people need to know and understand this? You are sending your soldiers to battle with no understanding why they have to fight. They are sending the soldiers to battle with not enough gear. They (government) are doing nothing – they destroy us! They have destroyed the economy by allowing Arabs to come work here while Jews no longer want to do it. They hate us! Money, power and desire to rule are much stronger forces that anything.”

Y. Russian speaking Rabbi. In Israel for over 25 years. Not a Zionist, although not aggressively against the State. Works as a teacher and lecturer for different yeshivot, gives Torah classes online in Russian, obviously paying taxes to the State:
“As a classically orthodox man that does not see the legitimacy of the State of Israel or secular zionism, I am not going to look for the ones to blame – which general, which politician is guilty. Both lefties and righties are equal for me, with the exception that the right side may be a little more Jewish, closer to Jewish traditions and roots, but still not enough for me to acknowledge them. I am only looking for the guilty ones from the point of view of spiritual life, not political. Secular zionism itself is a mistake for me, so I won’t say that someone made a political, or military mistake. They (secular zionists, and the State of Israel) are making criminal acts from the spiritual point of view, so their sins and adding to the sins of my society, and my sins are getting combined with their sins.
The “settler” situation is not what is seems to be from abroad. We are talking about a group of young people who non-violently try to reclaim the ground for raising animals native to the land. They are not looking for things that the press tried to portray – violent fights, arson, etc. If things like that happen, that happens only as acts of revenge, so they could be understood. They are following the violent actions of the Arabs, it is not their way of thinking, not their way of life.”

C. Russian speaking lady living in Hebron. Highly educated, currently writing her doctorate on the history of Yiddish folklore. Several years ago, while washing dishes in her sink she miraculously dodged the sniper bullet aimed at her head, and since then she is not plastering the hole in her kitchen wall:
“I live here because this is a very Jewish place, I feel very comfortable here as a part of the Jewish wholesomeness, it is logical that Jews live in a Jewish place. Right next to us there is a place that is called “Walls of the giants” – חומות הענקים . When you are there (this is the place where Yehoshua bin Nun and Calev ben Yefune came when they were a part of the expedition of the meraglim (spies sent by Moshe), you understand that with your own legs you are closing the chain of generations. Also, there are amazing people, amazing community here. The people are … it is hard to find such concentration of remarkable people of high spirituality. When we came here, I prayed to Ribono shel Olam – can you please let me live here, with these people? So for bringing up children in the eternal values, this is the best place. Of course, everything has its price, I understand.
We cannot forgive Netanyahu, that after the Oslo agreement, only three percent of Hebron remained in the Jewish hands after his version of the agreement was implemented. This version, apparently is worse that the original drafted by Peres.”

Her son is a “settler” that is considered the most dangerous element by some in The West. I am asking her to comment on this. Her reply:
“There are Jews that reply to the question “what to do?” with actions. Arabs are very active in illegally grabbing the Jewish land. This is not a secret for anyone. There are people that know what to do, they act. These young (Jewish) people are settling on these territories. By the way, they are always checking who the land belongs to. They are putting their tents, but not on the private lands owned by Arabs even just because of financial reasons, so they they would not be driven from that and lose all of their possessions. They are checking where to put their legs. These lands belong to Israeli government. So they make posts on these territories. Arabs, by the way, are doing the same, on the Israeli lands. Once the boys get there and start to live there, somehow the robbing raids on the neighbouring yishuvim (settlements) miraculously stop. Bedouins and Arabs are constantly raiding the yishuvim stealing everything they can. They even steal the young lambs, for example. My son is always on his post 24/7 watching the herds as a part of a small force. In summer, there are constant arsons, so they always have to be on the ready to run to put out fires. I am always asking my son: How is it that they always start fires on the grazing land? Don’t they think that you can do the same on the land where their flocks are grazing? His answer is – but we will never burn Eretz Yisrael! Very simple answer. So they try to fight with other means.
Sometimes, I am asking him: why do they steal from you if they know that you would find your own flock anyway?
Sometimes, the Arabs immediately slaughter the animals, but sometimes not. One of the last instances was when their (the Jewish youths’) animals were stolen, they went up to the Arab village, got in, and they found part of their animals, not all. They really know every single animal “by face”. They went through the whole herd to find their own. They have even brought in the veterinary doctor to make sure that he identified their animals. They do not take what doesn’t belong to them.
So, when I am asking him – why, he says: well, they can’t be different, it’s in their blood. It’s genetic.
Once their horses were stolen. The youth went into the Arab village, and the horses were behind the wall, and the locked door. They couldn’t break the lock, so they had to break the wall. When I asked – what did they do? The answer was – but they know the horses are ours, they kept quiet.
Sometimes, they have the army with them, but sometimes not.
When they (the Jewish boys) are attacked, they will fight back. If they have weapons, like now when they were allowed to have weapons, they will fight back with weapons. Unfortunately, a military commander who was helping them, was killed during the first days of the war, so we don’t know how the situation will progress.

My friend, N. Russian speaking doctor, lives with her husband and two out of five (three oldest are grown ups) children in Hebron. Works in Jerusalem, has her own method of healing and rehabilitation, and currently in the process of developing a new drug that will help to heal the wounds faster:
“You hear that answer – I live here because this is a Jewish place. This is THE answer to every question, There are people that live in these Jewish places because if we are not living here, this place will seize to be Jewish. In the course of our conversations, at some point she says: “Yes, I am pessimistic, but we decided that if the time comes and there are ten families dying of hunger in Hebron, we will be among them”.

O. An American modern orthodox friend of my friend, who lives in Israel for a long time. A father, a husband, he was on the leave from the Army for a few days, and therefore was able to join my friend and I for lunch in Jerusalem even though he lives about 1.5 hours drive away to the north. Of course he came with a gun on which I was constantly afraid to step.

“Who is to blame for the current war? 100%, you can’t blame anyone but HAMAS. Anybody who says otherwise is completely delusional either by choice or by ignorance. What HAMAS did…. you can’t rationalize it. They’ve been in control for the past 16 years and during this time we’ve had four … I don’t even know at this point … 3 big operations … and another one that I can’t even remember at this point. I don’t even know how much money – billions of dollars of infrastructure – was used for terrorist activities. And you can say that it’s because of poor conditions, because Israel doesn’t allow them, and yes there maybe is that.”
At this point my friend interjects: Is it our responsibility?
He goes on – “well, the whole world is our responsibility, theoretically, right? Tikkun Olam.
And we do help Gaza, we do help HAMAS with water, electricity, so many people come to Israel for work, for jobs, etc.
How do you deal with the radical movement? You are not going to be able to talk to them like normal people, like a government or an institution. They are never going to accept us. And it’s been proven.
I actually don’t follow politics almost at all. I know that Bibi’s approval rate is like 10-15%. There are still some hard-core Bibi’s followers out there, but not much especially after that. There are some conspiracy theories out there like: “Why the party was allowed to happen where it happened, and why there was so little security?”
But nobody imagined such a large scale, such a huge thing. No-one was thinking that they were capable of such a thing. I also think that people thought that they didn’t even want it. They wanted the status quo. I don’t think that they also thought that this would be our response either. There have never been anything like that either. There were other operations, but this is a war.
People … 10 hours after … the army still wasn’t prepared. There were individuals that absolutely understood what was happening. I was called around noon on the 7th, and I was actually at my base, and we were completely ready to go, and we were mobilized very quickly. The thing that prevented us to go right away was transportation – we didn’t have buses for us. We were completely ready, but I didn’t even start to understand what was happening until two days later. I don’t have Tick Tock and stuff, Facebook. Everyday there was something new and horrid you had to deal with. First couple of week were monstrously hard.
The army now started to release some people, which they were doing already for a moth. And they’ve been talking about releasing us as well (active reserve currently guarding a logistical route in Gaza), which I am very excited about.”

Finally, D., a good acquaintance of mine, a very educated American woman, a scientist teaching immunology in retirement, living in Beer-Sheva right now. I wasn’t able to see her this time, but asked her the same questions, and she sent me her answers in writing:

“1) Who’s to blame.
I think there was failure of the highest levels of the army and intelligence. The evidence was in front of their eyes, and they chose to ignore it. I do not really believe it was sexism…female soldiers reporting to higher officers were ignored because they were female. It is a much deeper problem, an arrogant belief in their model of operation and their superiority. I also think that Netanyahu was wrong: he was wrong to believe you could just keep “mowing the lawn” and he was wrong in his too clever playing of Hamas and the PA.
2)What to do now.
I think we should have elections as soon as possible. I also believe the IDF needs restructuring, and the current leadership should step down.
3) Settler violence
I think this is greatly overblown. Do I believe that there are extremists among the settlers: yes. But it is a minority, and their violence does not compare to the violence that the settler population as a whole experiences.
BTW. I am right vs left. And I did like Netanyahu and do believe he did a great deal for Israel. But he has changed. He destroyed the “normal” right out of fear and got in bed with the extreme right to stay in power. I am hoping for a Bennett/Shaked come back.
On Thursday I was at a meeting of my theatre group. Many of our members are long term residents of the envelope. Our director raised his family there, and his children are doing the same. He and his wife are moving back; the children and grandchildren are in limbo.
What he said (not an exact quote): For years we lived there; we endured the barrages of rockets in the belief that it will be ok. We trusted the IDF; we trusted the gov’t. Now we are not sure if we can.
I did not answer because much of the trust or lack of relates to the current gov’t. All these people are quite left. They also believed in the goodness of the Gazans and the search for peace which was impeded by the right. The IDF did fail…but I do not put the chicken vs the egg. Did the gov’t follow the IDF or did the IDF follow the gov’t? I really do not know, but I believe it was the first.”

I am not commenting on these views. I just wanted to present them to you as they are – raw, unedited material that I heard from the people I personally met.

All these talks were before the actual Mission, where we went to places like the Nova festival site, kibbutz Kfar Aza, the Square for the Hostages and Missing People, etc. I feel that I still don’t have enough strength in me to talk about that. I do it in smaller groups, and maybe I will write about it one day.

For now I would like to encorouge everyone who can – Go yourself! See for yourself! The tragedy and the courage of Israel is apparent in every way imaginable. The resilience of the Jewish women, Israeli mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives, grandmothers is stronger than anything one can see anywhere. If we all have a 10th of their strength and courage, we will win! We did not want this war, but we have to fight it!

Now that I am back, my own fight can’t stop either. We have to educate people who are still living in the “land of the free” that freedom is not free. One has to resist the propaganda that is poured from several places, one has to learn and educate others. History is a good start.

עם ישראל חי!