The first war — the war Israel is now waging against Hamas and its allies in Gaza and the West Bank, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and Iran itself — is about security.
The second war fuels and explains the first. It’s about existence. Israel’s most strident critics insist that the current conflict is about Palestinian existence, about Israel’s alleged refusal to grant a Palestinian homeland.
The third war is metaphorical. It’s also dangerous and corrosive. It’s Israel’s war for the legitimacy of its actions, a war against the “yes but” thinking that now describes the middle ground of Western opinion on the conflict. That’s not a demand that people turn off their brains when it comes to judging Israel’s behavior. On the contrary, it’s a request that they turn their brains on.
The fourth war is global, ideological — and fundamental. It’s the war against antisemitism. Among the many toxic and defamatory charges leveled against Israel since Oct. 7 is that the war in Gaza has caused a surge in antisemitism, a sly way of charging the Jewish state with being the agent of anti-Jewish hate.
Finally, there’s the war within the state of Israel and among the Jewish people worldwide. It’s a war that has been one of the most enduring, and often fatal, features of Jewish history. Its contours were visible during the fight over Israeli judicial reform before Oct. 7, and now in the lawlessness of right-wing Israeli mobs charging into Israeli army bases. It’s also a war between diaspora Jews who recognize that the assault on Israel is ultimately an assault on them, and the “ As a Jew” Jews who provide moral cover and comfort to Israel’s enemies.
Addressing these divisions is as central to Israel’s long-term security as confronting any other threat.
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