I’m hopeful.
Yeah I’m watching the clock waiting for the missiles to start coming again – waiting for the big barrage of remaining missiles, recovered missiles, manufactured missiles, while we sit here like ducks in our unfit shelters and an interceptor stockpile that is nearly all gone – but for the first time in over a month I’m feeling hopeful.
This war may get a lot tougher – the state in its current incarnation may face an existential challenge after years of failed wars and mounting casualties – but Israeli society will survive.
We will endure.
We will rebuild whatever is broken.
We’re not going anywhere.
And if our state crumbles because our politicians failed us and played endless political games for decades, failed us in our hour of dire need –
We will organize a new state.
Maybe some institutions will stay. Maybe some will go. Maybe some will be reworked.
Maybe we’ll create new institutions, that better serve our needs as a society.
Maybe we’ll internalize the lessons that righteous leadership isn’t optional and that the theoretical ends never justify the actual means.
Maybe we’ll write ourselves a constitution that balances rights and responsibilities and protects lawful order and civil society and human freedom all together.
These are a lot of maybes. And I can’t ignore the feeling that I’m staring down the barrel of a gun. But thinking of what this threat actually means, and what it doesn’t, and what can come out of it –
I’m left with a feeling of hope on a sunny day.
The missiles may come.
Our lives may change.
But our society is not so easily uprooted…
May we all be blessed with the gift of peace.
May we all be blessed with a revolution.