“We used to be better than they are, we used to be good.… Now we are the same.” Journalist Aviya Kushner writes at The Forward about her encounter at an Israeli light rail station with a woman older than the state of Israel itself.
Israelis opposing Netanyahu use the word “hamadena” to describe what Netanyahu is destroying. “For Israelis, that word, hamedina, or ‘the state’ is not just the State of Israel, but the dream of the State of Israel.”
I think the elderly woman is oversimplifying. I, too, used to believe Israel was good. Since the reaction to the Oct. 7 attack, I have come to see that Israel is founded on injustice.
Israel is not unique or fundamentally evil. As Ezra Klein said, nearly every state is founded in blood.
However, Israel can’t just go back to locking the Palestinians in the basement and nailing the door shut. Israel has to do better.
