Michał Sutowski: Are you safe? As a citizen of a country in a state of war, but besides as a citizen who openly criticizes the politics of his own or Israeli government?
Michael Sfard: Safe? Depends on which side to look at. surely much safer than those Israelis who live more north or south, where the main armed conflict takes place. And they are much safer than the people in Gaza who experience a monstrous Israeli war run on a large scale.
It may happen that during our conversation I will gotta apologize politely and leave due to the fact that in Tel Aviv the sirens [from ed.: Sfard addresses the group due to the fact that the conversation took place during a peculiar KP college involving regular donors and donors].
This has happened many times in the past month, especially at night. But Israel has its Iron Dome, a very effective anti-missile system, capable of capturing up to 90% of missiles. In addition, most homes in our country have different safety systems, including safe shelters.
And you're safe as a critical citizen of power?
Whether I am safe in a political sense – yes, it is simply a much more interesting issue that will stay with us for longer. I shall begin by saying that I was born in 1972 and must say that in my not so long life, I experienced a complete change in the possible answer to this question.
What do you mean?
15 years ago I would have said without reasoning that although I am highly critical of the policy of my government and of the direction my country has chosen, although I have plenty of harsh words about how Israel treats Palestinians – I can say all this freely. More, I dare say I am respected by my political opponents who realize the function of opposition and opposition. They wouldn't wonder if I had pure intentions. They would say I'm wrong, of course, but I surely want to be good for the country and the society I live in. But it was all in the past.
What changed? And since when?
During these, about 15 years of government, Benjamin Netanyahu experienced something that you most likely besides know from Poland, that is, the successive limitation of political space open to criticism. This was done in various ways, from laws criminalizing certain types of political activity to statements inciting against critical voices, activists, NGOs – branding them as traitors, the 5th column, agents of hostile powers – to arrest and trial.
If I were to look for the beginnings of this trend, it would be somewhere in 2008-2009, during the attack on Gaza under the alleged Operation Liquid Lead. After that, people were very frequently provoked against human rights defenders in Israel – and finally, on 6 October, the day before Hamas massacred in the south of Israel, we were already in a very bad situation. But what came after her was beyond my wildest imagination.
What happened then?
Israeli police no longer let demonstrations against war. Just like that. I can't believe what I'm saying, but it's true. People are arrested, released from work, students are suspended by their universities for all kinds of statements treated as supporting terrorism. Only that many of them are simply testimonies of compassion and solidarity with people in Gaza, possibly statements of opposition or of specified opposition to war. So it's truly bad. It's so bad.
My colleagues and I operate in a very hard environment. And for the first time we truly feel – not me personally, but my customers do – that we are threatened by physical attacks. any of my friends even had to leave their own homes, due to the fact that their addresses circulated among various fascists – so to be called – groups. The question remains what happens after the war. due to the fact that October 7 has truly changed a lot.
Is this change the effect of the Israeli government's intentional or not, or is it due to any deeper social processes, and the government's policy simply reflects them?
Of course, the conduct of subsequent governments in the last decade and a half is not in vain, but is the product of a larger process, which I would primarily associate with the ideological movement of settlers. It is men with a Messianic, spiritual imagination of the restoration of the biblical kingdom of Israel on the foundation of the perfect of judaic superiority, where non-Jews are either exiled or become second-class citizens. This ideology has gained legitimacy and is of course nothing new. She did not begin with the narrowing of political space in Israel, only a long time ago.
When is that?
To any extent, she was born with the State of Israel, and the impetus for improvement was given to her in 1967 and later the business of the West Bank, east Jerusalem, Golan Hills and Sinai Peninsula. However, power has gained especially in fresh years, and the full Israeli society has become much more right-wing, closer to religion, and conservative. There are many explanations for this process, but 1 of them is definitely a breakdown peace process with Oslo and II intifada with her indeed nightmare wave of suicide bombings and hundreds of Israelis killed in cafes, restaurants or buses.
The Israeli right easy intercepted the associated moods by conducting a policy of fear, hatred and searching for interior enemies – of course, without taking into account any context of the II intifada, due to the fact that providing the context is always a difficult, intellectual process and does not peculiarly come out in mass politics.
You say that the utmost right and that settlers – and where is Netanjah himself in all this?
I don't think he's the 1 who said that. He's a very right-wing, reactionary politician, but he's not spiritual or a messianist. However, he legitimized specified environments due to the fact that many of them had previously been outside the borders of valid politics – he allowed them into his cabinet, invited them to a table where decisions were made. He gave them the power, the political power they wanted, and now, with all his problems and corruption charges, there's no way to stick to the chair. He has just become a hostage – I know that present it is an awkward metaphor – these environments are completely dependent on them. That is why the far right has more real power present than support in society.
At the end of October, you wrote sarcastically on ‘Haaretz’ that, fortunately, no tv station had made a poll asking for public support for cultural cleansing in Gaza. After a fewer more weeks, do you think that the Israeli government is actually doing this?
Then possibly I'll start with the fact that October 7 was a immense shock to all of Israel. I never had any illusions about Hamas, I didn't consider them a valid organization. I may have hoped that they would change someday, but at the same time I knew that they had a fudamentalistic religious, murderous ideology. And that even if they led to the end of the occupation, they would not bring freedom to the Palestinians, due to the fact that it is simply a totalitarian organization that governs its own nation in a totalitarian way.
And yet I didn't think they would do anything like that on October 7th in the south of Israel. That they would systematically slaughter civilians, that they would effort to completely annihilate full communities, kibbutzes, moshavas, towns and towns, that they would walk from home to house, from flat to flat and kill defenseless children, infants, women, old men and men, and then take hostages and take them to Gaza. It was the most murderous day in judaic past since the Holocaust – hence the scale of trauma.
So erstwhile you wrote the text entitled W Gaza Israel is going to a moral abyss...
This was at a time erstwhile a sense of fear, anger and retaliation prevailed among the common Israelis. To be clear, the Israelites are neither inferior nor better than another nations. This reaction is understandable in the context of what has taken place. Only here does the function of political leaders begin, and here we remember that we are people, and so we control our impulses. We don't do everything our reflexes push us to do. erstwhile I was writing that article, I was very afraid. And now, you're asking me if the Israeli government is moving an cultural cleansing...
He's driving?
I will say that, unfortunately, I cannot completely exclude it. I believe I can't, but I can't regulation it out, and that's 2 reasons. First of all, there are environments in the government that would clearly want that. They say this openly, and there is no request for exegesis or evidence. Additionally, the same environments let the Israeli public debate to be full not only of incitement to cultural cleansing, but straight to genocide.
The characters of public life talk unpunishedly of erasing Gaza from the map, of killing them all, of the fact that no 1 is innocent there. And I'm not talking about any random people on Facebook, I'm talking about celebrities, influential people, politicians, members of parliament, erstwhile generals.
Are there mainstream politicians there?
I don't want to call them that, but I do, due to the fact that it's a MP and a associate of Likudu, a Prime Minister's party, not a associate of extremist Zionist or spiritual parties. Ariel Kallner tweeted that he was demanding another Nakba! And the “Nakba”, or “catastrophe” in Arabic, is as much as the 1948 cultural cleansing in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were driven out of the territories where the State of Israel was established and to which they cannot return to today. By the way, their villages were completely destroyed, although historians argue, how much precisely – surely respective hundred. This results in millions of refugees that we inactive have in Lebanon, Syria or Jordan.
Another associate of Likudu and Minister of Agriculture, Avi Dichter said on tv that we are doing Nakba 2023 in Gaza, and yet another minister, this time from the far right Otzma Yehudit, the judaic Force stated that dropping a atomic charge on Gaza was 1 of the options on the table.
Anyone respond to that?
Such terrible words and thesis stay completely unpunished. And I remind you that the statements on the another hand, demanding the stopping of war, are being suppressed in Israel. In another words, although I inactive hope, besides due to the people of the centre-right in the government, especially those who came immediately after 7 October who would not let cultural cleansing – I am inactive very afraid about this prospect.
Does it substance what Netanjah himself truly thinks about this? And can more average people in government prevail?
The biggest problem, as with letting racists, fascists or ultranationalists into his government, is that this kind of talk about cultural cleansing or just genocide normalizes them. If people in advanced positions talk about it, and no 1 opposes it; no 1 will answer them that it's crazy; if Netanyahu doesn't throw the minister out of work for saying that you could drop an atomic bomb on Gaza – then it's harder to mobilize the masses against specified ideas.
You spoke of 2 large reasons for concern.
Yes, due to the fact that there is another 1 – alongside any people in the government who want to be pure – a origin that can origin it. due to the fact that Israel had already forced more than 1 million people from the north of Gaza to the south. The alibi is that it's to defend them, due to the fact that the northern part of Gaza will be a war zone. Just aside from the question of whether it is legal or not, no authoritative of the State of Israel, no general or any politician has made a commitment that these people will be able to return as shortly as the war is over. No 1 made specified a assurance, and at the same time the global community did not request it. From the point of view of the Palestinians, so – I cannot talk on their behalf, but I know a small more than the average individual about their collective trauma – they are just experiencing their nakba.
You spoke of various political forces – and what is the position of the Israeli army? Does his command add fuel to the fire, or does it mimic the mood?
However unusual it sounds, the military establishment is little inciting to war than the political class. I'm not saying they don't like war, it's their occupation and they were trained for it. And after the incredible defeat of the full apparatus and safety force on October 7, the defeat that the heads of all safety agencies in Israel will send after the war to quit – they feel a double commitment to win this war. And yet, even though they have so much enthusiasm to usage force, there are besides voices mythizing moods and stopping the most crazy ideas.
That's right – you're talking about the unheard of failure of the safety apparatus, that is allowing this large Hamas invasion. Do you think the conspiracy theories circulating here and there that Netanjahu might deliberately have ignored the signals that something was going to happen, precisely to have an excuse to answer on a large scale? Or is that bullshit?
I don't think I believe in anything like that. This is an irrational theory, due to the fact that the events of October 7 are not only the best chance of removing him from power, but besides of crushing the full political acquis. The Hamas attack made him liable for Israel's top defeat in history.
On our tv appeared sketches in which Prime Minister Golda Meir – liable for surpriseing you with the attack during the Jom Kippur War, which yet forced her to resign – descends from heaven to personally thank Netanyahu for not being the worst Prime Minister in Israel's history.
The Israeli satirical show Eretz Nehederet: The ghost of Golda Meir visits Netanyahu to thank him. For 50 years, she’s carried the burden of Israel’s biggest screw-up. No more! possibly in 50 years, she says, they’ll make a movie about you. Did you say anything memorable? Hmm. https://t.co/pSFSg30Nmv
— Martin Kramer (@Martin_Kramer) November 22, 2023
Are there any English-language media that you could urge as credible contributors to events in Gaza?
Let us begin by saying that erstwhile Israelis read newspapers and watch news channels, they see a completely different reality than viewers in Europe or the US. Israeli media is self-censored, they don't show what's happening in Gaza. If we see any footage from there, there's always drone footage that shows quite a few damage, but there's no people. No interviews like Al Jazeer. On the another hand, they do the other – we will not see what is happening in Israel.
"Haaretz", which besides has an English version, seems to be the most reliable to me – is good not only as a origin of reports and news, but besides as an analysis and a wide scope of opinions. Much more is hard for me to indicate – a tiny left-wing portal 972, in English and Hebrew, with very sensible comments.
When asked about the anticipation of cultural cleansing and allowing it, you spoke about moods among the political elite, besides in the military – but what does it truly look like in Israel's society today?
It would not be the majority, but a frighteningly large number of judaic Israel's society. Well, let me say erstwhile again: in another society, it could look similar, after specified a shock and with specified leaders, legitimizing specified statements. And this is the real crime of our leaders, due to the fact that that's precisely what people of power are judged for. erstwhile blood cooks and you gotta keep simple decency and humanity, that is their task – and they behave precisely the other and unfortunately it is besides seen in polls of the public.
One of the observed events during the war are the ceasefire agreements and the exchange of hostages, prisoners and prisoners. Do the Israelis support them? Or are there arguments in specified an atmosphere that terrorists do not negotiate?
No, the consensus for specified agreements is rather broad, but for the far right. This is so crucial that it creates a division between the average and utmost right. In the past, there have been many exchanges of prisoners as hostages, although at the time it was about soldiers, not civilians. But all the more reason people realize that we owe it to our civilians, whom we have so badly failed to defend them – we gotta do everything we can to get them home, besides due to the fact that there are many mothers with children and older people.
Opposition to specified exchanges would be the tallness of cruelty and so the utmost right in the government is in a minority. There will be more, and among Palestinian prisoners there will be quite a few minors and women, as well as men without charges or even convictions for execution – only if prisoners with dense charges are exchanged, will there be any doubts and disputes about the price worth paying for the release of our hostages.
We talk a lot about the right, about the government, about settlers and right-wing public opinion, but where is the Israeli left in all this?
Well, first we request to specify what we are actually talking about, due to the fact that for many reasons we almost have no parliamentary left in Israel. Most leftist communities act as civilian society organisations and they are actually very active and vital, but have small influence on the corridors of power. The left besides includes intelligence, artists, writers, and, of course, human rights defenders and peace groups. due to the fact that in the Knest itself we gag that we only have the right and what's left of the right, but it's alternatively a large center.
And the non-parliamentary left – what is its position?
So far there is no serious public debate about what's actually happening due to the fact that we're in the mediate of a storm. erstwhile the war is over – I don't mean the end of the armed conflict, I mean the end of the most intense warfare – then there will surely be a powerful political, social and economical response. October 7 can be treated as specified a large earthquake, after which everything flies in the air and has not yet fallen. erstwhile it falls, it is surely not the same place, that is, our political reality will change fundamentally. Then the Israeli left will have something to say.
What will it be?
Probably what always is: that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be resolved militarily, but only politically. And the political solution means that all people between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean must have political and civilian rights, whether in the model of 1 state, 2 states or any federation. Either way, people must have the ability to govern themselves and have a sense of influence on their own lives. Meanwhile, for 56 and a half years, millions of Palestinians were born, lived and died without even a minute of independency and freedom. That's what the left will most likely say. And will the public perceive to us more than ever? I don't know, it's hard to say. But I'm certain people will be looking for fresh ideas.
And how do you measure the reactions of European leaders to the war in Gaza? And what could Europeans do, relatively, in this situation?
The issue is not simple, due to the fact that many countries, with Germany – due to their past – at the head, fear the patches of anti-Semitism. Even more so, Israel abuses the right and essential fight against anti-Semitism, deliberately putting anti-Semitic statements and legitimate criticism of our country's politics into 1 bag. And in this way, it does not let a serious discussion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Meanwhile, Europe would request a complete change of policy, based besides on relationship with Israel and concern for its future, but besides on strong opposition to the business and policy of apartheid in the West Bank, depriving its inhabitants of property, as well as to tolerate the very brutal actions of settlers who behave like hooligans from Ku-klux-klan and invade tiny and weak Palestinian communities.
The European Union and its members should explicitly request a change in Israeli policy and guarantee that no cent of European money is spent on financing specified practices. And I will add that specified a change is essential so that the present war is not just 1 of many that will follow – in 5, 6 or 10 years, another, as has been the case in the last 30 years.
Speaking of wars for the past 30 years, why do you think that, after the negotiations between Jaser Arafat and Icchak Rabin and Shimon Peres, the full peace agreement went down so quickly?
Everyone's liable for that. Israel never abandoned its colonization of the West Bank. Between 1993, erstwhile our government with the Palestine Liberation Organization began the trial with Oslo and 2010 the number of judaic settlers tripled and the peace process itself did not bring Palestinians a sense of increasing freedom and independence.
These, in turn, resorted to force against civilians during the alleged II intifada, so automatically Israelis as a society did not trust Palestinians. So it was easy for them to explain the chronic conflicts between nations in specified a way that they simply were murderers and liars, and they cannot be dealt with.
Of course, many Palestinians feel precisely the same about Israel and its citizens, due to the fact that many of them besides have suffered trauma, which in turn convince them of the treacherous nature of the another party.
And then what?
This vicious ellipse needs to be interrupted, and in order for that to be possible, we would request leaders like in the Oslo trial. We don't have them today, and that's bad news. The good news would be that I don't think there's any another way out – yet it's going to happen. There are only 3 possibilities: either we will be gone, or they will be gone, or we will find a way to live together. This 3rd option is the only realistic option. The question is just how long it will take and how much more blood will be spilled before that happens.
At the beginning of the conversation, you said that the Israelis were amazed and shocked by the scale of the Hamas attack of October 7. Did Hamas decently estimation the scale of the Israeli response? And does this organization gain or lose on what's happening in Gaza today?
I don't know what they're thinking, I'm not sitting in their heads, although knowing it is of course important. surely anyone who knew anything about Israeli society must have known that specified an attack would bring a very harsh reaction, or retaliation. But even if they haven't appreciated something, it doesn't matter, due to the fact that what's happening is beneficial to them.
Hamas does not rebel against the business or blockade of Gaza, but tries, as they themselves said in their statutes, to annihilate the State of Israel and impose an muslim strategy here. Again, you don't gotta look deep, they call it straight.
For the last 15 years of their regulation in Gaza, they have been able to usage – I admit, very partial, exercised in terms of business and blockade, but nevertheless – sovereignty to at least effort to make the lives of the people they govern any better. Instead, they decided to arm and carry out an attack that will not only be criminal, but will surely bring a large deal of destruction, pain and death to their own nation. That's why I find it hard to realize their rationality. At the same time, I hope that the Palestinians can inactive choose another way to their fair fight.
What are the applicable goals of Israel in this war, in your opinion?
At this point, Israeli public opinion stands firm on the basis of the government's 2 main objectives, which the government itself declared in this war. The first is to bring the hostages home and he's clear. The second is the demolition of Hamas.
I'm the only 1 who doesn't know what that means. Depriving him of power in Gaza? Depriving military potential? Do you want to make certain there's not a single man associated with Hamas in Gaza?
As far as the second is concerned, i.e. the deficiency of military capabilities, I think – not being an expert – that this is someway achievable, but I do not know at what cost. In turn, removing them from power would require a change in the regime, and the West has just had a very bad experience of forced government change to name only Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and a part of South America. I can't imagine it until there's an organic Palestinian faction with bottom-up support in Gaza.
You spoke about the cost of depriving Hamas of military capabilities – is this the price Israel will not be prepared to pay?
This is another part of the puzzle, which is the price that Israel's society is willing to pay. At this point, we paid the highest price on the first day, but if the war continues long and moves to the south of Gaza, where 2.2 million people are crowded, we will have an even worse humanitarian disaster than now.
At the same time, if we truly are to deprive Hamas of military capabilities, we must go there and operate among these 2.2 million people. And then the probability of Israeli soldiers dying is much more. And the hazard of further casualties will most likely begin to influence support for the full operation, as before, during the Second Lebanese War. Then the expanding number of soldiers dying in a fewer days completely changed the temper of the public – this is simply a variable that we simply cannot estimate.
Who else or what else, alongside the sentiments of the public, can bring this war to an end?
The geopolitical script is very complex, but Israel surely plays on a field managed by the United States, and so if the Americans decide that it must be finished, then Israel will have to.
The second actor is, of course, the European Union, but the most crucial questions are what road map the global community will adopt and whether Israel is ready for peace. The events of the past six weeks have proved 1 thing that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be put aside.
We were bewildered by Netanyahu and convinced that we did not gotta deal with this: we could proceed the occupation, colonization, the blockade of Gaza, proceed to do business with the Gulf State and so on for another 100 years. And we don't gotta solve conflict with Palestinians. In the next election, which will most likely take place after the war, there will be no organization in Israel from the far right to the extremist left that would stand in that position.
What are they gonna be standing on?
Each will have its own model of what to do. There will be those who say that we must kill them all or push them into Egypt. And those who want a two- or one-state solution. But everyone will know something needs to be done. On the another hand, we will have an global community that, for various reasons, has engaged in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as in no other.
There is no second place to devote so much attention, resources and even UN resolutions. And yet the global community has completely failed here. In fresh years, somewhere since Trump, it has seemed as if the solution had just been abandoned.
Maybe that's better. If it didn't work out before?
Nope. We were on the brink of planet War III, with Iran in the background, Hezbollah in the north and American airfields influencing the Mediterranean. You can't leave that as it is. So I hope that the global community will take steps to strengthen those voices within Israel that want to bring about a fair and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. due to the fact that in fresh years, Israel's left has suffered the worst blows not at home, but from outside. We felt we didn't care about the world. Nevertheless, I believe that due to the fact that there is no another lasting solution, in the end these "physical" forces will mark this very goal.
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Michael Sfard – a lawyer, specializes in human rights and law of war. He represented Israeli and Palestinian organizations, movements and activists dealing with human rights and peace in the Israeli ultimate Court. He is the author of the book The Wall and the Gate: Israel, Palestine, and the Legal conflict for Human Rights.
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The interview was conducted during a peculiar College of Political Criticism involving regular donors and donors. With permission, any of your questions were utilized – thank you.
