Hamas underestimated the DNA of Israeli society.
"In the event that I have been taken captive, I demand that no deal for the release of a single terrorist be made for my release. Our resounding victory is more important than anything else."
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In 2020, I founded an Israeli TV streaming startup called IZZY, with the goal of connecting more people around the world to Israel through Israeli film and TV.
Streaming is a hard business to run, and relationships are everything, so I made it a point to personally reach out to every Israeli film and TV producer I could find.
A few months into the venture, I partnered with an Israeli TV executive who took on the role of acquiring content and thus managing relationships with Israel’s film and TV producers. After a few weeks on the job, he said to me: “There isn’t a single producer I’ve spoken to who didn’t receive a call from you before I came aboard.”
The point of this story is not so much about me, but that Israel is a tiny country. If in other countries, the TV and film industry consists of thousands of key decision-makers, in Israel we are talking about hundreds. If in most countries there are the so-called five degrees of separation, in Israel we are talking about two, maybe three.
One byproduct of this reality is that there exists almost no separation between public and civil life. Your kids go to school with politicians’ kids. Your best friend served in the same military unit with the minister of defense. Your wife is colleagues with the spouse of the IDF chief of staff.
You can even manage to get a date with your celebrity crush. True story. Her name is Mor Chen. She is a standup comedian, and we went to see Louis C.K. perform in Tel Aviv on our first date.
Welcome to Israel.
This level of societal intimacy also means that much of Israel’s political echelon is not exempt from the anguish that comes with mandatory conscription. Former IDF chief of staff and current politician, Gadi Eisenkot, lost his son and nephew in Gaza just a few weeks ago — within the span of a few days. Another one of Eisenkot’s nephews was injured by a mortar shell.
Since there is almost no separation between public and civil life, and since virtually everyone serves in the army, there is a joke that I thought of when the war broke out: Everyone in Israel thinks they are the prime minister or chief of staff. That is, everyone has a well-thought-out opinion, during this war in Gaza, about what Israel should do, how it should do it, et cetera.
Growing up in America, I do not recall so many adults having so many opinions about the United States’ strategy during its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in Israel, you get into a taxi and, without you even asking, the driver spends the next 20 minutes detailing precisely how he would defeat Hamas and secure the release of the remaining hostages — tomorrow. As they say: Two Jews, three opinions. Sometimes even four.
There is a Hebrew term for this type of behavior in Israel: It’s called “shchoonah.” The actual meaning of the word is neighborhood, but in slang, it is used to describe an informal situation where social customs are thrown out the window. You can do and say as you please. Strangers make comments to you about things that, in other countries, you would only hear from the mouths of close relatives.
This also means that the bus schedule is only a loose timetable, red lights are mere suggestions for pedestrians wanting to cross the street, and everyone can bring their dog to the office if they so please.
Dr. Itay Shaloni, in his book “Israelism,” has criticized the tendency of Israel’s organizational culture to treat things carelessly, without consideration or much thought. He argues that Israeli culture promotes disregard and even negligence which can be found throughout Israeli businesses and government.
Yet work ethic is a key component of Israeli business culture, marked by long hours at the office and a “let’s figure it out” attitude. Hence why, among several reasons, Israel boasts — per capita — the most startups, the highest expenditure on R&D as a percentage of GDP, the most hi-tech “unicorns,” the most engineers, and the second-most venture capital investments, and the fifth-most educated population.
Where does Israeli work ethic come from? Some would say that it emanates out of the country’s compulsory military service, but I would argue that it begins even before then, in the Israeli scouts.
Established in 1919, and now with some 80,000 members between 9 and 18 years old, the Israeli scouts is the largest youth movement in Israel, and is famously known as the world’s first egalitarian scouting movement, where boys and girls participate together on an equal basis.
What makes the Israeli Scouts so interesting, though, is that there is basically zero adult supervision. Scouts meet in peer groups and act autonomously, with guidance from young guides (slightly older scouts).
“The children and adolescents of the movement are completely self-sufficient, setting their own goals and ambitions,” according to Israeli entrepreneur Inbal Arieli. “This unique system, which charges youth with responsibility for their own education, is intrinsic to the perception of youth in Israeli society and to their current and future roles as citizens.”1
A few years ago, the Israeli ambassador to India had a meeting with a senior minister in the Indian government. On the morning of their meeting, there was a serious train accident with dozens of deaths. “I told him I was sorry for the disaster,” said the ambassador. “He didn’t know what I was talking about.”
The ambassador told this story with astonishment, but also with pride, to describe Israel’s supreme values of societal intimacy and collective conscience, in relation to other countries. After all, Israel is a country that will fight for every Israeli in every corner of the world, and send out a plane after every soul, while in India people roll in the streets, sometimes without you knowing if they are breathing.
In Gaza, the enemy across from Israelis has no value for human life, whereas Israel is fighting to bring back corpses. In the eyes of those hiding cowardly underneath the strip, this is our greatest disadvantage. This is the weak point. This why why they went on a murder and kidnapping spree in our midst.
On October 7th, something happened to Israel’s national ethos. We are no longer the same people we were. What defined us in our own eyes, is dissolving. The value of social cohesion, the source of Israel’s great strength, the basic element of our identity as a virtuous people, of our identity as a resilient people, has been taken away from us. The sadness is overwhelming.
But then you read the poignant letters from fallen soldiers who write them understanding the possibility that they might not make it, such as one by Elkana Vizel, a 35-year-old father of four. He wrote:
“If you are reading these words, something must have happened to me. First, in the event that I have been taken captive, I demand that no deal for the release of a single terrorist be made for my release. Our resounding victory is more important than anything else, so please simply continue putting all of your effort into ensuring that our victory is as resounding as possible.”
“Perhaps I have been killed in battle. When a soldier is killed in battle, it’s sad. But I ask you to be happy. Don’t be sad when you bid farewell to me. Sing a lot, enter people’s hearts, hold one another’s hands, and strengthen one another. We have so much to be proud of and be happy about. We are a generation of redemption. We are writing the most significant moments in the history of our nation and of the entire world. So I ask you to please be optimistic. Keep always choosing life — a life of love, hope, purity, and optimism.”
This message — keep fighting, despite the cost — is typically heard at the funerals of fallen soldiers, as well as in conversations with soldiers and reservists who have fought in Gaza.
One of these reservists is Lazer Cohen, who entered the IDF as a 38-year-old father of four. While Hamas assumed that the State of Israel is fragile and Israeli society is divided, and thus a bit of pressure would make the entire Zionist enterprise collapse, everything that has happened in the past 100-plus days has proven Hamas and its friends in the “Axis of Resistance” wrong.
Instead of fleeing, tens of thousands of Israelis rushed back home from around the globe to join their reserve units. Every single soldier and reservist fighting Hamas or Hezbollah is there because they want to be there. They fight because we have no other land, because we have dreamt for too long and given too much to build the beautiful country we have now. Because we are not putting our fate back into the hands of others. Never again.
Israeli soldiers do not celebrate death, but they are ready to sacrifice everything for this country, which we love and are so deeply rooted in. You can see that in every interview given by soldiers entering or leaving the battlefield. You can read it in the last wills left by soldiers who fell in battle.
More than 200 of our soldiers have been killed during the counter-attack in Gaza. Thousands more have been injured. Every single death is a puncture to the Israeli heart. But Hamas made the mistake of mistaking our humanity and empathy for weakness, and confusing our love of life with a lack of willingness to sacrifice it all for our fellow citizens and country.
“That is why I jumped at the opportunity to join the IDF. And that is why my wife supported me,” said Cohen. “When I held a gun in my right hand, a bible in my left and vowed to ‘obey all orders, and even sacrifice my life, for the protection of the homeland and the liberty of Israel’ I meant it with every fiber of my being.”2
Idan Amedi, a 35-year-old Israeli singer and actor who has starred in the hit Israeli TV series “Fauda,” decided to enlist as well. But then, two weeks ago, Amedi was seriously injured while fighting in Gaza. “I was so burned, no one recognized me,” he said after being discharged from the hospital this week.
Most countries could not fathom a celebrity enlisting to the front lines of combat. After all, if Amedi had wanted, he could have easily declined reserve duty or switched to a safer unit.
How strange these Israelis are. Indeed, there are few nations like them.
Arieli, Inbal. “Chutzpah: Why Israel Is a Hub of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.” Harper Business. 2019.
Lazer Cohen on X
Just gonna say Israelis don’t care at all what idiotic progressives in the US think. They know the truth about Hamas and what happened. If the whole world hates Israel then what’s the point of listening to the haters? It’s unhinged
And btw. Hamas. You’ve been told to release all hostages now! Do it.
This article made my heart soar! Thank you Joshua.