Israelis are grappling with a total breakdown of trust and a collapse of everything they believed in [View all]

With a ground invasion into Gaza imminent, Israelis are grappling with a total breakdown of trust and a collapse of everything they believed in and relied on.

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All this is happening amid a total breakdown of trust between the citizens and the state of Israel, and a collapse of everything Israelis believed in and relied on. Initial assessments point to an Israeli intelligence failure before the surprise attack, the failure of a sophisticated border barrier, the military’s slow initial response and a government that seems to have busied itself with the wrong things and now appears largely absent and dysfunctional.

“We have woken to a terrible sobriety about whose hands we put our fate in,” said Dorit Rabinyan, an author in Tel Aviv. “All the time you said to yourself, ‘I am paying half of what I earn in taxes, but it is for security, national security, at least that.’”

“We thought we had military superiority, but there’s a feeling that someone up there forgot why he is there,” she added, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.


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In a country of nine million people, where most Jews serve in the army, everybody appears to know somebody who was caught up in the Hamas massacre or who is now on the front line. “Your hands tremble each time you answer your phone,” Ms. Rabinyan said, for fear of bad tidings.

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“To restore honor to Israel,” said Shai Levy, 37, a tank driver who in civilian life is a rabbi and teacher in a seminary. “The citizens are relying on us to defeat Hamas and remove the threat from Gaza once and for all,” he said, while stationed in a makeshift camp outside the gate of Be’eri, one of the worst-hit villages, where more than 100 people were killed.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/15/world/middleeast/hamas-israel-mood-distrust.html?unlocked_article_code=xoEFnhDjYEbdx42pu9WmBDvY0FigQdjLEq2jkFtQLdqDpLK5p5vbtqKNMl61yESgE1Qs91KEsc5y4Q4-vNNiiXu3P49nvBdhZWcwc3XXuxUBAVZDdS1FJUDlC_3admjnD8dVuV8b6vDnTtAxjNrj-H_BnYW2gNt9Sv-1QsZkfme19eIL77NN3Qv0cDF5FJ3MaE1iCMjKHbqgooImMXfUDsKgP2CmtRconAQKUYpuJGS3p_0HjTXgIrUyDGEL3T-2LLH4lu6adgTjmMuKzybjyH8IQxNximCR2rXCRYl-LP89a9jx-_BTEQd2TFQMWX8YZVyqhd_BKiseZYIBDc7rFsLJRsD-JVVUeHnFlIo&smid=url-share