I am Irish and live in Israel. The war we see on TV is not the one you see – The Irish Times

As an Irish citizen living in Tel Aviv, Israel, I am constantly asked by Irish family and friends how Israelis view the war on Gaza and now the war with Lebanon, whether they speak openly about the war and, in particular, how Israelis view the war Devastation justifies deaths of 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza.

The simple truth is that Israelis don’t see what the rest of the world sees on their television screens almost every night. The harrowing images of the dust-covered bodies of bloodied and lifeless infants in the arms of a mother or father are rarely, if ever, shown on mainstream Israeli television news. Of course people talk about the war. Every evening Israeli news channels talk about little else. But this is the tale of a different war. This is a war with Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets into Israel almost daily since October 7 last year; a war with Hamas, which continues to hold hostages; and now in an existential struggle for survival, a war with Iran and its so-called army proxies from Yemen, Syria and Iraq.

As an Irish journalist, I may have a different political perspective on all of these wars than most of my friends and family in Israel, but reporting on a war and living that war are markedly different. In Israel, the immediacy of the war is primarily felt by me as the father of two young Israeli daughters. As a parent, the challenge is to talk to our seven-year-old about the war. How do you describe the conflict or explain the Sirens and the Sirens? how to talk about the importance of getting into a bomb shelter – all without scaring or denying the reality around them. No doubt many Irish readers will think: you’re lucky you’re warned by sirens and safe in bomb shelters. This is undoubtedly true. But you never get used to the deafening shock of those sirens, the immediate sense of panic about what might come next, especially when the kids aren’t with you, and the thunderous explosions of intercepted missiles overhead.

In the Israel-Palestine ethnic mosaic, these rockets and rockets do not discriminate. The only fatality in Iran’s latest barrage of 180 ballistic missiles was a Palestinian from Gaza living in the occupied West Bank city of Jericho. The dozen children blown up by a Hezbollah rocket at a sports field in the city of Majdal Shams in late July were from the Druze minority. Ironically, it is the Israeli-Palestinian and Druze communities in northern Israel that have suffered the heaviest bombings at the hands of Hezbollah in the last 12 months.

Like all parents of Israeli children, I fear for their safety in Israel. I now also fear for their safety abroad. Almost every Irish person knows the typically pleasant reaction when strangers abroad find out for the first time that they are from Ireland. Israelis have always had to be careful. Today they are forced to hide it. There is a strong belief in Israel that the extent and widespread acceptance of the demonization of all things in Israel is rarely acknowledged.

The prevailing view here is that today, in many parts of Europe and the USA, it is perfectly acceptable and almost uncontested to openly express a deep antipathy towards Israel and implicitly towards (Jewish) Israelis. As the father of two young Jewish-Israeli girls, this casual, thoughtless badge of anti-Israelism is something I admittedly fear more than any anti-Semitism, vulgar, covert or otherwise. At least in public, most people will agree to condemn the seemingly never-ending resurgence of anti-Semitic phrases.

Fine Gael Councilor Punam Rane’s public comment this week – “How many of you know that the entire US economy is now run by the Jews and by Israel” – did not go unnoticed in Israel. In response to Rane’s comment, which she later retracted and apologized for, the head of the Jewish Council of Ireland said: “Demonization of Israel is nothing more than a dog whistle for anti-Semitism.” Perhaps.

But for many in Israel, the demonization of all Israelis has become dangerously inextricable from legitimate and necessary vigorous criticism of the Israeli government’s actions. I write these words wondering at what age it is appropriate to discuss with my daughters the International Criminal Court’s finding of a “plausible genocide” against Israel. When is too early and when is too late?

Israelis themselves are deeply divided.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu himself remains deeply unpopular and is probably loathed by half the country. But it is a complex and diverse country. One in five Israeli citizens is Israeli Arab – Palestinian, Druze or Bedouin. Today, one in 13 people is a settler living in the occupied West Bank. Half of Israel’s Jews have their origins in Arab or Muslim countries, primarily in Morocco, Iraq, Iran or Algeria. Each of these identities shapes different political voices.

Just as there is no single Israeli, there is no single Israeli point of view. But there is a strong feeling that the country and its citizens have been betrayed by the government. There is a widespread belief that Netanyahu has repeatedly thwarted a ceasefire agreement with Hamas out of narrow political self-interest. Many Jewish Israelis, particularly those from secular and politically centrist backgrounds, feel that the current government has violated Israel’s sacrosanct policy of never abandoning its citizens when taken hostage. The mood across the country is gloomy.

It is difficult to convey how the October 7 terrorist attacks caused genuine existential fear among Israelis. Just over a year later, that existential fear is exacerbated by a war on multiple fronts and the prospect of a larger conflict with Iran, whose supreme leader Ali Khamenei has said in the past: “The cancer that is Israel must be eradicated from the region.” There is no doubt that this existential fear is also being fueled by Israel’s right-wing political rhetoric and growing hubris that suggests that Israel will be compelled to do so in the face of Hamas and Israel’s weakened military capabilities Hezbollah should now concentrate its military power on Iran in order to reshape politics in the Middle East in its favor. Just last Wednesday, Netanyahu was quoted as saying, “If we don’t fight, we die.” The feeling of being inexorably driven or led into the abyss is palpable.

Paul Kearns is a freelance journalist from Dublin living in Tel Aviv