Almog Holot<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cMost of the time it was really peaceful,\u201d she said. \u201cMy children knew to answer people that the people who threw rockets were just Hamas, and most of the people in Gaza are good \u2013 just like them.\u201d <\/p>\n
Like many residents of kibbutzim \u2013 or communal settlements \u2013 located near the Gaza border, Holot says she holds left-leaning political views. And like many so-called kibbutzniks, she too believed in, and advocated for, peace with Palestinians. <\/p>\n
People from outside of her kibbutz used to tell her that her views were \u201cna\u00efve,\u201d she said. Now she believes they were right. <\/p>\n
\u201cI can no longer say that 95% of them (Palestinians) want to live in peace,\u201d Holot said, adding that many in her community were \u201csurprised\u201d by the attacks, but not because of the actions of Hamas. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe thought (Gazans) were like us. And it turned out, no, they\u2019re not,\u201d she said, alleging that \u201ccommon people of Gaza\u201d were involved in the looting of October 7 and expressed support for the attacks. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s an attitude that Avida Bachar, from nearby kibbutz Be\u2019eri also shares. Bachar lost his wife, his teenage son and his right leg in the attacks, in which 100 of the kibbutz\u2019s 1,100 residents were killed. <\/p>\n
Prior to October 7, Bachar believed that Palestinians and Israelis could coexist. <\/p>\n
Now, he believes that Israel should raze Gaza and take complete control of it. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to take the border, to move the border, and put potatoes and peanut fields there (in Gaza), until the sea. That is a different system, and we have to do it,\u201d he said, acknowledging that his support of such an extreme idea would have surprised him prior to the war. <\/p>\n
Such shifts in attitudes aren\u2019t surprising for survivors of extreme trauma, said Merav Roth, a Haifa-based clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes most of your energy just to survive mentally. And that\u2019s why they don\u2019t have spare energy to think of \u2018the other,\u2019\u201d Roth said, adding that they are often in \u201cfight or flight\u201d mode and react in \u201cbinary, primitive ways.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re in chaos, when you\u2019re intimidated, when you\u2019re threatened, you split the world into two: total good and total bad\u2026 and revenge is an illusion of becoming strong,\u201d Roth said. <\/p>\n
So, by operating with a mentality of \u201cI don\u2019t want to think about them. I don\u2019t want to solve anything,\u2019\u201d Roth said, survivors are able to create a sense of protection for themselves. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s the type of protection Holot seeks for herself and her children, who both suffer from PTSD. <\/p>\n
While Holot said that she does not support US President Donald Trump or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu politically, their call to relocate Palestinians in Gaza to third countries \u2013 a \u201cvoluntary\u201d emigration plan\u202fapproved\u202fby Israel\u2019s cabinet in March that critics say could amount to ethnic cleansing \u2013 has given her pause. <\/p>\n
\u201cWould I want to get up tomorrow morning, wake up and see that all the people in Gaza disappeared and everything is peaceful? Yes. On the same note, I would like to get up tomorrow morning and find out that all the people in Gaza want peace,\u201d she said, before adding: \u201cBut do I think (either) is possible? No.\u201d <\/p>\n
In the 1990s and 2000s, the conflict was a dividing line between left and right, split 50-50 along political lines, according to Tamar Hermann, a public opinion and polling expert at the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), a Jerusalem-based think tank. <\/p>\n
Holot and Bachar\u2019s views mirror a wider shift in attitudes among Israeli Jews to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the idea of a two-state solution since October 7. <\/p>\n
But over the years, Jewish Israeli society has made a significant shift to the right, with only 13% of that population now self-identifying as on the left, compared with 30% in the center, and 55-60% on the right, Hermann said. <\/p>\n
While the right remains staunchly against a Palestinian state, a view that has only hardened since the war began, the center is now much more aligned with the right than it used to be, she said. <\/p>\n
But the major shift has been among those on the left, who used to support a two-state solution but now see a Palestinian state as unfeasible anytime soon, she said. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, across all political lines, very few Jewish Israelis (5%) believe that Hamas would end its struggle against Israel even if there was a Palestinian state, according to an IDI opinion poll conducted 13 months ago. <\/p>\n
Holot, who still identifies as on the left, said she believes left-wing activists outside of Israel who demonstrate for a \u201cFree Palestine\u201d do not fully understand Hamas\u2019 ideological stance, instead only focusing on images of Palestinian suffering. <\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s war in Gaza has killed more than 52,000 people since October 2023 \u2013\u202famong them 16,000 children \u2013 according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. 2,100 Palestinians have been killed since Israel reignited its aerial and ground campaign last month, breaking a two-month-old ceasefire. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very sad for this reality, but I\u2019m very stable about knowing that it\u2019s not our fault and their leaders brought it upon them,\u201d Holot said, echoing a wider national sentiment. Nearly all Jewish Israelis (94.5%) believe that Hamas bears a great deal of responsibility for the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, according to the IDI poll. <\/p>\n
\u201cMurderousness is infectious, aggression is infectious,\u201d Roth said of the vicious cycle of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. <\/p>\n
But Roth, who believes in a two-state solution, still has hope for peace. She said some of the returned hostages and survivors she\u2019s worked with have told her: \u201c\u2019I will fight for the two-state solution. We still need peace.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThey are amazing, and it\u2019s inspiring,\u201d Roth said. \u201cThey keep their higher selves, even after all that they went through.\u201d <\/p>\n
In between lectures, 21-year-old Gili Avidor walks under trees on the perimeter of the Tel Aviv University campus. Like the survivors \u2013 and much of Israeli society \u2013 she, too, has undergone a profound personal and political transformation since October 7. <\/p>\n
But her story is very different than most. <\/p>\n
\u201cI remember telling my sister that I want everyone in Gaza dead,\u201d said Avidor. <\/p>\n
\u201cNow I am ashamed and frightened of the fact that these words came out of my mouth,\u201d Avidor, who describes herself as being from a right-wing family, said: \u201cI was completely inside the Israeli narrative. That\u2019s the only reality I knew.\u201d <\/p>\n
As Israel escalated its war on Gaza, Avidor said something changed for her. <\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, there is probably some other girl on the other side of the gate in Gaza that is feeling exactly what I feel, that someone she loved got killed, and revenge is the answer\u2026(but) revenge is what makes such things to happen in the first place.\u201d <\/p>\n
Avidor began to engage with left-wing activist groups that support Palestinian self-determination and volunteered as a \u201cprotective presence\u201d for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, who have suffered an increasing number of attacks by Jewish settlers since the start of the war. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to stand up to your own society, she said, adding that individual and collective trauma has been weaponized to empower extremists to perpetuate the conflict and dehumanize Palestinians. <\/p>\n
Still, she remains committed to a different way forward, saying that it is her \u201cduty\u201d to advocate for \u201chuman beliefs in this very dark time.\u201d <\/p>\n
Avidor acknowledges that she did not experience the first-hand trauma that many kibbutzniks did, and expresses deep sympathy for them. <\/p>\n
\u201cI can understand that people who endure such a trauma (flips) their life upside-down,\u201d Avidor said. <\/p>\n
But she pushed back on the idea that October 7 is a reason for them to stop seeing a path forward to peace with Palestinians. <\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, they say: \u2018Okay, we were the the good Jews who helped you and took you to the hospital when you\u2019re sick\u2026\u2019 but now they strip them from their humanity,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe notion that human rights is something that people need to gain and to be thankful for? That makes me angry. And I think they\u2019re hypocrites,\u201d Avidor added. <\/p>\n
Not every survivor has faltered in their vision for peace. <\/p>\n
At her father\u2019s graveside at kibbutz Nir Oz several weeks ago, Sharone Lifschitz read one of his poems to friends and family attending his headstone-setting ceremony, as the sound of bombs exploded a mile away in Gaza. <\/p>\n
Oded Lifschitz, a lifelong peace activist, was kidnapped age 83 from the kibbutz on October 7, along with his wife Yocheved, who was freed weeks after her capture. <\/p>\n
She and her mother continue to embody Oded\u2019s ideology, saying that peace with Palestinians is the only way forward. <\/p>\n
Roth, the psychologist, believes Israel\u2019s most \u201csevere danger as a society is if we become the atrocity we experience.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThis will be really the victory of Hamas, if the Israeli people will lose their values, their higher selves, their morality, (capacity for) seeing the other,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Back in kibbutz Tzora, Holot says she still holds liberal values, and is focused on healing herself and her children. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to teach them bad things about humanity. So, I prepare them to keep thinking that Hamas is bad and the people are good\u2026 even if I don\u2019t feel it myself,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n
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