A New Politics of Unity

“Together we will win!” 

You see it all over the city — scrawled in spray paint on the side of a building or superimposed over an undulating Israeli flag on an LED panel at the train station. It is the official slogan of the war — Israel’s take on “Keep Calm and Carry On.”

In a time of national crisis, we are drawn to the language of unity — especially considering that the past 12 months have seen Israeli society disfigured by internal conflicts concerning the judicial reform legislation put forth by Netanyahu’s bizarre, anti-democratic coalition and opposed by a protest movement of unseen proportions. 

After October 7th, who can remember what all that fuss was about? We’ve been reminded — at the barrel of a gun — that we have other more serious problems. We are surrounded by enemies ready to kill, maim, kidnap, and defile. What’s more, those enemies have supporters in some of the most elite institutions of the western world who will cheer when Israelis are slaughtered and characterize Israel’s effort to defend itself as an act of genocide — casus belli for Hamas’ next attempt to exterminate Jews in their homes. 

So we proclaim that “together we will win,” while in the Knesset, Prime Minister Netanyahu and opposition leader Benny Gantz form a unity government. We realize now that a country with violent enemies living a hair’s breadth away from civilians cannot afford to be so divided. We don’t have the luxury to engage in the endless culture wars that characterize American politics. We don’t have the privilege to elect extremist clowns to the highest echelons of government to see how it goes. Nor do we, I might add, have the privilege to boycott and politicize the IDF, or to leverage Israel’s economy as a bargaining chip in a battle over proposed legislation. 

It’s not my intention to draw a moral equivalency between an anti-democratic legislative push and a pro-democracy protest movement. That said, as in a Mexican standoff, everyone must put down their weapons at the same time in order to deescalate. The war has provided the perfect pretense to do just this. The unity government has agreed not to deal with any nonemergency agenda items, i.e. judicial reform, while the protest movement has repurposed its activist networks to serve the war effort on the home front.

The wounds of the past year have not healed just because we have been attacked, and if we want “together we will win” to be more than just a wartime catchphrase, we will need to do more to cultivate unity in this country. 

Underneath the surface of these displays of detente, however, Israelis are still feeling angry, resentful, and eager to blame the current situation on the “other side.” The wounds of the past year have not healed just because we have been attacked, and if we want “together we will win” to be more than just a wartime catchphrase, we will need to do more to cultivate unity in this country. 

In 1948, at the dawn of the state of Israel’s existence, David Ben-Gurion made the decision to attack and sink a ship carrying Jews to Tel Aviv. That ship — the Altalena — was transporting weapons and supplies (as well as fighters) for the Irgun paramilitary organization. Ben-Gurion saw this ship as a threat to the newly formed IDF’s monopoly on the use of force. A state cannot be a patchwork of militias. It needs a unified structure.

Whatever one thinks of Ben-Gurion’s decision, the story should disabuse us of the notion that the pursuit of national unity is something pollyannaish and sentimental. Rather, it is a vital strategic interest that must be pursued with the same hardheadedness and realism as the pursuit of security objectives. Indeed, as we have learned, national unity is a security objective. 

And so we need a unity government, not as an emergency measure, but with the recognition that unity is what will shield us from future emergencies. We need a government for which the top priority is the rebuilding of social cohesion and good faith between citizens and their government. 

It’s hard to imagine how Netanyahu — the most divisive figure in Israeli politics — would have any role in such a government. He has shown himself to be a cynical partisan far too many times and his legal troubles are an ongoing conflict of interest. 

Nevertheless, every tribe of Israeli society — Arabs, Haredim, religious Zionists and secular Jews — must feel that such a government is their ally. This trust will be crucial for the second aspect of such a government’s work, which will be confronting the extremists in each tribe and ridding the country of the forces that threaten the state’s unity.

Just as Ben-Gurion took on the Irgun, the unity government must root out and lock up settler thugs terrorizing Palestinians in the West Bank as well as the “spiritual leaders” who incite them. Extremists like these stretch thin the country’s security resources making us more vulnerable to attack. So too must the state take on the violent crime organizations making life unbearable for Arab Israelis before entire regions of Israel become ungovernable cartel territory. 

Vigilante fanatics who assault their fellow citizens — whether they be Haredi students spitting on non-Orthodox worshippers in Jerusalem or secular protesters disrupting Yom Kippur prayers in Tel Aviv — should be treated as a threat to our ability to function and cooperate as a body politic.

As we heal from this devastating period in Israeli history, the indomitable forces of normalcy will carry us back into our routines, and nothing is more routine in Israel lately than civil strife. 

After all, the unity we feel today is fleeting. It is rooted in shock and sorrow and shared trauma. As we heal from this devastating period in Israeli history, the indomitable forces of normalcy will carry us back into our routines, and nothing is more routine in Israel lately than civil strife. 

That’s OK. We don’t need a sentimental unity. We don’t need to hold hands or to sing “Kumbaya.” What we need is a new politics of unity which can do more than sell us slogans.

Matthew Schultz is a Jewish Journal columnist and rabbinical student at Hebrew College. He is the author of the essay collection “What Came Before” (Tupelo, 2020) and lives in Boston and Jerusalem.