March 1, 2026
Alongside familiar feelings of fear and uncertainty, the newly escalated conflict with Iran has forged a renewed mood of national unity, in which the usual political and social divisions of Israel’s fractured society appeared to have been subsumed by a collective sense that a conflict long willed by so many had finally arrived.
Speaking from inside a shelter as the sounds of missiles and explosions shook the city, Orly Hareuveny, a physiotherapist, told Middle East Eye that Israelis had become so accustomed to war that it was now a distinct characteristic of Israeli life - “the same as the weather is for people in England”.
Hareuveny considers herself a leftist and a supporter of co-existence with Palestinians, political views that have been marginalised in the Israel of Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition and its three-year genocidal war in Gaza.
This is so sadly predictable, but also, that comment:
Speaking from inside a shelter as the sounds of missiles and explosions shook the city, Orly Hareuveny, a physiotherapist, told Middle East Eye that Israelis had become so accustomed to war that it was now a distinct characteristic of Israeli life - “the same as the weather is for people in England”.
Is so sad.
They reap what they sow. They cannot play the victim while supporting their idea of peace (destroying their list of enemies, which just keeps getting bigger)
I wasn’t trying to be specifically sympathetic to Israelis, I was trying to point out that there’s a loss of humanity living in a state of constant war and conflict. And yeah Israel is reaping what they’ve sown, but when conflicts last for so long it becomes a generational curse, (and this is a bit cliche but) in the “hurt people hurt people” kind of way. It’s fucked up. Shit’s on autopilot.
