Israel/Palestine

Haaretz Editorial
Aug 8, 2025

The security cabinet met Thursday night to discuss yet another expansion of the war in Gaza, another link in a long chain that will surely get its own name. The names change but the song remains the same: occupation, destruction and the forcible transfer of tens of thousands of Palestinians. Additional soldiers will be sacrificed on this altar, and the remaining Israeli hostages will be lost. The Netanyahu government has turned both groups into collateral damage.

In the face of this nightmare vision, which is driven by personal and Jewish messianic considerations, we cannot remain indifferent. We must not be silent. That is why more than 2,000 artists and cultural figures signed a petition that called for ending the war, titled "Stop the Horror in Gaza." This held up an important mirror to the public, even if many Israelis would rather break it or look away.

The artists' petition reflected a basic human truth that the government seeks to silence: Harming innocent people is wrong. Consequently, the petition said, it's impossible to accept "the killing of children and civilians, policies of starvation, mass displacement and the senseless destruction of entire cities." Illegal orders must not be given, and if they are they must not be obeyed, the petition added, reiterating what ought to be self-evident. But not in Israel under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.

Ever since the petition was released, a systematic campaign has been waged to silence the signatories. Participants include cabinet ministers and politicians outside the government, collaborators in the media, far-right activists and many other cultural figures. Mayors have also announced that they won't commission performances by artists who signed the petition, whom they claim "incited against IDF soldiers." Over and over, it has become clear that in today's Israel, only one opinion can be voiced in the space between opposition leader Yair Lapid and far-right rapper Yoav "the Shadow" Eliasi. The fraudulent consensus is a chorus singing in unison.

The pressure on the petition's signatories has been only partially successful. Some of them (Assaf Amdursky, Alon Oleartchik) couldn't withstand the pressure and the threats and retracted their signatures. In Oleartchik's case, his public recantation paid off: A performance of his that had been canceled was reinstated. That shows not only the power of censorship, both official and unofficial, but also the fact that some people choose to collaborate with it.

In the face of this silencing campaign, we must not blink. The plan Netanyahu is pushing will lead to the complete destruction of Gaza, and also of Israel's moral foundations. In opposing the war and its crimes, the cultural figures joined people with similar views in academia, nongovernmental organizations and even within the army itself. All of them are essential to forge an alternative to the government's death cult.

Now of all times, after so many days of unprecedented killing and when Israel is just a step away from sliding into perpetual war, every Israeli must speak out loud and clear against it. Silence is surrender.

The above article is Haaretz's lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.

Link : https://archive.md/FDqeq#selection-1057.0-1057.107