Itamar Greenberg laughed when asked whether he thought we should be afraid. A 19-year-old Israeli anti-war activist described having just been spat on in the street and being the target of an online hate campaign.
“yes!” He finally responded. “If you think about it, I guess so. I don’t have time.”
While public calls for war are growing and the language of genocide already familiar to millions of Palestinians is reemerging, the other target is Iran. There are few voices like Greenberg’s in Israel.
Officially, 11 Israelis have been killed in Iranian attacks since the United States and Israel began their war on Iran on February 28. It is not known what the actual number is or how many of Iran’s ballistic missiles penetrated Iran’s Iron Dome shield.
Shortly after the US-Israeli attack on Iran began, at the site of an Iranian missile strike in West Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again used the apocalyptic language that has characterized his country’s genocide in the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu compared the Iranians to Amalek, the Biblical enemy of the Jewish people, telling reporters that Jews were commanded by God to be wiped from the face of the Earth. “In this week’s Torah portion we read, “‘Remember what Amalek has done to you.’ We remember and we act.”
So far, Iran has claimed attacks across Israel, saying missiles and drones hit military installations, symbolic infrastructure and even Netanyahu’s office. Tehran described the attack as precise and strategic, not indiscriminate and part of a broader regional response. Iran also claims it targeted Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport and Haifa.
But Israeli officials have denied many of the specific claims. Netanyahu’s office dismissed Iranian claims of attacks on his office or influence on his condition as “fake news,” and strict reporting restrictions on Iranian attacks in Israel have made verification difficult.
What is more clear is that as Iran’s airstrikes intensify, the desire for war is increasing among the public. A poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) last week showed overwhelming public support for the war, with 93% of Jewish-Israeli respondents supporting an attack on Iran and 74% backing Israel’s historically divisive Prime Minister Netanyahu.
“No one is talking about opposition to the war,” Greenberg said, describing an environment in which figures from across the Israeli media and political landscape, with the exception of the left-wing Hadash party and anti-war organizations like Greenberg’s Mesarvot, have lined up behind the war. “It’s also becoming more and more violent,” he said.
“On Tuesday we protested with the police waiting for us. The police beat us and arrested us. I was illegally strip-searched,” he said, adding that this was intended to humiliate him.
Greenberg is familiar with such tactics. Six months ago, after he was arrested for protesting the genocide in Gaza, prison guards threatened to carve a Star of David on his face, a permanent reminder of what his priorities were.
Anti-war activists are not the only ones facing attacks from Israel’s security services.
“The atmosphere is very violent,” Hadash Party lawmaker Ofer Kashif told Al Jazeera. “When I leave my house, I’m more worried about the risk from a physical fascist attack than from any missile,” he said.
Members of parliament like Hadash and Kashif have been targets of physical threats and attacks throughout the Gaza war. However, criticism of the Netanyahu government’s handling of Israeli prisoners in the Gaza Strip meant that opposition to the Gaza war was relatively more socially acceptable. For Iran, the current climate is toxic, Kashif said.
“We are often accused of supporting the regime in Tehran,” Kashif explained of attempts to justify opposition to the war.
“We certainly do not. We want to see that regime fall, but we will not allow Netanyahu to say that he is doing this for the Iranian people. He is not. That is not just rhetoric, it is fact. The Israeli leadership supported the shah as much as the United States and he was as murderous a dictator as the current regime,” Kashif said. Iran before the Islamic Revolution.
Analysts and observers in Israel now describe a society they believe has almost entered jihad.
“They brought an anti-war activist onto one of their light news programs and she was treated like a flat-earther. It’s like it’s inconceivable that anyone would be against this war,” said Ori Goldberg, a political analyst near Tel Aviv.
“Israel has become a society with no middle ground and no ability to dialogue. It’s as if our entire existence depends on our ability to do whatever we want. And if the world tries to stop that, the world will become anti-Semitic and we will all burn.”
