Ceasefire nation: Caught between war and peace, can Israelis move forward? |
How do you react to the sound of a motorcycle revving?
If you’ve lived in Israel since October 7, 2023, you might feel a jolt of anxiety, a quickening of the pulse, until, half a second later, it clicks that what you just heard was not, in fact, the beginning of a siren warning of an incoming missile attack. It just so happens that those two things — motorcycles and sirens — sound very similar.
Or maybe you’re out at dinner, or taking a train, or relaxing on a park bench enjoying a sunny day, when you glance around and notice that where you’re sitting — the park bench, the restaurant window, a concrete column on the train platform — is covered in bumper stickers emblazoned with the faces of some of the 2,000 Israelis who have been killed since October 7.
Almost all of them are smiling, and, if you’re an adult, almost all of them are younger than you. You were once their age. They will never be your age.
And yet, there is no war, at least not right now, at least not for most. A ceasefire has been in place in Gaza for more than six months, in Iran for more than a month.
A third ceasefire, in the north, has unraveled, and residents of the embattled border towns remain very much at risk. You read about it in the headlines. You know people serving in Lebanon, or maybe Syria, or maybe Rafah in Gaza, or Tulkarem in the West Bank. They are all sons, daughters, fathers, brothers, friends. You see the pictures of the fallen soldiers, the ones on their fifth or sixth round of reserve duty, and you know the danger is real. You know the borderland isn’t safe.
But you don’t go there, and it all feels very far away.
In post-October 7 Israel, is this peacetime? Naftali Bennett, the man promising a fresh start if he is elected prime minister, was once fond of saying that “peace in the Middle East is a lack of war.” And while there is conflict in Lebanon and the West Bank, for you, as for many Israelis, “lack of war” seems very apt.
But those who specialize in trauma say it is not enough. Merav Roth, a clinical psychologist and trauma expert at the University of Haifa, said that Israelis living in the purgatory of a ceasefire, with no guarantee that the war is over, have not been given the space or closure to begin healing from nearly three years of conflict.
“The truth is that the whole population has been in a situation of continuous collective trauma. It’s been more than two-and-a-half years when you’ve been in an on-and-off war,” said Roth, who is a co-founder of First Line Med, a group providing mental health care to victims of the October 7 attack. (She is also the sister of Yair Lapid, the Knesset’s opposition........