Over the past several months of war, all of us have had to wake up with anxiety, knowing that the IDF releases the latest names of the fallen at 6 a.m. To this daily tragic moment, we now have another dose of anxiety, but unlike the former, this is not anxiety about new names, but about the old memories from before the war.
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It's hard to forget what Israel looked like before Oct. 7, we must never do that. Even three months of war and bereavement in every neighborhood cannot dull the memory, of how we all behaved before it erupted; how a constitutional debate about the democratic balance of power between the branches of government turned into a national brawl from which there was no way out; how, as the political and legal entanglement intensified, the schism exacted an ever-increasing toll in every aspect of our lives: the Knesset, in the army, in the economy, in the street, in the family.
The Black Saturday massacre was an awakening: from a bad dream-– into a real-life nightmare. On the one hand, we were all swept into a war to eradicate the forces of darkness, with a sense of unity of mission and purpose. On the other hand, we tried to convince ourselves that the bad dream was left in a bygone era. We washed our faces, and against our will, we sobered up. Rift? Tear? Schism? Together we will win.
But despite this sobering-up, even as tens of thousands of soldiers endanger their lives in Gaza and while 129 Israelis are still held captive by Hamas, and even as masses of reservists lose their livelihood for the sake of defending the homeland, even when thousands of Israelis live in hotels and temporary housing, and even after long weeks in which civil society stepped up to the plate without an order to assist and save lives – even in these fateful times, we failed to put the past behind us.
We said that from now on, no judicial disagreement would distract our gaze from the existential threat lurking around us from all corners of the Middle East; we were sure that no appointment committee would make us forget how negligence and apathy allowed Hamas' to engage in such horrific acts; we convinced ourselves that we had learned our lesson, that we now had entered a new reality. But in fact, we only bookmarked the scariest page in the book.
The leak from within the walls of the Supreme Court, hinting that the High Court is expected to strike down the first law passed in the controversial judicial reform – the amendment that prohibits courts from striking down government decisions based on their reasonableness – is exactly what the State of Israel does not need right now. We don't need the leak or the ruling – no matter whether it shows the court is activist or textualist. The State of Israel does not need enthusiastic commentators and news editors, it does not need tweeting MKs, and it does not need nor want the masses to take to the streets in protest and mounted police to counter them.
And what is the State of Israel? Its image is reflected these days only through its fighters on the front line. This is evident in every aspect – from the record enlistment rates for combat units to the hundreds of stories of heroism; from the esprit de corps to the lists of the fallen, which is a mosaic comprising every community, from every sector. All this shows that we are one nation, one army.
And when the state is its fighters, it is forbidden to inflict even the slightest harm on their ability to win. The company commander in Givati does not need to be troubled by the thought of whether his soldiers know the breakdown of the ruling handed down by the Supreme Court; the pilot of the F-16 is not interested in tweets warning that there might be a civil war; and the tank driver doesn't need to be distracted by breaking news on protests in Tel Aviv. They simply don't.
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These fighters are busy 24/7 ensuring that Israeli families can return to lead a normal life in their homes, without fear. It is a yearning that every citizen has fought for in his heart in recent months, including the Supreme Court justices and the leaders of the judicial reform protests. The IDF is prosecuting this war to achieve this goal on the front line. Soldiers are killed every day for it.
Our fighters in Gaza are only a numerical minority of the population of the State of Israel, but today they represent what is quintessential Israeli. Only they feel on their own flesh the existential urgency that is beginning to fade among many in Israel. Do not disturb them from winning.
