“When the immediacy of the horrors of October 7 begins to fade, the trauma that will linger in the Israeli psyche is the shattering of two core assumptions about our country.

The first was the belief that we know how to defend ourselves and project deterrence in a hostile region. But on October 7, the weakest of our enemies delivered the most devastating blow in our history, sending a message of unprecedented vulnerability to our enemies.

The second was the belief that we know how to protect each other. But on October 7, the Israelis on the Gaza border were effectively abandoned by the army and the government, sending a message of unprecedented failure to ourselves.

The ongoing agony of the hostages only deepens that sense of failure and shame.

Israel’s strength and resilience depend on maintaining our deterrence and our solidarity, the two pillars of our national ethos. During the first months of the war, Israelis pretended that we could do both: defeat Hamas, restoring our deterrence, and free the hostages, restoring our faith in our ability to protect each other. Now though, we know that we must choose between those two essential goals.

That is the cruelty of our hostage dilemma.

Prioritizing the hostages will have consequences for restoring our deterrence; prioritizing victory will have consequences for restoring our solidarity. Proponents of either position need to acknowledge the brutal price their choice entails.

The struggle between those two positions is playing out on Israel’s streets through competing photographs of smiling faces. The posters advocating an immediate deal show snapshots of hostages in the poses of daily life, while posters advocating victory show snapshots of fallen soldiers in their youthful vigor. The images pull on shared emotions – our concern for each other – but demand opposing political conclusions. Will you allow your sisters and brothers to die in the tunnels? Will you allow those who fought in the tunnels to have died in vain?”

Read the full piece by Yossi Klein Halevi in the Times of Israel.