Monday was truly a day unlike any other in the history of Israel. A lightning presidential visit shared a split screen with the 20 living hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza arriving home to joyous and tearful welcomes from their families and the entire nation.
It was almost impossible to believe, after two years of fighting Hamas and despair over the plight of those sons of Zion amid the propaganda videos released by the terrorists, that they were back on Israeli soil embracing their loved ones.
At Hostage Square in Tel Aviv and other locations throughout the country, throngs gathered as a community to welcome the hostages back. Cars passing by honked and drivers gave thumbs-up or V signals.
One man interviewed on N12 news spent the night before at Re’im, near the site of the Nova music festival attack. When asked why, he answered, “Our sons are coming home… How could I not come?”
There was almost a feeling of that long-lost word that disappeared from the Israeli lexicon – unity.
Cracks in Israeli society
However, a couple hours later at the Knesset, there was a cold glass of reality poured on the party. Yes, the rambling speech by US President Donald Trump struck all the right notes, with both the coalition and the opposition giving repeated standing ovations for sentiments about Israel and the US.
But Trump’s appearance and comments exposed some of the cracks within Israeli society that, hostages home or not, are very apparent.
As some commentators pointed out, all the heads of Israel’s main branches were invited and present, with the glaring exception of Supreme Court Chief Justice Isaac Amit, a reminder that the coalition and Justice Minister Yariv Levin don’t recognize the legitimacy of his appointment.
Trump, knowing it would cause a ruckus, offhandedly suggested to President Isaac Herzog, sitting to his side, to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to the resounding cheers of the coalition members in the chamber – leaving an embarrassed Herzog to smile sheepishly.
In a shameful display, Hadash-Ta’al MKs Ayman Odeh and Ofer Cassif were ejected from the Knesset for shouting “terrorist” during Trump’s speech and holding up a sign reading “recognize Palestine.”
And Trump, either trying to calm tensions or maybe stir them up more, praised opposition leader Yair Lapid as a “very nice guy” and urged Netanyahu to be nicer to him now that he had “won the war.”
All of those points, even taken collectively, are minute compared to the enormity of the return of the hostages. Even though the repeated mentions of peace in the region are far too premature (this is a ceasefire that could collapse at any moment that Hamas decides), the achievements Trump and his team brought about do, indeed, open up possibilities for change.
However, as he and Netanyahu look outward, at the Egypt summit and beyond, for a new future for Gaza and for Israel’s relationship with countries in the region, the internal problems and thorny issues that the country faced before October 7 are still there.
How we deal with them going forward will determine if we learned anything over the last two years. Otherwise, the Saturday night protests that started well before October 7, and continued with a changed focus during the war, will be back before they’re even missed.