‘No middle ground’: Israelis back Iran war, despite taking mounting hits

Itamar Greenberg, a 19-year-old Israeli antiwar activist, says he has been spat on in the street and is the target of an online hate campaign.

“Itamar Greenberg laughed when asked if he thought he should be afraid”

Al Jazeera

He laughed when asked if he thought he should be afraid, saying, "If I thought about it, I probably should be. I just don't have time."

Al Jazeera

Voices like Greenberg's are rare as public clamour for war grows and "genocidal language already familiar to millions of Palestinians is reemerging," but with Iran as the target.

Officially, 11 Israelis have been killed in Iranian strikes since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran on February 28.

What the actual number might be, or how many of Iran's ballistic missiles may have penetrated the country's Iron Dome defence shield, is unknown.

Speaking at the site of an Iranian missile strike in West Jerusalem shortly after the start of the US-Israeli attacks on Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compared Iranians with the biblical foe Amalek and quoted the Torah portion saying 'Remember what Amalek did to you; we remember, and we act.'

The article says Netanyahu returned to the apocalyptic language that has characterised 'the genocide his country has conducted in Gaza.'

Al Jazeera

Iran claims it launched strikes across Israel that hit military sites, symbolic infrastructure and even Netanyahu’s office.

Iran says the attacks were precise and strategic and targeted locations such as Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion airport and Haifa.

Israeli officials denied many of those specific claims and Netanyahu’s office dismissed assertions about hitting his office or affecting his condition as 'fake news.'

Stringent reporting restrictions on Iranian strikes within Israel make confirmation difficult.

A poll carried out last week by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) suggested overwhelming public support for the war, with 93 percent of Jewish-Israeli respondents expressing support for the strikes on Iran and 74 percent expressing support for Netanyahu.

“Itamar Greenberg laughed when asked if he thought he should be afraid”

Al Jazeera

Greenberg said figures across Israel’s media and political landscape — with the exception of the left-wing Hadash party and antiwar organisations such as Mesarvot — had lined up behind the war, and that opposition is "getting increasingly violent."

He said police beat and arrested protesters at a Tuesday demonstration and that he was illegally strip-searched.

Six months earlier, after protesting the genocide in Gaza, prison guards had threatened to carve a Star of David on his face.

Lawmaker Ofer Cassif of the Hadash party told Al Jazeera the atmosphere is 'very violent' and that he fears physical attacks by fascists more than missiles.

Cassif said Hadash and its lawmakers have faced threats and attacks throughout the Gaza war.

Al Jazeera

He said criticism of Netanyahu's handling of Israeli captives had made opposition to the Gaza war comparatively more socially acceptable, but he described opposition to a war on Iran as 'toxic'.

Cassif rejected accusations that Hadash supports the regime in Tehran, saying the party wants to see that regime go and arguing Netanyahu was not acting for the Iranian people, invoking Israel's historical support for Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Political analyst Ori Goldberg said antiwar voices were treated like 'a flat-earther' on mainstream programmes and warned Israel has 'become a society with no middle ground,' saying, 'It’s as if our entire existence is dependent on our ability to do anything we want. And if the world tries to stop that, then the world’s anti-Semitic, and we all burn.'