Back from the war, reserve soldiers turn their attention to Israeli politics as usual

This month, soldiers gathered around a campfire on the edge of a forest in central Israel and planned their next mission: saving their deeply divided country from itself.

Like many of the thousands of Israeli reservists drafted to fight in Gaza, the soldiers left for war amid a sudden wave of national unity following the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel.

But as the army has withdrawn soldiers from Gaza in recent weeks and troops have returned home, their country has become less what it was after October 7 and more like what it was before: riven by divisive political and cultural clashes.

As these bitter divisions resurface, disillusioned reservists are at the forefront of movements demanding a political reset, seeking unity and rejecting what many see as extreme polarization.

“I first came out in December and was shocked to see that nothing had changed,” said David Sherez, special forces commander and budding entrepreneur, as he left his base near Gaza.

Mr. Sherez, one of the soldiers gathered around the campfire in the forest, is a founder of Tikun 2024, a new nonpartisan organization led by reservists who want to preserve the spirit of cooperation created by the war.

“You put out the news and look at social media, and it’s as if October 7 didn’t happen,” Mr. Sherez said. “Everyone has to do a little soul searching.”

Members of the small but fast-growing movement cited controversial government measures that have divided the country, including a proposed overhaul of the judiciary, rumors of Gaza resettlement, criticism of hostage families who have called for a ceasefire and a proposed budget that benefits the far-right and ultra-Orthodox fringes, at the expense of the national economy.

The Israeli army, in which conscription is mandatory for most citizens, has always been the country’s great equalizer and unifier, at least for those who are drafted; most Arab and ultra-Orthodox citizens do not serve. The members of Tikun 2024 say they want civilian Israel to reflect the camaraderie of its military, where units and tank crews include right-wingers and left-wingers, religious and secular Jews, Bedouins and Druze, settlers from the occupied West Bank. and high-tech entrepreneurs from Tel Aviv.

The reservists who form the leadership of Tikun 2024 are a politically diverse group. (Tikun is the Hebrew word for correction or repair.) Rather than simply calling for immediate elections, which many Israelis would interpret as an attempt to depose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, they have instead country called on to form an emergency unit. government to work with Mr Netanyahu for the time being and agree on a date for elections by the end of the year.

Only a unity government, they say, can address the most challenging issues facing Israel’s future, including the fate of the occupied territories, where Palestinians and much of the world envision the creation of a future Palestinian state .

The group, founded only a month ago and fueled by crowdfunding, has quickly gained ground. Lawmakers from across the political spectrum and representatives of competing sectors of Israeli society have met with the reservists – sometimes in the woods and around the campfire.

One evening, Tikun 2024 leaders met with Shikma Bressler, the face of the pre-war protests opposing a hotly contested government plan for a judicial overhaul.

The next evening, they met at the same spot with Simcha Rothman, a hardline lawmaker who was a driving force behind the legal plan, which was shelved at the start of the war.

Israel has a tradition of reservists returning home after war to lead influential movements for change. One reserve captain, Moti Ashkenazi, started a lone protest a few months after the 1973 war. His movement grew and eventually forced Golda Meir, then Prime Minister, to resign in April 1974. Capitalizing on their status as patriots willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, reservists also played a crucial role in protest movements following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the 1980s. and after the second Lebanon war in 2006.

Thousands of Tikun 2024 supporters are already connected via WhatsApp groups, and a recent conference, organized in just four days, attracted around 250 people from across the country to Jerusalem.

According to the soldiers, Tikun 2024 is not intended to become a political party. Nevertheless, some leaders have not ruled out running for office.

“We are calling for new blood,” said Yitzhaki Glick, 38, a special forces commander and lawyer who grew up in a settlement, trained at leading religious Zionist institutions and worked on the development of new settlements. “We believe that people in the current system cannot cope with this.”

Mr. Glick, who now lives in Mazkeret Batya, in central Israel, said the first time he met Israelis from different backgrounds was during his mandatory military service. The battle over the judicial review led him to believe that history was repeating itself, he said, and he feared that, as in ancient times, internal divisions would cause the country to fall apart.

Part of the group’s momentum is driven by a growing desire for national unity and fatigue with politics as usual. The trend is reflected in opinion polls a leap in support for a centrist party led by Benny Gantz, a former military chief, at the expense of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud.

“We have to fight the division,” said Shoham Nave, 26, a reserve soldier and student who was drafted on October 8. “This is a war without choice – on the front and at home.”

But not everyone is on board.

Critics have called the Tikun 2024 vision naive, and the group has been denounced from left and right. Leftists accuse the group of trying to silence anti-Netanyahu protests. Rightists have called the right-wing members of the left “useful idiots.”

Some right-wing reservists and ultranationalist groups recently held a rally in Jerusalem to urge the government to end the war in a decisive defeat of Hamas. Attended by thousands of people, mainly from the religious right, speakers defended hardline positions and in fiery speeches called on the government to reject striking a hostage release deal and demand a territorial price from the Palestinians in Gaza.

But even at that meeting, some soldiers back from the front tried to minimize the differences.

“In the struggle there is no left and right,” said Eden Moshe Levin, 28, a supermarket worker from the southern town of Netivot, who was attacked on October 7.

“What will it do to call each other traitors?” he said.

Lavi Kreisman, 41, a tour guide, said he passed the gathering on his way home and was wearing a uniform and carrying an assault rifle. He said his unit had lost 14 members in an explosion in Gaza, including Jews and non-Jews.

“It’s the people there who are fighting, not the politicians,” he said. Noting that the fighters all wanted victory, he added: “I want to make sure they did not die in vain.”

After nearly five months of war, more than 29,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to health officials, sparking international outrage. More than 260 Israeli soldiers have been killed since Israel began its ground invasion in late October, according to Israeli authorities, in addition to more than 300 soldiers who were among the 1,200 people killed in the Hamas-led cross-border attacks on October 1. 7.

In the tumultuous months before October 7, reserve soldiers played a key role in the anti-government protests under the umbrella of Brothers and Sisters in Arms, a grassroots organization. Thousands of members threatened to walk away from the Reserve Force, arguing the legal plan endangered the democracy they signed up to defend.

Many Israelis saw that refusal as the unforgivable crossing of a red line, making Israel look weak in the eyes of its enemies.

But at the moment Israel was attacked, Brothers and Sisters in Arms called on all reserve soldiers to report and mobilized a massive civilian volunteer effort to support Israelis affected by the war.

Now, after months at the center of the political storm, that group is also calling for new elections and national unity.

“We all learned a lesson,” said Eyal Naveh, 48, leader of the organization. “We don’t want to go back to the polarizing discourse of trampling each other.” He said his group also spoke to Israelis from across the social and political spectrum, including the ultra-Orthodox community.

“Ultimately,” he said, “we all say it is time to act in consensus.”