(p. A8) Maya Mizrachi grimaced at the group of eight Israelis calling for peace with Palestinians in front of Israel’s military headquarters this month in Tel Aviv.
A year ago, Ms. Mizrachi, 25, had protested alongside them, carrying a sign that called for Israel to end its military occupation of the West Bank. Now, she had bumped into them by accident, on her way home from a nearby rally calling for the return of Israeli citizens held hostage in the Gaza Strip.
“I don’t think there are more than eight people in all of Israel who would protest against the army right now,” said Ms. Mizrachi, who is a student. “I can’t even bring myself to do it.”
. . .
According to polls conducted in the two months since Oct. 7 [2023], Israelis have moved decidedly to the right on a number of political issues, including support for settlers in the West Bank, endorsements for far-right politicians, and even the re-establishment of a military occupation of Gaza.
“The trauma of what happened on Oct. 7 shifted Israeli society. It made them question the most basic tenets of whether they were safe in their homes,” said Tal Schneider, a political columnist for The Times of Israel. “They are calling now for more — more military, more protection, more hard-line policies.”
. . .
The towns and agricultural communities that line Israel’s border with Gaza were once bastions of the left. Many villages there were founded as kibbutzim, socialist agricultural communities. Over the years, many residents used their proximity to the Palestinians in Gaza to help deliver aid and run solidarity campaigns.
On Oct. 7, the closeness of those communities to the border made them vulnerable to the attack by Hamas terrorists. Well-known peace activists, including Vivian Silver, a founder of Women Wage Peace, were among those killed. The attack made the survivors rethink policies they had previously championed.
Before Oct. 7, Larry Butler, 73, a resident of Nir Oz, considered himself a leftist. As a member of Peace Now, he participated in rallies calling for the evacuation of Israeli settlements in Gaza, which were disassembled in 2005.
Now, displaced in a hotel in Eilat, a resort town on the Red Sea, Mr. Butler has questioned his beliefs. “I guess I’m somewhere in the middle,” he said, “but I’m definitely not left and I’m definitely not right.”
In Tel Aviv, Ms. Mizrachi’s turn against the left came soon after Oct. 7, when she discovered that a high school friend was among those killed at the Tribe of Nova music festival.
“The irony is that she was the biggest peace activist I knew,” Ms. Mizrachi said. “She was the one who got me involved in the movement to begin with,” she added. “I used to joke that she made me a leftie. Now I can’t say that I am.”
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(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Dec. 19, 2023, and has the title “Israelis Abandon Political Left Over Security Concerns After Oct. 7.”)