Grief and normalcy collide: Israel mourns as school year begins - analysis

The heartrending news of the recovery of the bodies of six Israelis murdered by Hamas in captivity, swiftly followed by the equally heartbreaking news of three Israeli police officers shot dead near Hebron, struck as many parents were preparing their children for their first day back to school – or, for first graders, their first day in school.

The contrast between unspeakable tragedy and yearned-for normalcy was as painful as it was stark. On one hand, the tragic end of lives is cruelly snuffed out; on the other, the promise and potential of children starting school.

The discovery of the hostages’ bodies in a tunnel represents quintessential abnormality, while the return to school embodies quintessential normalcy. One event shatters life’s rhythm; the other seeks to restore it. Their occurrence at nearly the same time feels almost too much to bear.

But bear it the nation must, for there really is no choice.

Sea of enemies

Israel’s very existence here in a sea of enemies who want to see it disappear is, in itself, abnormal. That the nation has been able to carve out any degree of normalcy in this situation is what is remarkable.

But it is hard, and it takes a toll. Sunday morning was a reminder of just how hard it is and just how heavy is that toll.

The discovery of the bodies and the terrorist attack underscores the country’s unrelenting security challenges, while the return to school underscores its unquenchable determination to maintain a sense of stability and routine despite it all.

The impact of all of this on the national psyche is profound.

There is the shared grief at the news – the anguish so many felt when hearing the news of the murder of the hostages, compounded by the murder of three police officers. The grief hung in the air like a palpable black cloud.

Accompanying the grief is the anger, intense anger.

On October 7, that Israeli anger was universally directed at Hamas. Eleven months later, the anger is still focused first and foremost at Hamas – after all, they are the kidnappers and the murderers – but it has become diffused.

Some direct the anger and the blame at the government and its head, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, believing that he is responsible and that he could have approved a deal that would have led to the release of the hostages. They disregard the notion that Hamas did not want a deal, rejected any deal, and that even the Americans – the mediator of a proposed deal – said that Hamas was the obstacle.

For these people, Netanyahu could have saved the hostages and can still save the remaining hostages, but because of his own political considerations, he chooses not to. Some in this group call to “burn down the country” until the government agrees to Hamas’s terms.

Others are directing their anger at those directing their anger at Netanyahu and the government.

In their minds, “the bring them home at all cost” camp would save the lives of the remaining hostages, but in a way that would ensure many more Israeli hostages and victims in the future. They argue that it is madness to withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor and that Hamas is insisting on this because it is the only way it will be able to survive and re-arm.

They say equally that it will be madness to release hundreds of Palestinian terrorist murderers, who will only go on to take more hostages and kill them in the future – just as among the 1,027 prisoners released for Gilad Schalit were the masterminds and some of the perpetrators of October 7.

The grief is shared by all; the anger is not – and it is this diffused anger, directed in different directions, that made Sunday morning’s news even more painful. It wasn’t just the news itself that hurt, but also an awareness of what would come next, of how the events would be interpreted in different ways and how that diffused anger would be expressed in the street and among politicians in ways that would make an already unbearably painful situation even worse.

Makor Rishon journalist Ariel Schnabel summed up the situation and the mood of the country pretty well in a post on X: “On the one side, a heartless government focused only on its base, just getting through another day in power. On the other side, constant anti-Bibi frothing, zero dealing with the complexity of the situation, an opposition without sense.

“And in the middle – not on Twitter – a hurting nation that wants sane leadership to protect its security and begin healing, but is held captive by extremists on both sides. Sad.”

It is that middle that struggled mightily on Sunday with the abnormal and the normal, trying to juggle them both, trying to contain them both, trying to maintain sanity in an insane situation, and trying to process the grief and the anger, if possible, without burning down the house.

That middle did that by going on with the routine, by sending kids back to school, especially first graders who were greeted at the gates of the school – despite it all – by cheery teachers and balloon arches. It was precisely that act of faith in the future that provided some hope on a day of deep despair.

Welcome to Israel, September 1, 2024 – despair intermingled with hope, normalcy and abnormality all wrapped into one bitter morning.