The Appearance of the Sword: When Did Israeli Politics Turn Its People Into a Bloodthirsty Order? | Majdi Halabi
The Likud primaries have turned into a competition of power, destruction, and extremism, while the cost of living, education, and social rifts are pushed aside. Israel is not thirsty for war – it is thirsty for life, security, and sane leadership.
Watching the propaganda videos and internal campaigns of the Likud candidates leaves a grim and disturbing impression: a parade of ministers and Knesset members competing among themselves over who destroyed more, who annihilated more, and who dealt harder blows, while openly boasting about erasing neighborhoods and harming the population.
It is clear that terrorism must be eradicated and that the state must take responsibility for the security of its citizens, as well as take responsibility for the failure of October 7 and fight the terrorist on all fronts, but without losing its humanity.
From the Minister of Defense who prides himself on the balance of destruction and ignoring enforcement against extremist elements, to former senior officials who boast of targeted assassinations that claimed the lives of innocent people. This horror show creates a distorted and dangerous picture, according to which the entire Israeli society is nothing but an extremist society and a herd thirsty for blood and eternal war.
But is this really the face of Israel?
The distorted political logic that drives the primary campaigns stems from a cynical assumption: that in order to win the hearts of the voters, one must appeal solely to the darkest instincts. In this reality, the distress of the cost of living, the quiet collapse of public services, the future of education, and social rifts have been completely pushed aside. In their place, a cult of pure power has been placed, as if the world of the Israeli citizen is summed up solely by the question of how much destruction was sown across the border.
This distortion is not the sin of the country's citizens, nor even of most of the voters and supporters of the Likud themselves. It is the product of a leadership that turned a movement with national and liberal roots into an obedient sect loyal to one person, where extremism and flattery serve as the only ticket to the top. The attempt to present a diverse and complex society as a society that seeks battle sins against the basic truth: the vast majority of Israelis, from all camps and sectors, yearn for a normal life, for true security, for quiet, and for hope – and not for a prolonged bloodbath in the service of the survival of politicians.
History teaches that civilizations that placed the cult of war and power as a supreme value ended up being erased, just as Sparta disappeared and left behind only the dust of military myths. A society that wants to live cannot afford to be measured solely through the sights of a rifle and the power of destruction; its strength and future are measured by its public morality, its economic resilience, and its ability to build a reality of peace and sanity. It is time to tear the mask off the fueled campaigns and clarify to the leaders: the public in Israel is not thirsty for blood – it is thirsty for life, for a future, and for sane leadership.
The author is a journalist and senior commentator at the Al-Arabiya and Al-Hadath station.
