Peace, lies and denial: Are we really surprised that Arab leaders are lying to us?

(Yoram said to Hana, of course. Those who remember, remember)

Several days have passed since the dramatic, shaking, and noisy exposure, according to which the leader of one neighboring country advised the leader of another neighboring country to sign some kind of lying agreement with Israel in order to lull it to sleep and attack by surprise. The news received many references in the media, and the reactions, of course, were various expressions of shock and concern.

I, too, was shocked and shaken. Almost like that girl, when the Middle East was "new," who did not understand how it was that the man with the keffiyeh spouted clichés about peace in English, incited terror in Arabic – and still received photos with leaders on the lawn in Hebrew; who did not understand how it was that on buses people were torn to pieces, and in other places people received awards. As a child, I thought: surely there is something hidden from me, some dramatic and secret detail that contradicts natural logic and supernaturally justifies this circus.

Do not be in suspense – there was no such thing. So much so, that even if they scraped the floor of the censorship basements with a spatula – not a shred of evidence would be found that justified the Israeli obsession, born roughly with the state, to make peace with our enemies.

Is it far-fetched to assume that even in those days, when the peace fever burned almost like the fuel tanks of bus 18, there were reports similar to this week's exposure about the true intentions of Arab leaders, but the censorship did not approve their publication? To what extent are our worldviews based on facts if we do not know most of them? To what extent are our choices of leaders effective if the truly important issues are not discussed at all?

Let us not be confused: dreams are important. Those who do not dream do not achieve. The question is to what extent this dream relies on pieces of reality. I can dream of a career in the NBA and invest time and energy in it. But when even on a clear day I do not exceed 1.60 meters, if I make decisions accordingly and plan the future and my daily schedule accordingly, including five hours of shooting practice – I am disconnecting from reality and abandoning my children to neglect. But that is the less scary part of the story.

The depth of the pit becomes clear when we remind ourselves that beliefs we hold – such as, for example, the feasibility of a "new Middle East" – influence the way we interpret reality. A murderer in a suit in disguise might suddenly look like a repentant, tanks maneuvering in Sinai look like a fun day for the division's wives and their children, and protests at the fence opposite the Gaza envelope become leisure activities for youth.

Thus, unfortunately, we have reached a situation where the country's citizens are forced to experience an exhausting gaslighting journey, which educates us to be shocked and shaken by the violation of a false belief that we never held. I do not know even ten people who would be surprised that countries around us might sign agreements they do not really intend to keep and attack in their spare time.

The question is in what way this deep understanding shapes Israeli politics and influences the positions of those who want to stand at the head of the country. At the moment, it seems there are almost no people in the political system who are able to say clearly that peace in its photogenic version will never be here, that everyone wants to kill us all the time, and that our foreign and domestic policy – including national priorities – should be managed accordingly.

To the question "will we live by our sword forever" there is a very simple answer, and the answer is "yes". But so that we truly live and do not die by our sword, it is recommended to shed all the pretense and games of imagination, and also the confusion that causes a person who stood at the head of an army to call the well-known principle "if someone comes to kill you, rise early and kill him" a slogan.

Those for whom a basic survival instinct, which should be the motto of an army that declares its defense mission in its name, is a slogan – will find themselves saying the "Shema Yisrael" slogan outside the protected spaces, so that those barricaded inside do not think they are Nukhba terrorists.