Itamar Greenberg laughed when asked if he thought he should be afraid. The 19-year-old Israeli peace activist had just described being spat on in the street and is the target of an online hate campaign.
“Yeah!” he finally responded. “If I thought about it, I probably should. I just don’t have time.”
Voices like Greenberg’s are rare in Israel at a time when public clamor for war is growing and genocidal language already familiar to millions of Palestinians is resurfacing, but with a different target: Iran.
Officially, 11 Israelis have been killed in Iranian attacks since the United States and Israel launched their war against Iran on February 28. It is unknown what the real number might be, or how many of Iran’s ballistic missiles may have penetrated the country’s Iron Dome defense shield.
Speaking at the scene of an Iranian missile attack in West Jerusalem shortly after the start of US-Israeli attacks on Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again used the apocalyptic language that has characterized his country’s genocide in Gaza. Comparing the Iranians to the biblical enemy of the Jewish people, Amalek, whom the Jews had been divinely ordered to wipe from the face of the planet, Netanyahu told reporters: “In this week’s Torah portion we read: ‘Remember what Amalek did to you.’ We remember and we act.”
So far, Iran claims to have launched attacks across Israel, saying its missiles and drones hit military sites, symbolic infrastructure and even Netanyahu’s office. Tehran has described the attacks as precise and strategic, rather than indiscriminate, and part of a broader regional response. Iran also claims to have attacked places such as Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport and Haifa.
However, Israeli officials have denied many of the specific claims. Netanyahu’s office dismissed Iranian claims about attacking his office or affecting his status as “fake news,” and strict restrictions on information about Iranian attacks inside Israel make confirmation difficult in any case.
What is clearer is that, despite the drumbeat of Iranian attacks, fervor for war appears to be growing among the public. A poll conducted last week by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) suggested overwhelming public support for the war, with 93 percent of Jewish-Israeli respondents expressing support for attacks on Iran, and 74 percent expressing support for Netanyahu, the country’s historically divisive prime minister.
“No one is talking about opposition to the war,” Greenberg said, describing an environment in which figures from across Israel’s political and media landscape – with the exception of the leftist Hadash party and anti-war organizations like Greenberg’s Mesarvot – had lined up behind the war. “It’s also becoming increasingly violent,” he said.
“We held a protest on Tuesday, where the police were already waiting. They beat us and arrested us. I was illegally strip-searched,” he said, describing it as efforts aimed at humiliating him.
Greenberg is no stranger to these types of tactics. Six months ago, after being arrested for protesting genocide in Gaza, prison guards threatened to carve a Star of David into his face, a permanent reminder of what they thought his priorities should be.
It is not only anti-war activists who have faced the brunt of the forces of the Israeli security establishment.
“The atmosphere is very violent,” lawmaker Ofer Cassif of the Hadash party told Al Jazeera. “When I leave the house, I am more worried about the danger posed by a physical attack by fascists than by any missile,” he said.
Hadash and lawmakers like Cassif have been the target of threats and physical attacks throughout the Gaza war. But criticism of the Netanyahu government’s handling of Israeli captives in Gaza meant that opposition to the Gaza war was – comparatively – more socially acceptable. When it comes to Iran, the current climate is toxic, Cassif said.
“We are often accused of supporting the regime in Tehran,” Cassif explained of attempts to delegitimize his opposition to the war.
“We certainly don’t. We want that regime to go, but we’re not going to let Netanyahu say he’s doing this for the Iranian people. He’s not. That’s not just rhetoric, that’s a fact. The Israeli leadership supported the shah as much as the United States, and he was a murderous dictator no less than the current regime,” Cassif said, referring to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran’s leader before the Islamic revolution.
For now, analysts and observers in Israel describe a society they believe is almost engaged in a holy war.
“They brought an anti-war activist onto one of the light news shows,” said political analyst Ori Goldberg from near Tel Aviv, “and treated her like a flat-earther. It’s like it’s inconceivable that anyone would oppose this war.
“Israel has become a society with no middle ground, no ability to talk. It’s as if our entire existence depends on our ability to do whatever we want. And if the world tries to stop that, then the world will be anti-Semitic and we will all burn.”
