“I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but not a single drop of blood spilled in Gaza really brought us any closer to something better,” says Knesset member Dov Khenin from the Hadash Party in summarizing Israel's Operation Protective Edge. Though an absolute majority of Israelis supported the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip, Khenin sees it as just another round of futile bloodshed. In an interview with Al-Monitor, Khenin refuses to be impressed by the solidarity shown by civil society in Israel during Operation Protective Edge. He is bothered more than ever by manifestations of racism, by efforts to suspend Haneen Zoabi from the Knesset and by Finance Minister Yair Lapid’s attack on Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy.

Excerpts from the interview follow:

Al-Monitor:  Both the right and the left praised the prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] for his responsible management of the campaign in Gaza. Even the Labor Party backed him up. Do you share in complimenting him?

Khenin:  Netanyahu is responsible for this war in every imaginable way. People have to realize that it didn’t come out of nowhere. It happened because of a situation in which everything was stuck in place, and there was no diplomatic opportunity on the horizon. It was sort of an impossible status quo. Things may have been normal in Israel, but half the Palestinian population was living under occupation in the West Bank, while the other half was living in an enclosure called Gaza. The situation was destined for trouble, and the bubble did, in fact, burst. I said all that before the war broke out, so as far as I am concerned, this tragedy did not occur out of divine force. It is the result of certain steps and of a certain policy. In my opinion, the opposition should continue to be an alternative during wartime, and that’s what we were. We demonstrated against what was happening in Gaza. We made sure that the sane voice of normalcy was heard.