"We feel like orphans," says Hila, an engineer and a mother of two children, describing to Al-Monitor the current sentiment of many Israelis. "Since Oct. 7, we feel abandoned by the state, by our leadership, by the politicians, by all the systems that should protect us. As if we have no parents. On the other hand, we the citizens, we are like brothers and sisters. Since we have no parents, we help each other tremendously."
"These sentiments of abandonment are not new. We already felt it when the government launched its overhaul plan to erode the powers of the Supreme Court early this year. But of course, things got much worse with the attack by Hamas," she notes.
The end of 2023 marks the end of the first year of the Netanyahu government. Sworn in on Dec. 29, 2022, it is the most extreme-right government in the history of the country. Shortly after taking office, cabinet ministers started implementing policies that alienated large swaths of the Israeli population.
One such example was the decision by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to block education funds for East Jerusalem schools and freeze the transfer of development budgets for Arab municipalities. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir started advancing his idea of a national guard. But the most divisive campaign was, and still is, the judicial overhaul plan, which brought hundreds of thousands of Israelis to the streets, protesting against what they considered attempts to erode the foundations of the country’s democracy.
