1/ Whenever I tweet in Hebrew, especially when I receive responses in Hebrew, I am reminded how deeply Israelis believe in their own exceptionalism. So deeply, in fact, that I think this faith and our faith in Jewish supremacy are ultimately one and the same. --->
2/ What does exceptionalism entail? First, the belief that we alone are complex and three-dimensional. Everyone else is two-dimensional at best. We understand context ("The soldiers in Gaza burning and looting? Young people letting off steam!). We know nuance. --->
3/ Others? Less so. Consider Hizballah, firing a salvo of 3-4 rockets aimed at empty land in Israel on October 8th. Why did Hizballah fire? It was a "shot across the bow" meant to tell Israel not to invade Lebanon. Plans for invasion were made during those crazy days. --->
4/ Israel's framing? "Hizballah fired first. They attacked us. This is part of their plan to destroy us. We must not only fire back and escalate. We must evacuate a 100000 people from the north or else they will be killed in a invasion". Hizballah knows only absolutes. --->
5/ Israel assumes Hizballah has two modes: "mendacious" and "lethal". These are actually only one mode, as all Hizballah wants to do is destroy Israel. Israel quickly becomes what it fears, two-dimensional at best. If that is "the enemy", shouldn't we abide by its rules? --->
6/ Another expression of this deep faith in exceptionalism is Israel's belief in its own "moderation". All Israelis grow up with the conviction that Israel is not just "the only democracy in the Middle East" but that it is moderate in its essence and practices. --->
7/ This requires some elucidation. Everything Israel does is moderate. We escalate to de-escalate. That has been our Lebanese policy for decades. It is also our policy vis a vis Iran. We strike to deter. We attack to contain. We infiltrate in defense of integrity. --->
8/ Israelis know that Israel only wants to be peacefully left alone. The fact that Israel demands "absolute freedom to act" in Lebanon, for example (a phrase coined by former PM Ehud Barak), is of no consequence. We don't want this freedom. We must have it. We are unique. --->
9/ Watch Israel's escalation in Lebanon. Hizballah is causing massive damage to the Israeli north. Its rockets are starting extensive fires as we speak. This is in response to yet another Israeli assassination of a senior Hizballah commander. Israelis are shocked and angry. --->
10/ "We are killing terrorists who want to destroy us! They are firing on civilian settlements and starting fires (so is Israel)!" This is the epitome of exceptionalism. We are not them. The next two steps are obvious. We are better than them. We can donwhatever we want.
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