Signs reading “we will win together” are still up all over Israel – from all government communications, to banners hanging off of balconies, to billboards advertising everything from falafel to realtors. But that aspirational togetherness that kept Israeli society united in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks has been on the decline in recent weeks. 

Israeli politics are back and approaching prewar contentiousness, with the return of frequent protests blocking major arteries in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, at times by Haredim opposing conscription into the IDF, other times by protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and sometimes both at the same time.

The public divisions are such that war cabinet Minister Benny Gantz called for an early election in September to regain the public’s trust in anticipation of months and even years of war ahead.

“No military or diplomatic achievement will be worth it when we hear bereaved parents saying to us, ‘if the nation splits, our sons’ deaths will be in vain,'” Gantz said.

Jewish People Policy Institute senior fellow Shmuel Rosner said that the end of the “we will win together” ethos and even the increasingly partisan tenor of the discourse on the hostages is “a natural process.”

“The main thing that changed is the passage of time,” Rosner said. “We know that Israeli society was very polarized on Oct. 6. It united on Oct. 7 because of the events, and around the army and soldiers who went to war, and that held for a certain amount of time, and then started to get worn out.” 

Rosner’s research found that “in the history of the modern world there was no leader of a state whose approval ratings remained so low after his state was attacked.” Usually, approval ratings jump after an attack, he said, using former President George W. Bush after 9/11 as an example. 

“This did not happen at all. The public supports the army, the war, even Netanyahu’s policies in many ways – but his personal approval rating remains slightly above 30% and did not rise at all since the war began,” he said. “This illustrates the fact that Israeli society is polarized with regards to its leadership…They hang like a cloud above us. The Oct. 7 crisis did not eliminate the undercurrents of the Oct. 6 crisis.” 

Rosner argued that “until there are elections and a reshuffle in politics…assuming that there is some kind of broad, mainstream, stable coalition, then there will be a chance to start a process of social healing. Until that happens, we’re simply in a situation where there is a government that most of the public does not like and a prime minister with a very low approval rating.”

Even the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza are becoming an increasingly partisan issue, illustrating the reemergence of the divisions that roiled Israel for much of last year.

The large weekly demonstrations against judicial reform stopped in the aftermath of Oct. 7, but a core group of protesters who have been taking to the streets to call for Netanyahu’s ouster  every Saturday night since 2020 – and more sporadically going back to 2017 – resumed their activities in November. The regular protests to free the hostages generally were separate, centering on the plaza in front of the Tel Aviv Art Museum, but this week, a segment of the Hostages Families Forum announced they were leaving “Hostages Square” and teaming up with the demonstrations against Netanyahu.

Thousands of demonstrators gathered in front of the Knesset, where a sizable group broke off from the pack to march to Netanyahu’s private home in Jerusalem, where he has been living while the official residence is under renovation. Some broke through barricades. There were incidents of violence by police against protestors and by demonstrators against law enforcement.

In the Knesset’s final meeting before its Passover recess on Wednesday, hostages’ families and supporters climbed on railings and smeared yellow (the color of the hostage release campaign) paint on the glass of the visitors’ gallery in the Knesset plenum.

The shift in the tone of the protests to free the hostages comes after months of lower-grade political activity. 

Within weeks of their relatives being kidnapped by Hamas, the families began speaking at the start of nearly every Knesset committee meeting. In addition to expressions of agony and descriptions of what their loved ones were likely experiencing, the families would often blame the Knesset members and the government for not doing enough. 

At times, the Knesset members did not resist responding; Otzma Yehudit MK Almog Cohen, who took part in fighting against Hamas terrorists in Ofakim on Oct. 7, shouted to hostages’ families that they “don’t have a mandate over pain,” and MK Yitzhak Pindrus of United Torah Judaism dismissed families angry that the Knesset went to recess as scheduled with a “yalla yalla,” among other outrage-sparking incidents. 

As some hostage families intensified their political protests, others made it known that they do not want to be included in such actions.

Divisions among the families about tactics had come to a head in the past. A small group of hostage families founded the Tikvah Forum, which opposes releasing terrorists from prison or ending the war in Gaza in exchange for their loved ones, and others joined with protesters attempting to block humanitarian aid trucks from entering Gaza.

Arguing that politicization of the hostages’ cause was inuring the governing coalition to their cries, dozens of hostages’ relatives pushed controversial strategist Ronen Tzur out of the leadership of the Hostages Families Forum – though, after his departure, the families dominating the forum escalated their political messages.

This week, several families spoke out against those actions. Meirav Leshem Gonen, mother of hostage Romi Gonen, posted on Instagram a call for those who want to help to raise awareness, but “please please do not use Romi’s photo in protests that create controversy or division…My Romi is a hostage. She does not have an opinion at the moment on any topic other than her desire to return home, to us.”

Yaron Or, father of hostage Avinatan Or, has also called not to use his photo in political protests and told Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster, on Thursday that “most families think the prime minister is not doing enough, but that the call to resign and for an election is delusional.”

Or said that political actors are “taking advantage of the distress” of hostages’ families to get a group of them to participate in the partisan protest.

“It pains me that there is the Tikvah Forum and the Hostages Family Forum and that we are divided between left and right,” he added.  

The divisions between the hostage families map onto other sociological and political differences that existed before the war. A plurality of the hostages come from secular kibbutzim on the Gaza border, which trend to the left on matters of national security, such as supporting negotiations with Palestinians and the 2005 pullout from Gaza. But many of the soldiers and the hostages kidnapped from the Nova music festival come from diverse parts of Israeli society, such as Yosef Chaim Ohana, who was raised in a Chabad family in a town that was originally a refugee camp for Jews expelled from the Arab world, or Avinatan Or, Eitan Mor and Elyakim Libman, who were raised in Orthodox settlements in the West Bank; the parents of the latter two are the founders of the Tikvah Forum. Then there are Bedouin-Israeli hostages, whose voices are rarely heard in the political debate.

Rosner noted “the sociological characteristics” that made it likely that a plurality of the families opposed the coalition before the war, and the fact that people who were involved in protests against Netanyahu and the government volunteered to help the hostage families painted them as left-leaning early in the war.

At the same time, Rosner pointed out that there is a real policy debate that colors how Israelis view the hostage families’ struggle.

“From the start there was the rhetoric that we want to win the war and get the hostages back, as if these are equal aims of the war,” he said. “But the actual truth is that these aren’t balanced or equal goals. The main goal is winning the war. Bringing back the hostages is somewhat secondary, and on this matter, we see in public opinion polling that the farther you get to the left, the hostages take greater precedence, while the farther you get to the right, winning the war takes precedence… Not that they don’t want the hostages to come home, but the people on the right and most of the Jewish public in Israel thinks that the hostages are victims of a war that Israel must win.” 

There is also the long-standing policy difference on the costs of freeing the remaining hostages. Opponents of the deal to release captive soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,100 Palestinian prisoners “were mostly on the right, and those who support the coalition today think Israel paid too high a price,” Rosner said.

As for whether the divisions hurt support for the hostages’ cause in Israel, Rosner said he does not think it makes a difference.

“I hope and also believe that the government wants to bring back the hostages,” he said. “Unlike previous governments and in previous time periods, Israel is unwilling to pay a very high price…because we’re at war and also because there is a more right-wing government… I don’t think that if the hostage families were apolitical it would be better. Maybe they would get more public support, but then they would pressure the government less.”

The inevitability of politics taking center stage again weakens the ethos of “we will win together,” Rosner said.

“The moment politics get in – and we are in the period in which politics got in – the atmosphere of ‘we’re in this together’ is weaker,” he said. “It would have happened anyway, but it happened pretty quickly and in a way that reminds us that Israel was in a serious crisis before the war. We just forgot, because an even worse crisis happened.”

“It’s disappointing, but not surprising,” Rosner added.