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Montenegro’s tiny Jewish community navigates uncertain territory as hostility toward Israel increases
(JTA) — PODGORICA, Montenegro — At the entrance to Nikšić, Montenegro’s second-largest city, a vintage fighter jet painted in the colors of the Israeli Air Force perches atop a giant concrete pedestal, as if about to take flight.
The monument, unveiled in 2024, commemorates “Operation Velvetta” — a top-secret plan that ferried 17 Supermarine Spitfire aircraft from Czechoslovakia, via what was then Yugoslavia, to Israel in 1948. The brazen scheme, carried out under the noses of British and Soviet spies, helped ensure the fledgling Jewish state’s military superiority during its War of Independence.
At the monument’s base, a bronze plaque in Serbian, English and Hebrew calls it “a permanent reminder to the unbreakable friendship of Montenegro and Israel.”
Yet lately, that friendship is being tested in ways not seen since Montenegro — smallest of the six republics that once comprised Yugoslavia — declared its independence in 2006.
“Yes, there’s antisemitism here. It’s much better than some other places, but the situation has changed,” said Rabbi Ari Edelkopf, who heads the Religious Jewish Community of Montenegro in Podgorica, the capital. “When I came here, I never believed we’d need 24-hour security. But since Oct. 7, we’ve had Free Gaza marches in all the major cities. My office is following every antisemitic portal here in Montenegro,” he said, referring to websites that report local news. “We’re paying a lawyer to monitor all this.”
A replica of a Supermarine Spitfire fighter jet honors the 1948 “Operation Velvet” in Nikšić, Montenegro — a monument unveiled in 2024 that symbolizes Montenegro’s historic friendship with Israel. (Larry Luxner)
Several recent incidents involving Israeli visitors to this Connecticut-sized country of 625,000, have unnerved the local Jewish community, which numbers fewer than 1,000, even as the capital is on the verge of getting a major new Jewish cultural center set for completion this fall.
In the Adriatic beach resort of Budva, a recent violent brawl between local Montenegrins and some 20 Israeli tourists has triggered alarm among both local Jews and Israeli tourists.
It’s still unclear who or what provoked the incident, which took place after midnight July 12 at a beach bar where the Israelis — 12 men and eight women — had been drinking. Edelkopf said he believed the incident had begun with a personal altercation but escalated when the locals realized the tourists they were sparring with were Israeli.
According to an Israeli government alert about the incident, the locals “shouted ‘Free Palestine’ and ‘F*** Israel’” after learning about the origins of the tourists, who the alert said were not wearing indicators of their national or religious identity.
“Then they came back with a few friends and really beat the hell out of them,” said Edelkopf, a Chabad rabbi who’s originally from Los Angeles and who’s lived in Montenegro for nine years.
“They put out cigarettes on their faces, and threw metal chairs and tables at them. It was horrible and very aggressive,” he said. “Most of the Israelis were injured; one of them had a broken jaw.”
The Israeli government assisted in helping the Israeli tourists expedite their flights out of Montenegro, though one member of the group remained in the country while hospitalized, according to Israel’s National Center for Combating Antisemitism, an initiative of the Diaspora ministry. The ministry’s alert said that police failed to intervene.
Rabbi Ari Edelkopf, a Los Angeles-born Chabad emissary, reads a story about himself in a Podgorica newspaper in April 2026. Edelkopf heads the Religious Jewish Community of Montenegro. (Larry Luxner)
“I am waiting for the Montenegrin government to take action,” Edelkopf told JTA from his Podgorica synagogue, which was previously a private house. “Until now, they have not offered any official response.”
Despite the recent hostilities, the rabbi said, Montenegro has long welcomed Israeli tourists as well as residents. And Jews have been living here for millennia before Yugoslavia existed.
Ruins dating from the 4th century C.E. indicate a flourishing Jewish community in Kotor, not far from Budva along the Adriatic. In fact, one of the country’s most important religious sites is the presumed tomb of Shabbatai Zvi, located in nearby Ulcinj. The 17th-century Jewish false messiah died shortly after his exile there in 1673 by the Ottoman Empire, which ruled much of the present-day Balkans.
While most Montenegrins are Eastern Orthodox Christians, about 20% are Muslims of either Bosnian or Albanian origin. In 1992, after communism collapsed and Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia broke away from the former Yugoslavia, the remaining two republics — Serbia and Montenegro — created the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
In 2006, Montenegro declared independence following a referendum on the issue, and six years later, then-Prime Minister Igor Lukšić granted Judaism recognition as the country’s fourth official religion, alongside the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church and Islam.
“The Jews are very well accepted here,” said Nikolla Camaj, vice-president of Montenegro’s parliament and one of five ethnic Albanians in the 81-member body. “Officially we have very good relations with Israel, and people support the idea that Israel must be protected. But there’s a problem because in Montenegro we have a lot of Muslims — Albanians and Bosniaks — and they don’t like what’s happening in Palestine.”
A pro-Palestinian mural painted on the side of a Podgorica apartment building has been the site of multiple pro-Palestinian rallies in Montenegro. (Larry Luxner)
In Podgorica, a huge mural painted on an apartment building two blocks from the municipal bus terminal depicts Gazan refugee children, a slice of watermelon symbolizing the Palestinian resistance, and the declaration “Montenegro Stands With Palestine.”
In early July, Israeli tourists visiting Plav — a resort town near Montenegro’s borders with Kosovo and Albania — were harassed by a local couple, who called the visitors “baby killers.”
That doesn’t surprise Edelkopf at all.
“Local people are being fed articles translated from very strong anti-Israel news outlets,” the rabbi said. “The main TV channels and online portals here are filled with lies and garbage against Israel, and the people have started to believe that Israel is committing genocide.”
Even so, Israeli tourists keep coming. In 2025, according to official figures, 110,249 of them visited Montenegro — up from 73,513 the year before — most of them via direct flights from Tel Aviv. A Facebook group for Israelis planning trips to Montenegro has more than 80,000 members, who swap advice and share photos and tips from their trips.
A citizen of Montenegro beats a pot next to a placard reading “Zionism Is Not Dead Yet, And We Don’t Know When It Will Be” that features a swastika inside a Jewish star during a pro-Palestinian rally in Podgorica, Sept. 14, 2025. (Savo Prelevic / AFP via Getty Images)
Israel has no embassy in this country; instead, it’s represented by Avivit Bar-Ilan, Israel’s resident ambassador in Serbia, who could not be reached for comment.
Montenegro’s few Jews are split between Edelkopf’s traditional Orthodox Jewish synagogue and the local progressive Jewish congregation led by its president, Nina Ofner Bokan.
A computer science engineer, Ofner Bokan, 41, has represented her community since 2020. Last September, she was reelected unanimously for a five-year term. She’s also senior advisor to the president of the Montenegrin parliament, and a vice-president of the World Jewish Congress.
“We feel very protected here, and we have an amazing relationship with all the other religious communities,” Ofner Bokan said. “Over the years, we’ve made strong connections. … Jews can walk with a kippah or a Star of David without any problem.”
Last October the community held its 12th annual Mahar conference in Budva, which featured speeches by several dignitaries including Deputy Prime Minister Budimir Aleksić.
Nina Ofner Bokan, president of the Jewish community of Montenegro, is also vice president of the World Jewish Congress and senior advisor to the president of the Montenegrin Parliament. (Larry Luxner)
“Montenegro is recognized as a country that cherishes diversity, fosters dialogue, and stands as a nation where the Holocaust did not occur and where antisemitism has never had — and will never have — any foundation,” Aleksić assured his audience. “We are proud of that fact.”
Ofner Bokan’s Jewish congregation was founded in 2011, and she is its third president. In November 2024, she and other local Jews held a ceremony to mark the groundbreaking of the first purpose-built synagogue in Montenegrin history. Ar Ashem is slowly taking shape on a donated plot of land fronting Radosava Burića Street, she said, and will be finished in February.
With around 150 active members, the congregation’s spiritual leader is Luciano Moše Prelevic, who, like Edelkopf, claims to be Montenegro’s chief rabbi. The two communities have nothing to do with each other — and that hasn’t changed even with a recent influx of Jews from warring Russia and Ukraine.
“Ours is the one that signed the contract in 2012 with the government recognizing the Jewish community,” said Ofner Bokan, whose parents were from the Serbian city of Novi Sad. “But in public, Jews are not going to talk badly about each other. If we do, then what will other people think?”
A sign at the construction site of Montenegro’s new Jewish cultural center, as seen in April 2026, shows that it is planned for completion in November 2026. (Larry Luxner)
Edelkopf, who with his wife Chana has eight children, spent 17 years in Russia running the Chabad outpost in Sochi. But he was deported in March 2017 after a Russian court determined that he was a “threat to national security” and came directly to Montenegro.
“We are officially the Religious Jewish Community of Montenegro,” he said, while acknowledging deep divisions among the Jews of this relatively tiny country. “We do have things we need to improve, and we are not proud of that.”
One relative newcomer is Tatiana Nirman, who is originally from St. Petersburg, Russia. Soon after the war with Ukraine broke out in February 2022, she moved to Montenegro and now directs cultural programming for the 150 or so Jews she estimates now live in Budva, the resort town where the brawl took place.
“We’re here in Montenegro because it’s a beautiful, comfortable country, and one of the few places we could come on a Russian passport,” said Nirman, 40, who lives in the coastal town with her husband and two children. She adds that about 80% of her programs on art, music, Jewish history and cooking are in the Russian language.
Also living in Budva is Anna Davidi, 51, an Armenian-born Jew whose ancestors were from Iran. During the Nagorno-Karabakh War of the 1990s, Davidi’s family moved to Ukraine, where she studied music in Khmelnytskyi.
She married a Jewish man from Breslov with whom she had a son and daughter, but later divorced and relocated to Montenegro after realizing there was little to keep her in Ukraine.
“What attracted me was Montenegro’s exceptionally clean and beautiful nature, and the high level of tolerance among its people,” said Davidi, who moved here in 2012. “My brother, his wife and I came to Montenegro simply to explore it as a possible place to live. And almost from the moment we arrived, we fell in love.”
A former fashion designer and restaurant owner with a degree in psychology, Davidi landed a job in real-estate upon moving to Montenegro, and now represents an Israeli company involved in land sales. She said she sees both Montenegro and Israel, where she travels regularly to see her children and grandchildren, as important stops on her Jewish journey.
“When I look back, I see that my long road toward Israel has passed through several countries and generations: my ancestors came from Iran; I was born in Armenia; from there I moved to Ukraine; from there I moved to Montenegro,” Davidi recalled. “I hope that my next destination — perhaps the final station on this long journey — will be Jerusalem.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Montenegro’s tiny Jewish community navigates uncertain territory as hostility toward Israel increases appeared first on The Forward.
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How wrong I was about the young Ukrainian with the Chabad yarmulke
מײַן מאַמע, עליה השלום, פֿלעגט מיר זאָגן, אַז בעסער איז טראַכטן גוטס וועגן אַ שלעכטן מענטשן, איידער שלעכטס — וועגן אַ גוטן.
ניט איין מאָל אין פֿאַרלויף פֿון מײַן לעבן האָב איך זיך אָנגעמאַכט צרות און צומאָל זיך צעקלאַפּט ביז בלוט מײַן אייגענעם פּרצוף, זיך באַמיִענדיק פֿאָלגן די דאָזיקע עצה. עס זײַנען געווען פֿאַלן, ווען איך בין אָפּגעטראָטן פֿון דעם דאָזיקן פּרינציפּ, און איך באַדויער דאָס טאַקע.
הײַנט אַרבעט איך ווי אַ פֿאָרשטייער פֿון דער ייִדישער אַגענץ אין מאָלדאָווע מיט ייִדישע — און צומאָל מיט ניט־ייִדישע — פּליטים פֿון אוקראַיִנע. מײַן אויפֿגאַבע איז פֿאַרשנעלערן דעם פּראָצעס פֿון זייער אַרויספֿאָרן קיין ישׂראל. הונדערטער פּנימער, הונדערטער גורלות. כּמעט אויסשליסלעך — פֿרויען מיט קינדער און זקנים. ניט זעלטן זקנים, וועלכע האָבן איבערגעלעבט אַלס קינדער די צווייטע וועלט־מלחמה. צו מאָל — קינדער, וועלכע שרעקן זיך פֿון דעם, וואָס איך רעד אויף רוסיש מיט אַ מאָסקווער אויסשפּראַך. אַזוי רעדן דאָך רוסישע מערדער.
דאָס גאַנצע באַזיניקטע לעבן מײַנס בין איך געווען אַ ייִדישער נאַציאָנאַליסט און איך בלײַב אַזאַ ביז איצט. איך בין ניט קיין „רוסישער“ ייִד, הגם איך בין געבוירן געוואָרן אין מאָסקווע און רעד רוסיש, ווי אַ מאָסקווער גוי. איך בין ניט קיין „אוקראַיִנישער“ ייִד, הגם מײַן מאַמע איז געבוירן געוואָרן אין פּיריאַטין אין דער פּאָלטאַווער געגנט, און איך רעד גאַנץ נישקשה אוקראַיִניש.
איך בין אַ ייִדישער ייִד. מײַן היימלאַנד אינעם סאַמע טיפֿסטן זין פֿונעם וואָרט „היים“ איז ישׂראל, און קיין שום בירגערשאַפֿט, חוץ דער ישׂראלדיקער, האָב איך ניט און דאַרף איך ניט. אָבער דאָ און איצט זע איך אַן אַבסאָלוט בייז און אַן אַבסאָלוט גוטס, וועלכע מעקן אָפּ גרענעצן פֿון נאַציאָנאַליטעטן און צווינגען זיך צו דערמאָנען, אַז מיר אַלע זײַנען בני־אָדם, אַז מיר זײַנען געבוירן געוואָרן מענטשן און מוזן שטרעבן צו בלײַבן מענטשן. טאַקע יענץ, וואָס אויף ייִדיש רופֿט מען „אַ מענטש“.
זיך אומקערנדיק צום אָנהייב, צו מײַן מאַמעס עצה — שלאָג איך זיך על־חטא: נעכטן אין איינעם פֿון די פּונקטן אין אוקראַיִנע, וווּ עס זײַנען צײַטווײַליק אײַנגעאָרדנט די ייִדישע פּליטים, האָב איך זיך פֿאַרנומען מיט מײַן אַרבעט. צו מיר איז געווען אַ גאַנץ גרויסע ריי. צווישן די, וואָס האָבן געוואַרט אין דער ריי, האָט זיך געוואָרפֿן אין די אויגן אַ יוגנטלעכער מיט אַ חב״דישער יאַרמלקע. „מסתּמא אַ דעזערטיר, וואָס אַנטלויפֿט פֿון מאָביליזאַציע אין דער אוקראַיִנישער אַרמיי,“ האָב איך אַ טראַכט געטאָן און דערפֿילט אַן אַנטיפּאַטיע צו אים.
ניט לאַנג צוריק האָב איך באַזוכט מערבֿ־אוקראַיִנע און געטראָפֿן דאָרט עטלעכע מאַנצבילן — אוקראַיִנישע בירגער, בתוכם ייִדן, וועלכע האָבן זיך באַמיט אויסמײַדן מאָביליזאַציע אין דער אוקראַיִנישער אַרמיי, געגנבֿעט די גרענעץ צווישן אוקראַיִנע און מאָלדאָווע. איך האָב געמיינט, אַז דער דאָזיקער יונגער חב״דניק איז איינער פֿון יענע, וואָס האָבן באַוויזן זיך אַרויסצושמוגלען.
אָבער איך האָב אַ טעות געהאַט. ס׳האָט זיך אַרויסגעוויזן, אַז ער איז בכלל אַ רוסלענדישער בירגער פֿון איינער פֿון די צוויי הויפּטשטעט. צופֿעליק איז ער געווען צוליב זײַנע חב״דישע ענינים אין אוקראַיִנע, אין קיִעוו, ווען עס האָט זיך אָנגעהויבן די מלחמה. דער בחור איז געבליבן אַלס וואָלונטיר אין דער אָרטיקער ייִדישער קהילה. במשך פֿון אַ חודש האָט ער געהאָלפֿן אַרויספֿירן ייִדישע פּליטים פֿון דער שטאָט דער באַשאָסענער מיט ראַקעטן, אין בײַשטעט פֿון וועלכער ס׳איז שוין אַרײַן דאָס רוסישע מיליטער. בלויז איצט, ווען די באַוואָפֿנטע כּוחות פֿון אוקראַיִנע הייבן אָן איבערצוגיין אין דער קיִעווער געגנט צו אַ קאָנטער־אָנגריף, איז ער אַוועקגעפֿאָרן פֿון אוקראַיִנע קיין מאָלדאָווע כּדי עולה זײַן קיין ישׂראל.
הײַנט וועט דער דאָזיקר יונגער חב״דניק מיט גאָטס הילף זײַן אין ישׂראל.
זײַ מיר מוחל, בחור אין דער חב״דישער יאַרמלקע. איך זאָג צו צו האַלטן זיך אין דער צוקונפֿט שטרענגער בײַ דער עצה פֿון מײַן מאַמען: בעסער איז טראַכטן גוטס וועגן אַ שלעכטן מענטשן, איידער שלעכטס — וועגן אַ גוטן.
The post How wrong I was about the young Ukrainian with the Chabad yarmulke appeared first on The Forward.
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Teenager eulogizes slain father who saved his life in West Bank terror attack just before Yom Kippur
(JTA) — Standing at his father’s grave after Yom Kippur 16-year-old Yoav Shukron thanked him for the warning that saved his life a day earlier, when a Palestinian gunman opened fire on the two of them at a West Bank spring.
“Dad, I want to say thank you for 16 years together. Thank you for giving me life,” Yoav said on Monday night as his father, Netanel Shukron, 48, was laid to rest in the West Bank settlement of Alei Zahav.
“Thank you for shouting out to me during the attack, when the terrorist came in. I don’t remember what you said to me, and I ran,” he added, in remarks carried by Channel 12 news.
Yoav had accompanied his father to the Ein Riya spring near the settlement of Neve Tzuf on Sunday to immerse ahead of Yom Kippur when the attack took place.
Yoav escaped unharmed. Shukron, a father of six, was critically wounded and later pronounced dead at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva.
Hundreds of relatives, friends and residents attended the funeral, held after the Yom Kippur fast ended.
“Nati was the most involved father in the world,” his wife, Merav Shukron, said.
Reflecting on their 18-year marriage, she said, “We came from different families, but that didn’t stop us from being soulmates. Nati, our family is perfect, everything was perfect.”
The couple had six children, ages 4 to 16. Shukron worked as an information systems analyst at Hachshara Insurance Company, while Merav Shukron is a lecturer at Ariel University.
Merav said the family had been due to travel abroad the following week and that her husband had carefully planned the trip around spending time together, including packing a sukkah and food for the holiday.
According to the Israeli military’s preliminary investigation, the Palestinian attacker drove to the spring and opened fire. An Israeli military tracker who was nearby in an armored vehicle returned fire and wounded the gunman, preventing him from continuing the attack.
The attacker fled and was located several hours later receiving treatment at a hospital near Ramallah, where soldiers from the elite Duvdevan unit arrested him.
Israeli security officials identified the suspected attacker as Qadri Samara, a resident of the Palestinian town of Biddu who is affiliated with the Hamas terror group and was previously known to Israeli security forces, according to Channel 13. Investigators said he had visited the spring the previous day and determined that large numbers of people would be there to immerse in its waters ahead of Yom Kippur, a practice observed by some Jews before the fast.
In the aftermath of the attack, Israeli troops carried out a large operation in Biddu, mapping Samara’s home ahead of its possible demolition, searching about 100 locations and questioning about 90 suspects. The military also reinforced its forces across the West Bank, including by deploying the elite Egoz unit to the area.
About an hour after the shooting, soldiers thwarted a separate attempted car-ramming attack at the Ganim military post in the northern West Bank. One attacker was killed and a second was arrested, Channel 13 reported, adding that no soldiers were wounded.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a post on X, “No terrorist is immune, neither are those who assist them; we will settle scores with all of them – in Gaza, in Lebanon, and in Judea and Samaria,” using the biblical term for the West Bank.
President Isaac Herzog noted that the attack came “on the eve of Yom Kippur, as the people of Israel gather for the holy day.”
“Terror will not break us or shake our spirit,” he said. “We will stand against it together, united, determined and full of faith.”
Shukron’s killing has also become the first case in which Israeli officials are considering applying a death penalty law approved by the Knesset in March, according to the KAN public broadcaster.
The law, long championed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and his far-right Otzma Yehudit party, makes death the default sentence for non-Israelis convicted in Israeli military courts of carrying out deadly nationalist attacks, while allowing judges to impose life imprisonment in “special circumstances.” It passed the Knesset 62-48 and immediately drew a High Court challenge.
Ben-Gvir raised the possibility of applying the law to Samara during a security meeting before Yom Kippur, arguing that the case was the first to meet the law’s criteria. Netanyahu did not rule out the proposal and asked IDF representatives for their position on applying the law, which they said they saw no impediment to doing, according to KAN, though the report noted that the military advocate general was not present at the meeting. The issue is expected to be discussed again in a smaller cabinet forum with the IDF’s legal chief present, the report said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Teenager eulogizes slain father who saved his life in West Bank terror attack just before Yom Kippur appeared first on The Forward.
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Herzog’s Yom Kippur pardon of soldier crystallizes choice for Israeli voters
On the eve of Yom Kippur, President Isaac Herzog pardoned Elor Azaria, an Israeli soldier convicted of manslaughter for shooting a wounded Palestinian attacker in the head in Hebron a decade ago.
Azaria served nine months of an 18-month sentence and was released in 2018. His conviction remained on his record, with the ordinary process leaving it in place until 2032, complicating life for the now 30-year-old.
To ease that burden, Defense Minister Yisrael Katz, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, in July asked Israeli President Isaac Herzog, to grant Azaria clemency, expunging the record.
This Herzog did on the eve of Yom Kippur. There is a coherent argument for that decision. Azaria was a young soldier when the shooting occurred, he served his sentence, and a criminal record can continue to impose practical obstacles on civilian life long after a formal prison sentence has ended. Herzog invoked reconciliation and the possibility of a new beginning, as well as the consequences Azaria had already endured.
But the army did not agree. Current military chief Eyal Zamir and other senior officers opposed the request, arguing that Azaria had never expressed genuine remorse.
The pardon has now returned the Azaria affair to the center of Israeli politics at a particularly consequential moment.
Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, the military chief at the time who publicly pushed for prosecution, is now the main political leader in the opposition and its leading candidate for prime minister. Netanyahu, the prime minister at the time who called for Azaria’s pardon, is still leading the other side of Israel’s great political argument. After the Oct. 27 election, Herzog will consult the elected factions and probably assign the task of forming a government to one of them, based on who he believes has the best chance.
If the numbers leave neither Eisenkot nor Netanyahu with a clear path to a majority of 61, Herzog could face a genuinely consequential exercise of presidential judgment between the two men who stand on opposite sides of the Azaria case – which he himself has turned into an election issue.
The roots of that divide go back to March 24, 2016, when Israeli soldier Azaria aimed his rifle at Abdel Fattah al-Sharif and pulled the trigger. Al-Sharif had attacked Israeli soldiers with a knife and was shot and incapacitated. Minutes later, as he lay on the ground, Azaria nonchalantly raised his rifle and fired, from a few meters away. Al-Sharif was clearly not threatening the numerous soldiers milling around.
The shooting was captured on video, and what might otherwise have remained a disputed incident became one of the defining political arguments in Israel. It was a moment when Israeli politics – notoriously complex and sometimes inscrutable even to insiders – briefly came into focus: the fault line is whether you think this is OK.
The military treated the shooting as a serious criminal matter,. Eisenkot’s position, which earned vilification from the political right, was that a soldier could use lethal force against a genuine threat but could not simply kill a captive. The case became a test of whether the IDF’s rules meant anything when enforcing them was unpopular.
Netanyahu, who then as now was prime minister, is a man of sharp political instincts. During the controversy he called Azaria’s father, Charlie, offering sympathy. The eventual conviction was for manslaughter. After Azaria’s conviction, Netanyahu openly went all the way to politicize the case, calling for Azaria to receive a pardon.
The difference was unmistakable. Eisenkot saw the case through both the institutional obligations of the army and morality; he still believed in the old Zionist notion of the IDF as the world’s most ethical military. Netanyahu saw the political benefit in amplifying and harnessing the emotional identification of many frightened people with the soldier.
Israeli society was changing, the inflection point being the Second Intifada – a campaign of barbaric suicide bombings against civilians that was launched between 2000 and 2004, even as Israel was offering Palestinians statehood on the vast majority of the West Bank and Gaza. In 2005 Israel unilaterally pulled out of Gaza, uprooting thousands of settlers, resulting in Hamas jihadists taking over and years of rocket fire. The 2010s saw more killings.
After so many disappointments and so much bloodshed, many Israelis had just given up on the Palestinians (and to be fair, the feeling was mutual, largely because of the continuing occupation and the constant expansion of West Bank settlements). A significant part of the public had become indifferent at best to the idea that a soldier confronting a terrorist should be constrained by rules that might prevent him from firing. Netanyahu was either riding the tiger or goading it on, and perhaps both at the same time.
A decade later, the institutional divide exposed by the case remains remarkably intact. The current military leadership’s opposition to the pardon places today’s IDF, at least on this issue, in the same institutional tradition that Eisenkot represented in 2016: the conviction that the army’s rules must survive the political passions surrounding a particular soldier.
On the baseline level, this sad affair is about where self-defense ends and vengeance begins, and what to do when many citizens no longer care. But on a higher level, it encapsulates a contradiction from the earliest days of Zionism. The founders wanted two things at once: to turn the Jews, via national sovereignty, into “a people like all others”; and to make of their state “a light unto the nations.” Both sound good, yet one must choose.
The bullet that Azaria fired in Hebron helped crystallize that choice, which maps neatly into the political one between Eisenkot and Netanyahu. In placing his own signature on the final page of the Azaria affair, Herzog ensured it will be a highlight of the campaign, and of the legacy of both Eisenkot and Netanyahu.
It is no coincidence that the same person advocating for a man many consider a murderer is also feverishly machinating to dismantle the foundations of liberal democracy in Israel, while on trial for corruption. For Netanyahu, the ship of old-time Zionist mythology has sailed, and he’s not aiming to cast any light unto the nations. Eisenkot, essentially, still is.
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