Peta Krost Maunder

As our families and friends in Israel run for their lives many times a day, they are unable to find any semblance of normality almost a month into this war with Iran. As ballistic missiles are being fired from Iran directly into densely populated areas, the world says nothing to assuage this. It is astonishing that nobody seems to be censuring Iran for firing cluster missiles into densely populated civilian areas.

A friend showed me a short video this week, to see whether I found it amusing. I did initially, but it left a sense of lingering discomfort because of how true it was. It was a piece by Eretz Nehederet, a very popular long-running Israeli prime time satirical sketch comedy programme. It portrayed two old friends bumping into each other at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel. Both are Jewish. Eli is Israeli, and Jennifer is American.

A young man I know and respect who has recently come across antisemitism first hand, reiterated something that seems so clear to me. His views are possibly left of mine in terms of Israel. He certainly doesn’t support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and doesn’t believe settlers should be on the West Bank or Judea and Samaria. He made the following analogy about the reality for Jews today. Two Jews walk into a pub, one is far-right in his views, the other far-left.