When They Do Not Want to See

1. The story of director Nadav Lapid, whose films and statements have sharply criticized Israeli policy, and who this week discovered that he is also being boycotted from serving as a juror at the Marseille film festival because he is Israeli, is, as expected, provoking schadenfreude. But even if that feeling is understandable, his story is first and foremost a parable about the blindness that characterizes boycott policy. First, because a boycott is sweeping and does not distinguish between currents and views, and there is no connection between Ben Gvir, for example, and most Israelis. In the end, boycott supporters are trying to correct what they identify as an injustice by creating another injustice. Beyond that, boycotts of Israel only cause hesitation and entrenchment among Israelis as a whole, to such an extent that even Lapid, who tends to emphasize the need to distinguish between anti-Israelism and antisemitism, responded to his boycott with hints of hatred of Jews. All the more so since those who excluded Lapid from the jury panel at the festival lost a filmmaker who would likely have preferred critical films about Zionism. 1 View gallery Interceptions near the Lebanon border (Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad) Following his boycott, a counter-petition was also published, it should be noted, signed by 350 filmmakers, including Natalie Portman, who described the boycott as an “intellectual failure.” One can hope that the blindness exposed in this affair will lead those who automatically seek to boycott anything Israeli to reconsider their path. But it is likely that the main result will דווקא be to damage the effect of Lapid’s original critical message: instead of viewers of his films being impressed by his calls to end the occupation and pursue reconciliation, they will surely think about how even a critical creator like him is not accepted in the world simply because he is Israeli.

2. But Israel’s policy is also afflicted by blindness. Since President Trump stopped the expansion of the Israeli response to Iranian missiles, there is anger in the government and the security establishment that our hands have been tied. But the truth is that Trump saved us from another unnecessary round. First, what other blow can Israel strike against Iran that it has not already struck during 40 days of war, and if there is such an operational plan, why was it not carried out then already? Beyond that, is it not clear that after almost three years of war on the different fronts, the Israeli interest is to embark on a new path, free of wars? Avi Shilon

3. Alongside that, the most popular blindness in the Israeli leadership lies in the opposition to linking the Lebanese arena with the Iranian one. First, because they are connected: Hezbollah is an organization operating under Iran’s patronage. Second, Israel has already brought about a situation in which it can strike Hezbollah without a response; that was the case until before the latest war against Iran, which turned out to be one step too far, like a person who already has everything, but falls because he wanted more. And in general, what does Israel seek to achieve by continuing the confrontation with Hezbollah? Does anyone believe that one more assassination and one more bombing will bring surrender? And the main blindness lies in the fact that the best way to separate the arenas is different: to heed Lebanon’s peace proposal, and leave the political weakening of Hezbollah to the Lebanese, alongside a ceasefire that will make it possible to rebuild the north and the exhausted army.

4. Israeli blindness extends to the claim that we have become a client state of the United States. The truth is that, fortunately, there is a president in the White House who knows how to prevent Netanyahu from setting fires that cannot be extinguished. Trump is right in his desire to focus on an effort to reach an agreement with Iran under which, in the future, it will give up its nuclear program. There is no better option for those whose eyes are open.