Podcasts

Although extensive attention is devoted to the military aspects of the war between Israel and Hamas, much less focus is given to one of the most burning issues on the agenda: the well-being of Israeli society after the horrific massacre of October 7 on Israeli soil. This massacre is cast as Israel’s deadliest and most traumatic attack, particularly given its large scale: this was the deadliest event the Jewish world has ever experienced since the Holocaust. What can be said about the resilience of Israelis today, three months into the war? Are there already signs of recovery after this trauma, or it is still too soon to tell? What is needed for a society in trauma to recover and return somehow to what is known in the research as “functional continuity”? What does it really mean to ‘”function” after an event of this sort, and is it even possible? In today’s podcast, INSS researcher Adi Kantor sits down with Brig. Gen. (ret.) Dr. Meir Elran, a senior researcher at INSS and head of the research cluster on domestic issues at the Institute, and with Anat Shapira, Neubauer Research Associate in the Terrorism and Low Intensity Conflict Program at INSS and a PhD candidate in the Philosophy Department at Tel Aviv University. Together they discuss the issue of national resilience, taking Israeli society as a case study.

On October 7, 2023 at 06:30 am Israel woke up to a horrific nightmare. Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group based in the Gaza Strip, began a vicious and coordinated attack that shook southern and central Israel. Hamas launched a massive rocket attack targeting civilian areas, and simultaneously, infiltrated the Israeli villages surrounding the Gaza Strip with the goal of committing mass slaughter, abduction, rape, and other acts of brutality toward innocent Israeli victims. The results of this attack are beyond belief: Israeli babies were beheaded, and dismembered bodies burned, among them children. Other testimonies indicate that children were tied with their hands behind their backs and shot in the head. Between 120-150 Israeli hostages were kidnapped by Hamas terrorists to Gaza. In this podcast INSS researcher Adi Kantor sits down with Colonel (res.) Adv. Pnina Sharvit Baruch, INSS senior researcher and head of the INSS program on law and national security, and with Anat Shapira, Neubauer Research Associate in the INSS Terrorism and Low Intensity Conflict Program and a PhD candidate in the Tel Aviv University Philosophy Department. Together they discuss the viscous and barbaric acts of Hamas toward innocent civilians in Israel. What is known thus far about Hamas’s plan? How has the international community reacted? How has Hezbollah in the north responded until now, and what will be Israel’s reaction?