Back home, Israeli reservists turn focus to nation’s disunity

JERUSALEM — Gathered this month around a campfire on the edge of a forest in central Israel, the soldiers planned their next mission: saving their deeply divided country from itself.

Like many of the thousands of Israeli reservists called to fight in the Gaza Strip, the soldiers left for war amid a sudden surge of national unity after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel.

But as the military has withdrawn soldiers from Gaza in recent weeks and the troops have returned home, they have found their country less like it was after Oct. 7 and more like it was before: torn by divisive politics and culture clashes.

Now, as these bitter divisions reemerge, disillusioned reservists are at the vanguard of movements demanding a political reset, seeking unity and repudiating what many view as extreme polarization.

“I first came out in December and was shocked to see that nothing had changed,” said David Sherez, a special forces commander and startup entrepreneur, on leaving his base near Gaza. Sherez, one of the soldiers who gathered around the campfire in the woods, is a founding member of Tikun 2024, a new nonpartisan organization led by reservists intent on preserving the spirit of cooperation brought on by the war.

“You put on the news and look at social media, and it’s as if Oct. 7 didn’t happen,” Sherez said. “Everyone needs to do some soul-searching.”

Members of the small but rapidly growing movement cited contentious government moves that have divided the country, including a proposed overhaul of the judiciary, talk of resettling Gaza, criticism of the families of hostages who have called for a cease-fire, and a proposed budget that benefits ultra-Orthodox fringes at the expense of the national economy.

Israel’s military, in which service is mandatory for most citizens, has always been the country’s great equalizer and uniter, at least for those who are drafted; Most Arab and ultra-Orthodox citizens do not serve. The members of Tikun 2024 say they want civilian Israel to reflect the comradeship of its military, where units and tank crews are made up of right-wingers and left-wingers, religious and secular Jews, Bedouins and Druze, settlers from the occupied West Bank, and high-tech entrepreneurs from Tel Aviv.

The reservists who make up the leadership of Tikun 2024 are a politically diverse group. (Tikun is the Hebrew word for correction or repair.) Rather than simply calling for immediate elections, which many Israelis would see as an attempt to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, they have called on the country’s main political parties to form an emergency unity government with Netanyahu, for now, and agree on a date for elections by the end of the year.

Only a unity government, they say, can tackle the most challenging issues facing Israel’s future, including the fate of the occupied territories, where the Palestinians and much of the world envisage the establishment of a future Palestinian state. The group, established only a month ago and fueled by crowdfunding, has quickly gained traction. Lawmakers from across the political spectrum and representatives of competing sectors of Israeli society have met with the reservists — sometimes in the woods and around the campfire.