‘We’ve paid the price for war. We haven’t yet reaped the fruits of peace’
Samah Salaime writes in +972 October 14, 2026
Over the past three years, “sobering up” has become one of the most popular expressions in Israeli discourse. It refers to leftists and peace activists who have supposedly “come to their senses” since the October 7 massacre, realizing they were naive to ever think that there could be a future with Palestinians — as if that terrible morning was proof the right had been correct all along.
The phrase has come to be associated most strongly with the Israeli communities nearest to the Gaza Strip, which have traditionally leaned left politically and were hit hardest on October 7, and in whose name Israel launched an unrestrained war on Gaza. On the eve of what is being billed as a fateful election for the future of Israel and the Palestinians, I set out on a journey to these communities to meet some of the Israelis who have paid the biggest price — and yet still refuse to give up on their values.
This was not merely a journalistic endeavor. As a Palestinian citizen of Israel, I am still struggling for a sane future in this land, still turning over every stone to find partners, if only for my children’s sake. And this struggle depends on one crucial question: Is there still a camp in Israel, however small, willing to demand that their government pursue peace?
Alongside the grief and horror that Israeli society experienced on October 7, I have watched — like the rest of the world — the scenes of hell and bloodshed that Israel has rained down on Gaza. From inside my home in central Israel, I have heard fighter jets cutting through the air on their way south to “destroy,” “flatten,” and “wipe out” the enclave, along with the 2 million Palestinians imprisoned there, without mercy or distinction.