Seven Fronts or Seven Spins

Are the exhausted soldiers of a year and two months of war really fighting on seven battlefields? Or is this catphrase being used to clear the dust off the War of Independence ethos, in an attempt to convince us that we’re “the few against the many”?

So let’s count them, shall we? There is Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran (maybe we should throw in the judicial overhaul, too?), but those endlessly repeating this slogan also want to also add the Houthis in Yemen, the occasional drones from Iraqi militias and Syria into the mix (sorry, but bombing empty airfields doesn’t qualify as a “front”). To this, they add the West Bank, although let’s face it – it’s less of a warfront and more of the ongoing maintenance of military occupation. So why seven? Well, because for the Israeli collective memory (which is not so old but still very powerful) it echoes the 1948 phrase that “Seven Arab nations rose against us to destroy us” and of course plays on our sensitive Jewish cords of flight and oppression. But if we’re honest, this “few against the many” is a very nice story of the past, not so much of the present.