Hundreds of thousands of Israelis protested this weekend to demand a ceasefire following the deaths of six more hostages in Gaza, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to reject the terms of a deal that would remove Israeli troops from southern Gaza. This comes after nearly 11 months of Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed over 40,000 Palestinians in the territory, according to local health authorities. “Our politicians won’t listen to anything, because they’re driven out of self-interest,” says Israeli peace activist Yonatan Zeigen, whose mother Vivian Silver was killed in the October 7 Hamas attack on Kibbutz Be’eri. Despite the feeling of solidarity on the streets, Zeigen says there is a sense of “hopelessness” in the mass protests in Israel. We also speak with Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy, who says the outrage in Israel is still mostly confined to critics of Netanyahu and has not yet penetrated his base of support, and that the United States has a major role in the continued violence and Netanyahu’s refusal to agree to a ceasefire. “If President Biden would have really liked to put an end to this war, he could have done it within days by stopping or at least conditioning … the supply of arms and ammunition to Israel. He didn’t do it,” Levy notes.
