A shared awakening is the only way the sun can rise to end that terrible day

There is little meaning in marking two years since the events of 7 October 2023. That day has not ended. It remains one long and terrible day, in which the sun refuses to rise.

- Avraham Burg

Each morning we wake into the same night, each evening ends with the darkness grown thicker. This darkness is not uniform; every community in Israel lives under its own shadow. What follows concerns the Jewish majority, with the sad knowledge the fate of Israel's Palestinian minority requires a different, equally urgent reckoning.

And I, who have run long distances all my life, have never felt such suffocation as in these days. It is hard to breathe, hard to sleep, hard to reach the distances. The body is willing, but the spirit is shackled by the weight of this unending day.

Today, Jewish Israel is divided into three main groups. The first is the messianic fundamentalists, living in a constant state of mystical tremor, convinced we are in an "age of miracles". Within this fortress of faith, doubt has no place, nor does the human toll. At the opposite pole lies the despairing camp. For them, the relentless sequence of disasters proves that nothing can be repaired.

Between these extremes stretches the larger Israeli landscape, the realm of confusion. Here lies the majority, unable to give meaning to the darkness. They oscillate between a call to action and paralysing fear, a desire for vision and loss of trust.