Here’s what appeared on all our screens in the middle of the day yesterday.

Already yesterday afternoon, the country was abuzz with the news that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had spoken publicly about trading an end to the war for the return of all the hostages. Later, in the evening, the government announced that Israel would be providing humanitarian aid throughout the Gaza strip.

Both topics have, in the past, elicited passionate and angry debates in the cabinet, but this time, the Prime Minister just announced the plan to provide the humanitarian aid, while refusing to bring it to a vote. There are apparently some things he knows he simply needs to do, and he’s going to do them.

What Trump has threatened, or promised, if Israel does nor or does do them, is anyone’s guess. But something is shifting. One cannot help but wonder what Donald Trump cooked up in his recent trip when he met with the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Syrians—everyone, it seems, but not with us.

Whatever emerges (if anything emerges), it could be good, it could be not good. Time will tell.

But if there’s any truth to these stories (and reputable sources are reporting them), Netanyahu has to be under such intense pressure that he’s willing to stare Ben Gvir and Smotrich in the face and tell them to do what they’re going to do (Smotrich is polling at not making it into the next government, so he has zero incentive to bring the government down; Ben Gvir is a different story.)

One day, this war will end. People feel it in the air. It might take a year, or more, but suddenly, it also feels like it might take much less. What happens when it does eventually end?

What will have to happen is rebuilding, of many different sorts.

Today, in a very brief post, we’re sharing two videos making their way around these parts that illustrate the sense of just two of the many “big things have to get fixed.”

The video above was a produced by a new “movement” (not yet officially a political party, but on its way, it seems) called El Ha-Degel— “To the flag.”

We have a podcast with one of its founders coming up very soon … I suspect that many of our listeners will be as inspired and impressed as I was.

Here's a Google-translated screenshot of their home page — Zoom in to read the

There’s not a lot that needs explaining (btw, since they produced their website, some very significant women have joined the leadership); I’m grateful to El Ha-Degel for their permission to add subtitles to the video for our readers.

Here’s the language from the middle of the home page (translated), in case it’s too small above:

Watch the video at the top of this post seriously. It’s clever, having Ben-Gurion having to witness the “sinking” of the country. It’s just a video, but it captures something that’s in the air here. New politics, new people, new starts.

If you would like to share our conversation about what Israelis are feeling and expressing at this unprecedented moment in our history, we invite you to subscribe today.

I was recently at a dinner at which the CEO of one of Israel’s leading hospitals was in attendance. I asked him if the reports about physicians leaving in large numbers are true. He didn’t poo-poo the rumors, but he did note that as his hospital almost no one has left, and even at other major hospitals, he’s heard from his fellow CEO colleagues, there are some leaving, but it’s not a mass movement.

Still, as we’ve noted time and again, the “lure” of America (but not only) is also a much discussed topic. Here’s a play on that that’s been making away around social media here. (I don’t know who put it together … if anyone does, please let me know so we can give credit ….) But the video is also serious — for this to be a place that has a robust future, it has to be a place that people don’t want to leave.

Many of the contradictory points of the video are true. Yes, many Israelis assume (whether rightly or wrongly is an entirely different question) that America is swamp of assimilation. And yes, many also feel (whether rightly or wrongly is an entirely different question) that they could have better lives in America. Some assume that those people can be lured back.

And now, as the last of the characters in the video makes clear, there’s a new question: who says that they want us there anymore?

Despite everything that’s unfolded here in the past two and a half years (since judicial reform started), Israelis still have a sense that, as Robert Frost put it in his 1915 poem, “The Death of the Hired Man,” “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, / They have to take you in.”

Israel is saturated with that sentiment — which is likely to fuel the massive rebuilding we may well be close to seeing.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit danielgordis.substack.com/subscribe

"After the war" no longer sounds entirely fictional.