Lower Thirds: 

0:03	Report by Emily Gordine

0:15	Michal Brodi | Mothers Cry anti-war NGO founder

0:30	 Hana Giat | Combatants' Mothers pro-war NGO founder

1:30	Michal Brodi | Mothers Cry anti-war NGO founder

2:44	Dahlia Scheindlin | Century Foundation

3:59	Hana Giat | Combatants' Mothers pro-war NGO founder

4:13	 Michal Brodi | Mothers Cry anti-war NGO founder

((info:  Every Saturday Israelis take to the streets across the country to demonstrate against the government. But those among them against the wars in Iran and Lebanon are in the minority among Jewish Israelis, who are mostly in favor of continuing them. We spoke with two mothers of Israeli soldiers who find themselves at opposite ends of the war debate. 
Over two-thirds of Jewish Israelis still support the war against Iran, while 80% of Jewish Israelis want to see continued fighting in Lebanon, according to recent polls. ))

Script: 

Michal Brodi and Hana Giat are two Israeli women, both with sons serving in the army, who are on opposite ends of the debate on Israel’s wars in Iran and Lebanon.  

Michal Brodi wants them both to end.  

Michal Brodi,  
Founder of anti-war NGO, Mothers Cry  
If we don’t oppose, we will all be dead. That is what the government is trying to [do]. The government is killing us all — the citizens, the soldiers, our neighbors. 

Hana Giat wants Israel to fight the wars until the end.  

Hana Giat 
Founder of pro-war NGO, Combatants’ Mothers 

0:29
I know that if I care not only about my sons but about my grandchildren, about the next generations, we must carry out this war to the end. We must win. Our children must go into this battle, as hard as that is. 

0:43
Hana is a software engineer in Tel Aviv. She commutes three times a week from a settlement in the occupied West Bank, which under international law are considered illegal.  

Hana’s support of the wars, first in Iran, then Lebanon, places her in the majority in Israel, at least among Jewish Israelis. 

When Israel and the US began their war with Iran, polls showed over 90 percent supported the war. 

That number has declined over time but has remained fairly steady at around 70 percent.  

80 percent of Jewish Israelis support continued fighting in Lebanon. 

Michal Brodi, who founded her organization, Mothers Cry, in an attempt to stop the war in Gaza, believes such overwhelming support comes from the Israeli public being misled about their government’s intentions. 

Michal Brodi SOT: 
I think that people are just going like sheeps in a herd and obeying everything the government wants them to do instead of thinking for themselves. Also, in Lebanon, I think there is a huge intention to settle there. Some religious Jews speak about large Israel, Great Israel, [and] want to establish settlements both in Gaza of course but also in Lebanon. And this is a very high motive for keeping the war going on.

“Greater Israel “used to refer to all of the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. But today, it is coming to mean something even larger — a biblical interpretation of an Israel, which includes parts of Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria. 

According to Dahlia Scheindlin, a public opinion researcher and fellow at the Century Foundation, there’s a method between linking security and the concept of a “Greater Israel.”  

Dahlia Scheindlin, 
Century Foundation 

The people who want a “Greater Israel” will try to make their case to the rest of Israeli society by saying that only when Israel completely controls all of the land in Palestine, and increasingly they want to go beyond Mandate Palestine, but that Israel's complete control over that land, both military and civilian control, are the only way that Israel can guarantee its own security. [WHITE FLASH] It's a view that completely ignores the other side. The other historical examples, no less relevant, that when Israel withdrew, for example, from the Sinai Peninsula and dismantled its settlements in return, it achieved a full peace agreement with the state of Egypt that has been in place for nearly 50 years at this point. 

Hana, together with others, lobbies in the Knesset for more rights and benefits for soldiers, such as tax breaks and longer holidays and more legal support. 

Israel has been accused of committing genocide in Gaza, and there’s a growing concern soldiers could be prosecuted abroad for their conduct in the enclave. 

For Hana and others, they say that their core interest is in keeping Israel secure in perpetuity.  

At a group meeting for her pro-war NGO, Combatants’ Mothers, she tells me that keeping Israeli soldiers secure as they work toward that goal is the only way to obtain it.  

Hana SOT:  
It can be achieved. It can be achieved. We have to we just have to do it. And this is what we are fighting for. Give our soldiers all the resources they need and all the backup they need in order to do the job.  

For Michal Brodi, she says the best way to ensure soldiers’ safety is by keeping them alive by not sending them to fight unnecessary wars.  

Michal SOT: 
The Israeli society think that me and my friends are traitors, and I say it’s the opposite that is right. Because we are trying to save the Israeli state and the Israeli people. We’re trying to save all of us because we are all going to a catastrophe if we continue this way. 

END