In the immediate wake of the October 7 attacks, a chillingly pragmatic consensus took hold within the Israeli public and its military establishment. While the world watched the horror of the breach, the domestic narrative shifted almost instantly from shock to a grim, clinical evaluation of the first stage of the response. This was not the typical rallying around the flag seen in previous skirmishes. It was an existential pivot. The "satisfaction" reported in those early days was not rooted in a sense of victory, but in the relief that the state’s massive, lumbering machinery of war had finally groaned into motion after a catastrophic failure.
The initial phase of the conflict was defined by a specific set of metrics that the Israeli public used to judge the government’s competency. First, the speed of mobilization. Second, the scale of the air campaign in Gaza. Third, the perceived restoration of the "deterrence" concept that had evaporated in a single Saturday morning. For a nation that prides itself on being an unsleeping fortress, the early days were about proving that the fortress could still strike back with overwhelming, disproportionate force.
The Myth of Deterrence and the Reality of Force
For decades, Israeli security doctrine rested on the pillars of early warning and decisive victory. When the warning failed, the entire weight of the strategy shifted to the "decisive" part of the equation. The early bombardment of Gaza was viewed by many Israelis as a necessary, albeit brutal, recalibration. This wasn't just about hitting targets; it was about communicating to the region—and specifically to Hezbollah in the north—that the rules of engagement had been shredded.
The high approval ratings for the military’s initial actions masked a deep-seated fury toward the political echelon. People were satisfied with the soldiers, not the ministers. This distinction is vital for anyone trying to understand the Israeli psyche. The public saw a clear line between the tactical proficiency of the Air Force and the systemic negligence of the Netanyahu administration. By cheering for the initial strikes, the public was effectively saying, "Do your job because you failed to protect us."
The Demographic Split in Support
As the air campaign transitioned into a buildup for a ground invasion, the unanimity of the first forty-eight hours began to show structural cracks. It is a mistake to view the Israeli response as a monolith. The "satisfaction" was highest among those who saw the conflict through the lens of a zero-sum survival struggle.
- The Security Hardliners: These groups viewed the early destruction of Hamas infrastructure as a long-overdue necessity, regardless of the humanitarian cost or the risk to hostages.
- The Families of the Missing: For this group, every bomb dropped felt like a gamble with their loved ones' lives. Their satisfaction was non-existent, replaced by a desperate, agonizing wait for information that the state was slow to provide.
- The Reservists: The hundreds of thousands of citizens who dropped their lives to report for duty provided the most grounded perspective. Their "satisfaction" was tied to logistical reality—did they have enough ceramic plates, was the food arriving, were the orders clear? In the beginning, the answer was often no.
Why the Early Numbers Were Deceptive
Polls taken in the first week of a war are notoriously unreliable indicators of long-term social stability. They capture adrenaline, not reflection. The early satisfaction with the war's "progress" was a byproduct of the shock-and-awe phase where the costs—in terms of IDF casualties and economic paralysis—had not yet been fully realized.
The Israeli economy essentially stopped. Schools closed, tech hubs emptied as developers traded laptops for rifles, and the tourism industry evaporated. In those first days, the financial cost was an afterthought. The collective mindset was focused on a singular goal: the removal of the threat. However, as the "initial days" turned into weeks, the focus shifted from the effectiveness of the airstrikes to the lack of a "day after" plan. This is where the veteran analyst sees the true vulnerability. A military can be highly effective at destruction while being completely directionless regarding the political objective.
The Intelligence Failure vs. The Kinetic Success
There is a glaring irony in the praise heaped upon the IDF's early performance. The same military that was being lauded for its precision in the second week of October was the same military that was caught sleeping in the first week. The rapid transition from failure to "success" is a testament to the IDF's decentralized command structure, where local commanders took the initiative while the central command was still reeling.
This "satisfaction" was actually a form of collective trauma processing. By focusing on the power of the response, the Israeli public was able to temporarily push aside the terrifying reality that their borders were porous. The intensity of the fire in Gaza served as a smoke screen for the internal investigations that everyone knew were coming.
The Global Disconnect
While domestic sentiment focused on the necessity of the campaign, the international community’s perception moved in the opposite direction. This divergence is a recurring theme in Israeli conflicts, but in 2023 and beyond, it reached a fever pitch. The "satisfaction" within Israel regarding the military's "mowing the grass" (a grim term used for years to describe periodic operations) was met with unprecedented global condemnation.
This creates a feedback loop. When the world condemns Israel, the Israeli public often retreats into a more defiant, hawkish stance. The early support for the war wasn't just about Hamas; it was a middle finger to a global community that many Israelis felt didn't understand the reality of living next to a genocidal proxy state.
The Logistics of a Long Siege
One overlooked factor in the early "success" of the war was the sheer scale of the civilian volunteer effort. When the government failed to provide for the displaced residents of the south, the citizens stepped in. This grassroots mobilization created a sense of national unity that was easily mistaken for satisfaction with the war's progress. In reality, it was a civil society taking over the functions of a paralyzed state.
The military's initial achievements were largely technical:
- Air Superiority: Total and immediate.
- Iron Dome Performance: Intercepting thousands of rockets, preventing a domestic body count that would have broken the national spirit.
- Mobilization: 360,000 reservists in record time.
But technical success is not political victory. The satisfaction felt in the first days was the satisfaction of a patient who has survived a heart attack and is now in the ICU. They are glad to be alive, but the recovery is uncertain, expensive, and likely to leave them permanently changed.
The Hostage Dilemma as a Perceptual Anchor
No analysis of the early war sentiment is complete without addressing the 240+ souls taken into the tunnels. Their presence loomed over every "successful" airstrike. In the beginning, the military logic was that "pressure" on Hamas would lead to a deal. This was the selling point to the public. "We hit them hard, they give back the kids."
As the days progressed, it became clear that this was a gamble. The satisfaction with the "bilan" (the tally or balance sheet) of the war started to sour as it became evident that the military goals and the hostage recovery goals were frequently in direct conflict. You cannot carpet-bomb a city while simultaneously ensuring the safety of people held in its basements. This is the brutal truth that the early reports glossed over.
The Northern Shadow
The early satisfaction was also predicated on the fact that the war remained "contained" to the south. Every day that passed without a full-scale invasion from Hezbollah in Lebanon was counted as a win. The IDF’s posture in the north was defensive but aggressive, a delicate dance intended to prevent a two-front war that would have stretched the nation’s resources to a breaking point.
The displacement of 80,000 Israelis from the northern border, however, created a different kind of pressure. For these people, there was no satisfaction. Their lives were in limbo, their homes were targets, and the "success" in Gaza did nothing to secure their return. This created a geographical schism in the national mood—the center was defiant, the south was broken, and the north was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The Economic Trap
War is a luxury that few modern economies can afford for long. Israel’s reliance on the high-tech sector—which accounts for a massive portion of its GDP—made the early mobilization a ticking time bomb. The "satisfaction" of seeing a unified nation in uniform ignores the reality that every day a developer spends in a tank is a day of lost innovation and tax revenue.
The government’s early promises of "no limit" on spending were met with skepticism by economists. The initial days were funded by adrenaline and emergency reserves, but the long-term cost of rebuilding the south and maintaining a massive standing army on two borders began to cast a shadow over the early military "wins."
A Nation Redefined by the First 100 Hours
The first days of the war didn't just change the map of Gaza; they changed the social contract in Israel. The satisfaction with the military's response was the final gasp of the old security paradigm. It was the realization that the state could no longer guarantee safety through intelligence alone—it could only guarantee revenge through fire.
This shift from "prevention" to "punishment" is a fundamental degradation of the Zionist dream of a safe haven. If the only way to be safe is to be in a permanent state of high-intensity warfare, the nature of the country changes. The early approval of the war’s progress was, in many ways, an acceptance of this new, darker reality.
Ask yourself what happens when the "satisfaction" of the initial strikes wears off and the reality of a multi-year insurgency sets in.
