It is difficult to persuade a person who feels happy that he is in fact depressed and despondent. Why should he believe it? With regard to everything about the occupation, the citizens of Israel feel fine. They brush off arguments about the effect it has on morals, about the demographic problem, the economic damage and the undermining of our international relations. Their apathy does not stem only from "proof" that Israel must not budge from the position in which it is entrenched, because of the failure of the diplomatic process and changes in the Arab world. The apathy stems also from the loss of the value of peace.

From the point of view of the Zionist left, from the moment that Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion drew up the Declaration of Independence and up to the days of assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the lack of peace remained an open wound in the Jewish national project, which had succeeded in achieving its other aims. This wound led Israel's leaders to examine, time and again, whether it was possible to reach an agreement that would close the circle of enmity that began with the establishment of the state, despite the strong Arab opposition. The awareness of the wound was not restricted to the left. Because of it, the Herut party's leader who became prime minister, Menachem Begin, signed the peace treaty with Egypt, and on both sides of the political barrier people stressed that "everyone is in favor of peace."

However, alongside the yearning for peace, the readiness in Israel to pay the price for it has yet to be found. In fact, a self-righteous and manipulative tendency has developed here to put it off and to blame the other side for refusing to make peace, as opposed to Israel, "which extends its hand to peace."

In the current climate, the yearning for peace - which despite its self-righteous aspects also contained healthy elements, as well as a readiness for action - is now beginning to disappear. Among young people who don't remember the excitement over the Oslo Accords in September 1993, who did not draw a picture of a dove with an olive leaf in its beak at school, and who didn't sing "Tomorrow perhaps we'll sail in boats" or "I was born to peace," peace is perceived as something troublesome and old-fashioned. The left is unable to convey the terrifying price, no less, that each one of us is paying for the occupation and for the lack of a diplomatic solution. Such a price is being denied by means of a gigantic campaign of repression propaganda that is being funded both privately and publicly.

But the occupation harms us on a daily basis in dozens of ways. The occupation tears the nation apart by reinforcing political and cultural polarization and preventing social solidarity. People on the right argue that bringing the settlers home will create a rift in the nation and, in so doing, they confuse cause with effect, as they are wont to do. The occupation encourages extremism, destroys statesmanship, perpetuates the division of society into sectors, and undermines faith in the legal and judicial system. A united and just Israeli society is not possible without a political solution to the conflict.

The occupation is also costing us a huge amount of money and is turning us into people who are hated all over the world. Israel is seen as the somewhat backward and disturbed youth of the world; one of the last states on earth that still rules another nation. Anyone who thinks the world's revulsion is not important is forgetting that revulsion leads one to a psychological state of victimization. For the most part, that is the condition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This sense of being a victim gives birth to self-righteousness and self-righteousness leads to mendacity.

The Palestinians are paying the bulk of the price of the occupation, but their wardens are also footing the bill. The heaviest price is the loss of normalcy. When one gets used to living in an abnormal situation, one forgets there is a different way and tries to find justification for reality through pseudo-romantic claims about the supposed uniqueness of Jewish existence. But normalcy is not a luxury; it is the very air we should breathe. Being normal means knowing the boundaries of your country. Being normal means having a feeling of security about your future, even in another 15 years. Being normal means feeling there is something wrong with frightening concrete walls next to a main road.

We are all missing this kind of air, not just the settlers. And the hundreds of thousands who use Route 443 to Jerusalem. And those who visit the City of David National Park that was violently stolen. Normalcy is missing also for all those who participate in maintaining the political conditions that make it possible to evict people from their homes, to lock them up in prisons surrounded by fences, and to prevent thousands of families from earning a living. It is missing also for those who no longer understand why Israel needs peace at all.

We need to end the occupation not only because of the Palestinians. We need to do it also for ourselves.