A brutal year and a tale of two Israels: the one that is feared and the one that is fearful | Jonathan Freedland

There is a yawning gap between how the world sees Israel and how Israelis see themselves. If only each could see through the other's eyes

You'll be ahead of me on this one. By the time you read this, it's possible that Israel will have hit back in response to the nearly 200 ballistic missiles that Iran fired on Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other cities on Tuesday evening. As I write this, the world is bracing itself for that expected Israeli retaliation and what threatens to be an all-out regional war, pitting the Middle East's dominant powers against each other.

The reason for that gap between us is that I am writing these words before the start of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, which began at sunset on Wednesday. By tradition, Jews are supposed to refrain from all work for the 48 hours that follow, work defined to include not only updating newspaper columns but watching the news on TV or checking your phone. I suspect I will not be the only Jew who will have struggled to comply with that stricture this year.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

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