Author's Note: Most of this piece was written on Saturday, October 14. Some material in this first draft includes events through October 17th. I may include additional updates, or follow up in additional posts.
As I write this, Israel is about to launch a massive ground invasion on the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military has told an area with over a million people who have just been hit by more than 6,000 bombs to get out. Hamas is encouraging people to stay in hopes of an even more bloody confrontation. I dread the consequences of what may be on track to be the most deadly war in Israel’s history. I have been feeling a rage of emotions, all horrible feelings at what has unfolded. I’ve been more defensive and embracing of Israel than ever. I am saddened by the completely unnecessary violence that has resulted in more than 1,300 senseless murders and cascaded into truly awful vitriol around the world. But I would be heartless to not be angered and horrified over the rage the government and military are about to unleash. And yet, while the human impact pales in comparison, I am still saddened by a burning hatred that has emerged among the legitimately aggrieved and their supporters.
As a secular, liberal Jew-ish American, I have no strong feelings towards the idea of a Jewish state of Israel and very strong feelings against the government. I support liberal democracy, not religious ethno-states. For Israeli citizens, Israel is both a liberal democracy with respect for minorities and gay rights and a religious state that does not allow inter-ethnic marriage and gives systemic privileges to Jews. Arab citizens are second-class citizens, carefully relegated mostly to separate enclaves with little true representation in government. For Palestinians who happen to have been born in the wrong place, Israel is an apartheid state that restricts movement in the West Bank (while permitting ever-increasing encroachment of Jacksonian settlers) and locks down Gaza with an iron fist. My cousin in Israel has been protesting the government for years, telling me in 2016 that Donald Trump will be “America’s Netanyahu”. The situation in the Palestinian territories is truly untenable.
I don’t pretend to be a strong advocate for Palestinians. It is neither an issue that I am typically personally concerned about nor one that I think there are many good chances to help solve. But it is a tragedy what Palestinians have been going through for the better part of the last century. The US has been Israel’s biggest benefactor for decades and has rarely exerted any influence to even nudge Israel to stop its illegal fixation on violent annexation in the West Bank. Meanwhile, Israel’s “center” in its governing coalition has slowly drifted further and further into explicitly genocidal aims, while its far right flank is proud of them. The Democratic Party has failed to stand up to the scourge of AIPAC even as Israel’s conservative government has fully embraced the Trump-led Republican Party. Israel’s government has a lot more support from American Christians than American Jews, albeit there is still a segment of Democratic voters who do blindly support Netanyahu. While I am no fan of the far-left’s purely anti-American position, I think that there are many legitimate grievances about American foreign policy, including the US’s unbridled support for Israel. On its face, Boycott Divest and Sanction movement is a totally legitimate nonviolent resistance to Israel, though one with hardly any tangible success. Sadly, the left and the Palestinian activist movement have shown a much, much darker side in response to the indefensible.
I cannot take it in stride when the response to mass murder of Israelis from the left is deflection, indifference, and glee. Organizations promoted rallies for “martyrs” with the image of a person on a hang glider, the same transportation Hamas used to sweep in a massacre a peaceful kibbutz and a music festival. If there are two places where no one is looking to get into a fate, these are the perfect spots. Hamas swooped in indiscriminately killing soldiers, babies, women, kids, students, peace activists. This was an attack that was bound to receive sympathy towards Israel from its biggest ally and to galvanize support for Israel from a typically tepid European Union. There was nothing that should be celebrated about this gruesome attack that has been met with an unfathomable response from Israel. Israel’s response killed more people than the US killed during some months of the Iraq War, and a full-scale ground invasion could kill tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people. This is a horrifying prospect, but utterly unsurprising response from an extreme right-wing government to the most deadly single attack on Israel since 1949. People who have been suffering in the Palestinian territories have reason to feel indifference when they are attacked and demonized and have nowhere to go. This should not extend to college-educated American students who intentionally mock the feelings of their classmates.
It is simply not true that Israel’s situation is merely a case of the oppressor versus the oppressed minority in Palestine. It is simply not the case that Israel is fully made up of white colonialist settlers. Israel is a highly racially and ethnically diverse country that has grown as a refuge for Jews oppressed around the world. It is never easy to leave your hometown, yet hundreds of thousands of Jews came to Israel from Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Ethiopia, Yemen, and other parts of the world where they have been denigrated and forced to leave their home country. The Jews who fled Nazi Europe to Israel escaped unspeakable horror and it is no surprise they did not wish to return after the war ended. There were thousands of Jews living in what is now Israel even prior to the pre-World War II settler movement, and the land has obviously a biblical history. There are many different reasons why today’s Jews landed in Israel, ascribing a single mentality to millions of people is repugnant. Not to mention many of the people living there now simply happened to be born there and want to live their lives.
I hope that one day there is a single Democratic country in Israel/Palestine with minority rights, citizenship for all current residents, and a functioning democracy. If that is truly what activists envision by the chants of “Palestine will be free from river to sea”, then I am fully supportive of this vision. If it means vengefully expelling millions of people who had no say in wars from many decades prior, then that cannot and should not ever be allowed to happen. The global leftist movement has supported Palestinian right to resist by any means, with tepid if any sympathy towards Israeli civilians who have been killed. Palestinian activists have explicitly denied that any Israeli is a civilian, a chilling justification for mass murder. Democratic Socialists have responded by mocking Jews grieving and hearing for their safety after rallies including people chanting “Gas the Jews”. Before any retaliation last week, there were posts celebrating the attacks as “decolonization”. People claiming to represent the cause of civil rights broadly insulted a grieving Jewish community. People who claim to be virtuous shed no tear over the death and kidnapping of peaceful socialists living on a commune. It saddens me to see such hate towards people for simply existing in the wrong place, the exact same hate that activists rightly decry when it is directed towards every other less fortunate minority. Some of these so-called left-wing activists would truly feel no sympathy if my cousin who votes for the Arab Communist Party was murdered by terrorists. I actually do think that the distinction between “civilian” life and others is a problematic framing but that is because all loss of life is truly horrifying. Of course civilian deaths are tragic and deaths of vulnerable women and children are highlighted as especially evil, but it is also horrible when soldiers are killed, horrible when terrorists are bred to preach hate and revel in “martyrdom”, and horrible when any leader feels that it is okay to use human beings as pawns to achieve political aims.
I should save some space for the right-wing vitriol directed at Muslims. Frankly, I haven’t been following it so much now because Islamophobia and bloodlust is nothing new. I know that the American right has been made of morally bankrupt xenophobes who have shown no compassion towards innocent people and have been pushing for a bloody war with Iran with no regard to humanity. They have shown who they are many times over the last 20 years since I have been following politics. Some Jews at rallies in New York and at Israel’s government have been giddy at the prospect of mass extermination of Palestinians. Israel president Isaac Herzog’s implication of the collective responsibility of Gazan civilians to oppose Hamas was even more jarring given that he comes from the now-crippled center-left Israeli Labor Party. A young boy was murdered by his landlord who had been a family friend until he got brainwashed by non-stop Islamophobia on Fox News. In response to some disturbing displays of pro-violent and anti-Semitic rhetoric, several countries in Europe have banned pro-Palestinian rallies, even peaceful ones. These forces will only further inflame tensions that are already boiling over.
I feel that in this world of anger and retribution, some of the only sensible people left are the liberal American Jews, the people who are pilloried globally by conservatives as all-powerful bankers and Soros agents, and attacked by the left for stopping short of supporting a violent uprising in Israel. The greatest heroes are the people on the kibbutz who were actually attacked last week, who recognize that we cannot have any hope of peace if there is no compassion, only revenge. Here is the brave tale of a 19-year old woman who survived to and has continued her resolve to advocate for peace. Unfortunately, Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin considers a ground invasion a near certainty unless Hamas lays down its arms. The war will rage on and the same people who celebrated the initial attack will beg for an end to hostilities and many will take it a step further in calling for Israel's surrender and forfeiture of all of its lands. Israel will try to browbeat Palestinians into submission, but likely will end up breeding another generation of terrorists. Hatred will reign supreme until people look themselves and their "enemies" in the distance to see both sides have lost their humanity.
Links for some material used for this commentary:
DAY OF RESISTANCE TOOLKIT (imgix.net)
Highlighted Section
The occupation, the day to day and the existence of Israel is not peaceful; there is no ‘maintaining the peace’ with a violent settler state.
◆ Settlers are not “civilians” in the sense of international law, because they are military assets used to ensure continued control over stolen Palestinian land.
◆ Responsibility for every single death falls solely on the zionist entity. They do not care one bit for the Geneva Conventions but demand Palestinians follow them to the letter. ● Gaza as the cradle of resistance
◆ Gaza broke out of prison. Resistance fighters captured one of the bulldozers used to destroy Palestinian homes, and used it to breach the illegitimate border fence back into ‘48 Palestine.
◆ Gaza is being subject to collective punishment because the occupation knows liberation is inevitable
Twin Cities DSA Statement:
https://twincitiesdsa.org/2023/10/twin-cities-dsa-statement-of-solidarity-with-palestine/
Stanford lecturer suspended after showing Jews as “colonizers”
NYU Law student very intentionally condemning everything except brutal attacks by Hamas
https://www.yahoo.com/news/nyu-bass-association-leader-loses-220000561.html
BLM Chicago (similar with LA)
London rally cheering Israeli deaths
Harvard letter not explicitly supporting violence but showing lack of compassion: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/10/10/psc-statement-backlash/
Israel president hinting at justification for collective punishment https://www.yahoo.com/news/israeli-president-says-no-innocent-154330724.html
6 year old boy killed in Chicago suburbs by landlord brainwashed by Fox News
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/16/us/chicago-muslim-boy-stabbing-investigation/index.html
