A Year of Endless Pain

It has been a whole year now since October 7th, the biggest single massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. There is no denying the immense trauma to Israelis and to Jews around the world. There is no denying the abhorrent rise in antisemitism that has reared its head, sometimes clumsily couched in the name of “anti-Zionism”, implying that the “good Jews” get to live free of harassment. All that being said, Israel’s campaign of revenge has resulted in Palestinians experiencing such a massacre nearly every week uninterrupted. An online acquaintance just found out his dad was killed in an Israeli airstrike. A year on, Israel is not safe, Palestine is not free, millions of homes are rubble, and hundreds of thousands are dead or injured, including tens of thousands of children. And now the endless war has expanded to Lebanon, already resulting in more deaths than the 2006 Israel/Lebanon War, with a quarter of the country evacuated, a population already severely impoverished. What has become of us? What has war brought besides death and destruction? Where have words gone except to violence and revenge? I find myself at a loss for hope. Throughout the darkness there are fleeting voices for humanity, but death has won. Hatred has won. Despair has won. Revenge has won. Personally, I can’t let go of the despair, and I have not done enough to try to take action. I am myself scared of really putting myself out there, of organizing, of making myself known.

I have lamented the utter lack of compassion for Palestinians that has permeated the American political establishment and institutional Jewish organizations. The months following July have etched that further in stone. At the Democratic Convention in August, we heard the desperate pleas from Rachel Goldberg and her husband Jon for a ceasefire and hostage deal to bring their son Hersh home. Rachel said poignantly: “There is a surplus of agony on all sides of the tragic conflict in the Middle East. In a competition of pain, there are no winners.” While Rachel truly demonstrated empathy for all, the Democratic Party apparatus only seemed to have selective empathy. For months, Palestinian Americans had been pleading for a voice at the convention to recognize their suffering. While a speaker would not alleviate the suffering or the calls for change in policy towards Israel, it would have at least shown an understanding of their pain. However, their pleas were ignored, with the Democratic Party deciding that it was not even worthwhile to give a platform trot a  Palestinian to endorse Kamala Harris on stage..

Weeks after the convention, Hersh along with five other Israeli hostages was found murdered by his captors. Looking at the tragedy of Hersh and the ensuing fallout, one can see all the raw emotions-sadness, hatred, vengeance, dehumanization that have deepened throughout the last year across all sides. Hersh was just an idealistic young man, only 23 years old, with a poster in his room that stated “Jerusalem is for all” in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. He was committed to an end to the occupation and a shared future for all faiths. And yet, his tragedy was exploited by all sides in service of disgusting war propaganda.

I do not wish again to scour the dark vestibules of the Internet in showing the exploitation of Hersh’s life and death, so you will have to trust me when I say it is beyond horrible. Among the so-called “pro-Palestinian” crowd, Hersh was labeled as worthy of demise, a colonizer, an “IOF soldier”, never mind his only role in the Israeli military was that of a medic. There is no justification for his death, and it takes a contorted mind to believe that he is the bad guy. Seeing these reactions harkened me back to the jarring conversations I had in the days following October 7th where the shameful inversion of good and evil resulted in people saying that murdered peace activist Vivian Silver was the villain while Hamas are “resistance” heroes. This echoes the persistent dehumanization of Israelis, pretending that there are no innocents, that Israeli hostages are not real humans.

On the other side, Hersh was often used as an image to boost Israel’s destruction, massacre, and torture of Palestinians. Despite his own position opposed to the occupation and his parents calling for a ceasefire, many organizations and government officials used his image to boost support for “destroying” Hamas rather than bringing about an end to the war. And on the political scene, the Biden administration’s consistent contact with Hersh’s parents as well as other Israeli hostage family members has stood in stark contrast to the response to Americans who were killed by Israeli soldiers. In February, following a drone strike from Iran that hit US soldiers in Jordan, Biden stated: "if you harm an American, we will respond.” However, following the death of American activist Aysenur Eygi at the hands of Israeli soldiers, the administration’s response was muted and deferential. Biden refused to even call family members to express condolences. The US refused to conduct any independent investigation into her death (or the shooting of another American in the West Bank or the recent death of a Lebanese American likely due to Israeli airstrikes). Instead, the administration is satisfied to keep the reins in the hands of an extremist Israeli government that has shown no interest in justice or accountability.

So a year later, we are still stuck at Square One. Activists who celebrate October 7th, contend that now “Palestine is almost free” and the “Zionist entity” will be wiped out. Jewish organizations are now beating the drums as to the necessity of defeating Hamas, Hezbollah, and now Iran in the battlefield, never mind the suffering that will ensue for millions more people. My local community is full of hurt and anger and division rather than coming together to denounce all violence and injustice. There ARE voices of hope, of compassion, of inclusivity, of radical empathy. I have been fortunate to meet several of them over the past few months, among others:

• Rotem and Osama, an Israeli and Palestinian pair who overcame their exclusionary upbringing to renounce violence and become friends.
• Alon-Lee Green and Sally Abed, Jewish and Palestinian Israeli citizens who have led Standing Together.
• Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger and Noor Awad, who have come together to promote peace via despite living as unequals in the Occupied West Bank
• Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, an American refugee from Palestine, who has maintained radical empathy for Israelis dozens of his family members being killed in airstrikes, and a relative currently detained with no charges or explanation (AKA taken hostage).
• Dahlia Scheindlin, an American Israeli who has done her best to educate the world on the disgusting toll of this tragedy.
• My friends at SF Bay for Peace, who have gone out of their way to set up a safe space to discuss sensitive topics and mourn the loss of all lives.
• Rula Hardal and May Pundak, leaders of A Land for All proposal for an Israel/Palestine confederation.
• A crazy WhatsApp group I’ve been dragged into that has Jews, Muslims, and others from all over the world, including Gaza itself. While far from agreeing with each other, there is at least a shared understanding that war needs to end and children deserve to live.
• Others in the community (both in real life an online, including Twitter acquaintances), family, and some friends who I have cried with, vented to, struggled with coping during these times.

Unfortunately, even in these comforting spaces, I see the pain and intractability of the conflict. Those who seek to humanize both sides get attacked-even getting death threats, from both sides. To some, this war seems to be a game where one can achieve safety just by killing the other side-even their babies. Caring for others is enough to get tarred as a traitor or a fake Jew. Enough. Solidarity should not be transactional. There are innocent people on all sides, no matter their political beliefs. Join an organization fighting for peace and justice for everyone. Donate to organizations devoted to the cause (see suggestions in my previous post. Tell your representatives that all lives are precious. Stop the violence, stop the hate. I am tired of pleas for violence receiving a disproportionate share of media and political attention. Let us come together to support an end to the deaths of Israelis and Palestinians, an end to the conflict, and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians everywhere.