Fighting Despair

It has been a long time since I’ve written a blog post. I wrote my last one over a month ago. It has been a struggle to motivate myself. The things I have been thinking about are not easily translated to the page. I am fighting despair.

I have written quite a lot on this blog about my identity as a Jew. In fact, my last essay was about Yom Kippur and what it meant to me. Little did I know that just days after I posted that piece a truly horrific outbreak of violence would be perpetrated on the people of Israel.

Like most sentient human beings, I was shocked by the barbarism displayed by Hamas. It was almost too much for the brain to take in. How could people inflict such cruelty on fellow human beings? The stories that emerged – of young people peacefully attending a music festival only to be slaughtered, of Jewish individuals, some of whom dedicated themselves to Palestinian rights, murdered or kidnapped, not to mention the maiming of babies – were too terrible to contemplate.

Many have written that Israel is a small country, and everyone knows someone touched by the violence. Many American Jews are connected with family and friends there. I have a more distant connection. I can’t say the attack hit me as it would if it was my own country. I read many posts from those who were crying and devastated. I didn’t have that immediate reaction, maybe I was numb.

As time has gone by, though, I find my pain deepening. The reaction of the world, the exponential rise in antisemitism, the seeming lack of understanding of the existential threat to Israel, the unwillingness to assign responsibility for this disaster to Hamas, are all beyond my comprehension. I am profoundly disappointed in humanity.

I am not blindly loyal to Israel. I, like many other American Jews and Israelis themselves, have communicated disapproval of the policies pursued by Netanyahu and his administration. Netanyahu, in my view, is as bad as Trump – but smarter. I believe he has done real damage to Israel. Though the lion’s share of the blame for the attack is on Hamas’ leadership, Netanyahu and the positions Israel’s government has taken, has contributed to the rage that Palestinian’s felt and feel. It doesn’t justify the violence, but it likely fueled it.

There is no doubt that the Palestinian people have been oppressed. Where opinions sharply differ is in identifying the oppressor. Most of those who are taking up the Palestinian cause in protests in this country and abroad assign that role to Israel (other than those who subscribe to a broader Jewish conspiracy) and to some degree the United States. I don’t buy that. There are so many examples of failures of Palestinian leadership – going back decades. Time and again compromises have been rejected. And, terrorism has been their weapon of choice for more than fifty years.

While I am not a scholar of the Middle East, I have done some reading. I have paid attention. I am not going to list the litany of times that opportunities were squandered. Similarly, I am not going to detail the errors that the I believe the Israeli government has made. Suffice it to say, I believe both parties bear responsibility for the failure to achieve peace, but in my estimation  Palestinian leadership shoulders more blame for the poverty of its people. Their corruption and their failure to use resources they do have to better the lives of their people, instead choosing to build tunnels and bombs and stockpile munitions, are evidence of their duplicity. And no matter how one parcels out fault, the violence of that attack cannot be excused.

Accusing Israel of genocide in this war is reprehensible and a lie. People throw that term around far too easily. Israel is not engaged in a campaign to exterminate a people. They are trying to destroy Hamas. We know from the tragic wars that have been fought over centuries that civilians die, collateral damage is unavoidable especially in urban combat and guerilla warfare. The United States may well have committed war crimes in Vietnam and Iraq, but we were not carrying out genocide. We may learn that Israel has committed war crimes – I don’t know if they have – but they are not engaged in genocide. Using that term is inflammatory, divisive, and singularly unhelpful in figuring out how we go forward.

Calling for a unilateral ceasefire is also disingenuous. Will Hamas cease fire? Why aren’t those voices loudly calling for a Russian ceasefire? Meanwhile Israel’s defense forces have been conducting humanitarian pauses and creating corridors to allow Gazans to move south. Other countries do far less when engaged in war. Israel is held to a different standard.

We have arrived at a place in our world where we don’t believe newspapers or television reporting. We don’t agree on a common set of facts. Palestinian supporters don’t believe babies were maimed. Maybe they don’t believe there are miles of tunnels under Gaza City – and if they do believe it, they probably don’t attribute them to nefarious purposes. Perhaps they don’t believe that schools and hospitals are being used as shields for military operations. I’m sure there is a narrative that they tell themselves that explains it all away. And, they think I am telling myself a story about terrorists and a constant barrage of rocket fire into Israel to justify my opinions. How do we bridge that divide? It is impossible to have a conversation when you believe fundamentally different things about events unfolding in the world.

I believe there is a truth. I read the Hamas charter – the one written in 1988 (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp) and the newer, revised one written in 2017 (https://irp.fas.org/world/para/docs/hamas-2017.pdf). They are frightening documents. They don’t advocate for democracy or freedom for the Palestinian people (despite defining itself as a liberation movement). It states as its goal the end of Israel and the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. The words are in black and white – no one has to interpret them for you. You need not rely on someone else’s understanding. The first version actually goes so far as to advocate for the murdering of Jews (not just Israelis) by all true Muslims.

After I read those documents – and I read them because I needed to understand if Hamas was antisemitic and if its stated goal was the destruction of Israel – I didn’t want to rely on word of mouth or reporting – I became more outraged by the rhetoric we are hearing. Hamas cannot be given a pass. That charter does not provide an answer to the suffering of the Palestinian people, at least not an answer that most citizens of the world would accept.  It has reinforced my belief that Golda Meir was right when she reportedly said, and I am paraphrasing, there will be peace when they love their children more than they hate us. In her statement the ‘they’ she referred to were Arabs, not Palestinians – that term was not in use then – she was credited with saying this in 1957!

Because there is so much misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda, it can be hard to identify right from wrong. But, it can be done. It must be done. I approach all reports with a critical eye, things are rarely black and white. While there are shades of gray, and the fog of war makes it yet harder, there are facts, there is morality, there are choices to be made. There are sides to be taken. I stand with Israel. I will criticize it when I think it is wrong, just as I will the United States, but Israel is on the right side of this. I hope they prosecute the war as carefully as possible, limiting civilian casualties, but Hamas cannot be permitted to succeed. Both the Palestinian and Israeli people deserve better than current conditions and I pray that leaders from both sides will emerge who will take a more humane, reasonable path.