Israel-Palestine is Complicated, but One Thing is Clear
Let's see what's actually happening and begin to come together for peace.
Okay, this is hard. It's been over three weeks since Hamas' brutal assault on Israel. It has been over three weeks of a continuous bombing campaign in Gaza by the IDF. Hezbollah pours across the northern border of Israel waging war there. Both Jews and Arabs suffer violence from hate crimes across the United States and the world. Antisemitism rises rapidly so Jews on college campuses are encouraged to avoid the dining hall. Meanwhile, people across the world loudly bang the drums of war—seemingly numb to the horrible reality that war brings upon us all.
I am heartbroken. I am angry. I don't know if my voice can make a difference in the face of an overwhelming tsunami of pain, terror, and hatred. Yet, I must speak.
I have remained silent for the past few weeks for a number of reasons. One has been emotional numbness—which I'm still grappling with in many ways. Another, though, has been an attempt to learn more, to see the issue from all sides, to gain a nuanced understanding of the various parties and traumas involved.
In that time, I have been trying to listen. I have listened to the voices of American Jews in my own community as they lament the trauma of our long history of persecution and their fear of what may come next. I have listened to the peace calls from Israelis most intimately connected to the horrific October 7th event, like this mother who lost her son that day. I have watched videos on Instagram posted by Palestinians closest to the conflict.
I am a Jew. I know intimately and somatically the immense trauma that we carry. We have been in a continuous state of exile for thousands of years. Our history is one marked by periods of peace when we integrate into societies and are celebrated for our achievements. These periods, though, are punctuated by extreme violence and persecution in which we are forced to flee in order to avoid the murderous slaughter of the mob. My own ancestors left Eastern Europe only shortly before the Holocaust—no doubt responding to the worsening antisemitism in the region. Likely, they only arrived in Eastern Europe after escaping the deadly pogroms in Russia. We have been living on the run and facing persecution for millennia. I can assure you this is not just ancient history for us. I have witnessed Jews in grief enough to know this. I have felt my own grief enough. The pain, the anger, and the terror of these events live within our bones. Not all of us are fully aware of this, I know. Yet, I assure you we carry it.
All this is to say that I have tremendous compassion for Jews and Israelis. Not only do I know that trauma intimately, but I also recognize that for us—the danger has not truly passed. Antisemitism is alive and well. I have been hearing the echoes of it in my own world for at least a decade. It has only grown louder. I have personally experienced persecution due to my Jewish heritage only once, but I will not forget it. As antisemitism rises throughout the country and the world, it may well be that I will see much more of it in my lifetime.
I spoke to a friend of mine in Jerusalem days ago. He told me he felt that their “DNA has been activated.” I sat in two jew-only grief circles in the past three weeks. I think I know what he means.
The pain, the fear, and the anger of those of us in those circles were wailed loudly as tears flowed from all of us. The longing for home, the longing to be finally safe, the grief for the murdered babies, the anger at our long persecution—these erupted from each of us in our own ways. Our DNA, too, has been activated.
I understand, as well as I can from the safety of Washington state, the danger that my brothers and sisters in Israel are facing right now. I understand, too, the anger that must be looming from what is felt by many as a violation by Hamas. Yet, for all the compassion I have, one thing has only become more and more startlingly clear as I’ve learned more: what is happening in Gaza right now is genocide. It must be stopped now.
I stopped tracking the number of bombs that were being dropped on Gaza. Though, in the first two weeks, there were over 6,000. Now, 24 days after the initial attack, over 8,000 people in Gaza are confirmed dead. This doesn't even account for the lost bodies currently buried under rubble or the thousands of people, including children who are now maimed for life. About half of the people in Gaza are children. Nearly 4,000 children killed. I have seen some of the most gruesome and horrifying imagery of my life coming out of Gaza. There is no justifying this response.
The thing that baffles me the most about this is that Hamas is holding hostages. We don't know where those hostages are. A relentless and apparently indiscriminate bombing campaign that primarily impacts the lives of civilians does nothing to ensure the safety of those hostages. On the contrary, that endangers them. To this day I cannot fathom how this is not enough to bring about a ceasefire.
Already, one hostage has been rescued since the IDF sent ground troops into Gaza. I hope that this continues. I hope this is enough to stop the bombs.
Yet, while I demand a ceasefire, I know this is far from sufficient. A cessation of ongoing escalation is merely the first and maybe even the easiest step to beginning the process of seeking peace. However true peace requires much more. And we need to find it.
I have said it before. We are on the edge of World War III. The war in Ukraine has not ended, despite our attention having shifted elsewhere. Iran is potentially poised to get involved in the war in Israel—which is bound to draw in more players. It continues to baffle me. How are we not seeing what is happening here?
Four days ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a public speech, invoked the biblical story of Amalek when referring to events in Gaza. He referred to this “second stage” of the war on Gaza as a “holy mission”, stating, “You must remember what Amalek has done to you.” This statement has been called an “explicit call to genocide.” I’ll tell you why.
I was educated on the story of Amalek by a woman in town here who lived in Israel for many years. This story, she says, is one that all Israelis know intimately well as it's thoroughly covered in schools. In this story, the people of Israel are commanded by God to kill all the people of Amalek. The Bible says “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass” 1 Samuel 15:3. When Netanyahu, then, invokes this story publicly in reference to the violence in Gaza, he is explicitly calling for genocide. This is real. Now we, the United States, are poised to send $14 billion in military aid to a country that is led by an openly genocidal prime minister.
How is it not obvious we should stop this?
Now, many people I've spoken to or heard from are very upset about what they perceive as an antisemitic culture in Palestine. Now I’ve spent time in Palestine myself. I assure you I was not persecuted. That being said, Hamas is equally as ideologically violent as Netanyahu—having a covenant that openly calls for jihad against the enemies of Islam, Jews being mentioned specifically. I, too, feel disturbed by those who seem to be expressing support for the violence committed on October 7th on the basis that Hamas was fighting a battle of resistance. I recognize the conditions that provoked them to such horrors and have compassion for them. Yet, like many others, I am wholly unwilling to condone the killing of children for any ideological reason. I assure you that if I was Palestinian, I would be calling for a peaceful revolution there. I would be calling for them to recognize the humanity of their so-called enemies.
I'm not Palestinian, though. I am an American Jew. It is my people I wish to hold accountable. Yes, we do have a right to protect ourselves. Yes, we do have a right to a homeland. We do have a right to be safe.
Yet, none of these gives us the right to bomb entire cities to the ground. None of these gives us the right to murder children in the name of so-called justice. Just telling the people to evacuate the city we bomb does not give us the right to bomb it.
This is not justice. We mustn’t fool ourselves. We mustn’t allow warmongers to exploit our grief in service to their violence.
While we bicker with each other about who is “right” and who is “wrong,” the warmongers beat their drums ever louder.
Will we find our collective heart and will to stand up in solidarity with the innocent victims of war? Or will we allow tribalistic wounds to carry us straight into genocide?
There is much that is complicated about the situation in the Middle East. However one thing is clear: the lives of 2.2 million Palestinians are in imminent danger. This genocide depends on our complacency.
I don't know what the answer is, really. It is probably good to use the tools of groups like Jewish Voices for Peace to call representatives to demand an immediate ceasefire. Yet, the war in Israel is the same war we face here. A people divided against itself has no power to change anything. A people united in common values and heart is capable of changing the world.
So let us rally around one thing that ought to be crystal clear. We must never enact a genocide. Never again means never again for any of the people on Earth.
Let us remember the humanity of our brothers and sisters in Palestine and fight for their lives as well.
I see you. 🖤