War, post #2

I imagine I’ll have something in this post to upset people in all of my identity groups. So maybe I shouldn’t post it. But I’m still in the context of the horror of everything that went down here in just over the past month, and the myriad, powerful emotional responses I experience and encounter. I’ve seen a number of well-known people who I respect post things that I feel include missteps – which are admittedly impossible to avoid in this maelstrom but still painful to watch – primarily by not managing to hold the vastness and complexity of it all. And if you think it’s not really complex, and you’re conscientious about seeking truth, I’d suggest you look for the other voices you’re not aware of, because I assure you, they are there.

“Why am I personally even here in Israel?” is one question that reasonably arises. After all, most of my family is in the US. I grew up there, in a deeply Zionist family of recent immigrants and Holocaust survivors. All of that was integral to my education, along with the standard American public school curriculum, which even in elementary school included romantic narratives of pilgrims, of pioneer families adventuring west in covered wagons, and of log cabins in nature-drenched forests. I cannot say why without resorting to supernatural explanations, but somehow even as a child my stomach turned when I was presented with this history. On some level I could sense the unspeakably (and at the time, unspoken) massive decimation of a whole continent of glorious, sustaining wilderness and the rich cultures that filled it.

Simultaneously, I was taught a parallel narrative: JNF coinbox collections to plant trees and even forests; countering desertification, at the time known as “making the desert bloom;” a small people in one tiny corner of the world to call our own, returning to a land yearned for for 2,000 years, seeking and praying for peace that someday must surely come. Also in contrast, I did not have an intuitive suspicion of this narrative. Through years of living here, reading, and talking with people, came the cumulative heartbreak of discovering I had immigrated from the frying pan to the fire. I discovered the very concrete and ongoing displacement, discrimination, oppression, racism, brutality, and active blocking of opportunities for peace at every turn that is the hidden underbelly of the Zionist story.

I stayed. Here, at least, in that the dispossession is still current and the scale of pain is more localized, the issue feels a bit more addressable than what was inflicted on two whole continents over half a millenia.

Right now, though, it feels like responses on all sides are tragically wrong. In the face of the largest, most brutal massacre my people have known, with some 240 people of all ages held hostage, many of my compatriots are okay with genocide in principle and with wreaking any level of death and destruction in practice, while from overseas calls for an immediate ceasefire mix with genocidal antisemitism. I can understand all the sentiments, but it’s enough to make one despair.

To those over here, I’d say we’ve tried violence far more than we’ve tried peace. Sure, we could have been more ruthless, but our peace efforts never came anywhere near the diligence and creativity we as a collective have employed in waging war and making sure peace with the Palestinians never had a chance. Yes, we can throw piles of facts at each other, but if there’s an answer it lies in considering them all together to honestly look for what we could change, not using them to pummel each other.

To those overseas, I’d suggest that you are projecting your own colonial crimes onto us, and you should address reparations you owe before you shout us down. And I’d suggest listening to more nuanced voices from both sides over here. But most immediately, I’d suggest that you’re too late for this round, just like we were. Just like it’s too late for us to undo the political, military, and intelligence failure of October 7, a window of time to exert overt pressure on Israel closed on October 7. The events of that day sent a tremor through all of us here – both Jewish and Palestinian (at least the Israeli citizens, I don’t know enough to say anything about what it might have meant to Palestinians lacking any citizenship) – that will take a long while to settle. More flexibility might emerge, but right now things feel very tender and brittle. The only international intervention that would have leverage with Israel right now is bringing back the hostages and putting measures in place to reassure that such a massacre never recurs. These don’t seem like bad outcomes, and they’d likely lead to a window of opportunity opening again. Meanwhile, a lot of people are suffering and dying, so I dearly wish people would call for something with a chance of being effective. 

I wish everyone could listen to humanizing stories from both sides, stories of loss and courage and care. Lots and lots and lots of them. I wish we could be as overwhelmed with all of them as each side (including those taking sides overseas) is with its own stories. Maybe then we’d be ready to sit down to work and pray for something approaching a decent future.