This is what many Israelis say about Gaza. I’m not going to dispute it, at least not from the direction you might expect. Everyone here is still going through intense processes, seeing things that we didn’t perceive before. My process carries me in the opposite direction of most people. That’s how it usually goes with me, it seems.
At the beginning of this miserable war, in response to the question everyone was asking, “Where do you stand?” I wrote a post with a statement that seemed like it should be obvious, but somehow wasn’t: I am against massacres. Any and all massacres whatsoever. If there’s one topic where I’ve always agreed with the majority opinion, it is that terrorism is evil and deserves every possible condemnation. (Don’t worry, no change here! I am still against massacres of any kind! And terrorism, as a form of massacre, remains abhorrent. What I do disagree with is the broad definition of terrorism accepted in Israeli society. To me, terrorism is an attack on civilians, as opposed to attacks on soldiers, which is warfare. In Israeli discourse, any attack against any Israeli target is called terrorism, and therefore illegitimate.) I could never understand how terrorists can target babies, children, women, and elderly on purpose. How do they justify it to themselves? Of course I know the explanation that they just hate us and want to kill us all. But that’s an explanation from the outside, not the inside. For me, understanding means from the inside, internalizing the answer to the question, “What is it like to be you?”
As always in wars, the extreme levels of stress have birthed a wave of songs. (I was raised on Israeli war songs. For my Bat Mitzvah I received the first record I ever owned, Songs of the Yom Kippur War. I listened to it endlessly, and knew all the words by heart, even the ones I didn’t understand. The muses are actually quite active in wartime, and most of those songs expressed the longing for peace.) We need songs to express and help us handle what we’re going through. This time, the song “A Nation of Superheroes”, caught my attention. (It sings about an entire nation mobilizing “to save the world,” with a multitude of rhyming examples of people with mundane jobs in their normal lives, now assuming their hero identity, serving many months of reserve duty.) Catchy song by a good band. After hearing it once or twice, I realized, there‘s another way to say the same thing: there are no innocent bystanders.
All at once, I understood how “innocent” citizens can be seen as completely legitimate targets. By either side.
I‘m familiar with the response, of course. “It’s not the same! How can you even compare soldiers and terrorists?! They want to kill us all. They come right out and say it. We just want to protect ourselves, and we go to incredible lengths to avoid harming civilians.” I have no doubt that such efforts are made, even at considerable personal risk. I‘ve heard about it first hand. But there’s a difference between the intentions of an individual and those of a system or institution, like an army or a state. When it comes to a person, I want to understand from the inside: what do they go through, what do they say to themselves, how do they feel, what are their conscious intentions, what is it like to be them? In the case of a system, there is no such thing. I’m not interested in statements or intentions; I don’t believe them. I judge by facts, the ones most relevant to the question at hand. For example: how many of us have they killed, and how many of them have we killed? How many of us have been physically or emotionally traumatized, and how many of them? How many of our houses have they destroyed and how many of theirs have we destroyed? Even how many of us are they holding prisoner, and how many Palestinian prisoners do we have, even if we only count administrative detainees and not those who have gone through a (military) trial? It could be that we tried to prevent as much harm as possible (at least until Oct, 7), while they have been trying specifically to cause as much harm as possible, but the results are not only the opposite, they lack all proportion. When I want to understand the true goal of a system (as opposed to of an individual), I judge by the results. Which are all too clear.
Similarly, I take issue with another idea everyone here seems to take for granted, that Israel is the only safe place in the world for Jews. Excuse me, but how many Jews have been killed around the world for being Jewish since the establishment of the state? How many in Israel? I am not claiming that there’s no anti-Semitism or that disaster cannot strike Jews abroad, nor that Israel’s existence is meaningless for Jews. It’s just that, so far, the balance is reversed.
In the same spirit of sticking to the facts, the attempts to achieve quiet via restraint in the face of attacks, deterrence, bribery, blockades, arrests, closures, disengagement, military intelligence, force, or more force, has not brought security, and certainly not peace. What did prove itself when put to the test were agreements with other sovereign countries based on common interests. Israel’s government, and most of the people, to be honest, are intent on preventing any such possibility with the Palestinians at all costs.
I admit that calls to “free Palestine from the river to the sea” feel viscerally to me like calls for an October 7 massacre for the whole country. But if we insist on sticking with the facts, Israel actually has controlled all of the territory from the river to the sea since 1967. Currency, passports, official crossings, including imports, exports, and travel, and much more, are completely in our hands. And there are significant powers here that want to strengthen this control, and make it official and permanent.
Again, I am well aware of the standard rebuttal. Since Oct 7, many people who used to believe in a peaceful solution, now see anything other than the use of force as dangerously naive. In addition to all those who already believed only in force. Beyond what I‘ve already written (There’s a lot more to say, and many people have, but this is already really long), I still maintain that there is always a choice of how to approach even the most intractable conflict. There is always, always, a choice.
Israel is a nation that knows how to work hard and achieve amazing things – in high-tech, in learning of all kinds, in science, in agriculture, in the army, in sports, in writing – in every area except those we rule out in advance as impossible. Like peaceful resolution of conflicts. How much effort have we put into that compared to war? How much did we invest in studying the subject, what are the political and emotional and social mechanisms that can enable such a move and how can they be activated? Not very much.
It used to be a joke here that the impossible takes a little longer. Maybe it’s the algorithm that puts me in a silo, but I’m finally starting to hear from more people who are tired of this madness, insisting on bloodshed and suffering instead of bringing the hostages home and ending the war. And also some people who recognize the possibility of a historical regional alliance. And even some who are willing to talk about ending our rule over another people. and starting to heal ourselves as well.
Thank you again Rena. Love and support to you. ☮️❤️