I said above that I had some additional thoughts to share on the war, evolving as they may be as events unfold. I am largely reiterating some core principles that are informing me as I seek to make sense of, and respond to, this moment. Once again, I look to you to let me know where you feel heartened, where you might disagree, and how we might grow together:
The events of October 7, when Hamas launched the most devastating series of murderous attacks the Jewish people have encountered since the Holocaust, upended the experience Israelis have of living in their country. If before, there was a sense, yes, that the security situation was always of concern, but that life had settled into a generally safe, familiar pattern, now there is a sense that the horrors they’ve seen will forever be with them; that, for as long as Hamas is in power, there is the possibility that they can recur; they are still reeling—mourning the dead, praying for the return of hostages, wondering whether certain communities will ever be rebuilt.
Given this, I see no political reality in Israel where the status quo — Hamas remaining in control of Gaza with the capacity to carry out similar attacks — can endure. No leader of Israel could turn to the people and say, yes, we are living side-by-side with Hamas, a group sworn to Israel’s destruction, after they have shown the lengths they will go — not just on paper, but in reality — to kill Jewish people. It is not tenable for Israel, under the present circumstances, with the horrors they are still uncovering, to live side-by-side with a group who is irreconcilable to their existence and sworn to carry out their destruction. Under these conditions, much as I am reluctant to endorse war under any circumstances, I believe it is morally defensible to carry out a mission aimed at the removal of Hamas’ leadership from Gaza.
How they do so matters a lot, both in terms of staying rooted in the sacred values which they and we hold so dear, values which recognize the Godly spark present in each individual — Israeli, Palestinian, and beyond — and in terms of retaining the support of the international community so that they can see the mission through to its end.
This means going to great lengths to ensure the number of Palestinian civilian casualties is as low as is reasonably possible. Again, it always hurts to imagine any casualties are acceptable. I pray for the safety of Palestinian civilians, like I do Israelis. But given that Israel has a responsibility to protect its citizens, and given that Hamas’ approach to war is that it embeds itself within its civilian population, it is, for all intents and purposes, impossible for Israel to carry out this mission without some, what they call, collateral damage. I am comfortable with the United States and the international community keeping pressure on Israel to carry out this war in alignment with international law, which requires there be no disproportionate loss of civilian life relative to the military objectives Israel pursues. Again, I remain uncomfortable even contemplating any loss of civilian life, but I also recognize that history has shown us that there are times where a nation has no alternative but to pick up arms to defend itself, which inevitably means this kind of conflict.
As Israel pursues this war, it needs to contemplate what comes after Hamas. On a short-term practical level, what we understand is that the Palestinian Authority, which retains partial control of areas of the West Bank, does not have the wherewithal or capacity to govern Gaza, nor does Israel desire to occupy Gaza. In an ideal world, this likely leaves some sort of provisional governing authority option, either through the United Nations or through a conglomeration of Arab states, until Palestinian control can resume.
More fundamentally, perhaps, is that Hamas is not merely a discrete group of people—it reflects an ideology, which will still exist after its authority over Gaza is removed. As one analyst put it, there will still be “people for whom the resistance is existence.” The only way to defeat an idea, as another analyst said, is with a better idea. War cannot entirely snuff out the ideology that motivated Hamas, which is the creation of a Palestinian state—in Hamas’ view, an Islamist Palestinian state—in place of Israel.
Israel is not going anywhere. It has been in existence now for three quarters of a century, is the culmination of centuries of yearning of millions of Jewish people around the world (even if not representative of a vision of all Jews around the world), has endured multiple existential threats, has grown in economic prosperity and military capability, and retains the vital support of the United States and Western Europe. So the vision of the destruction of Israel is not a viable one.
Thus, an alternative positive vision for the Palestinian people is necessary. As the United States, the international community, and multiple generations of Israeli and Palestinian leadership have suggested, that vision is a two-state solution. Two states — Israeli and Palestinian — for two peoples, living in dignity, peace and prosperity, with each side recognizing the legitimate ties to the land of the other. Neither side will get everything it wants in such a compromise. This means strengthening the moderate voices on each side (something Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to do, in strengthening Hamas and marginalizing the Palestinian Authority) and marginalizing the extremist views.
This means Israel needs to stop building settlements in the West Bank as a demonstration of good will—that it, too, believes in a viable future for Palestians that will therefore serve to discredit Hamas’ bleak, cynical view of civilizational warfare as the only future for the region. An alternative vision of promise and prosperity for both people needs to be laid out.
It also means Israel needs to prosecute vigilante actors in the West Bank who terrorize Palestinian communities. It is one thing for the Israeli military to carry out strikes in the West Bank with the legitimate aim of protecting its people. It is quite another to let go unchecked non-state actors whose attacks do nothing other than strike fear and death amidst civilian populations.
In the United States, I find the discourse deeply troubling, especially in the progressive communities in which I find myself. While, generally speaking, right wing antisemitism carries a much greater threat of physical violence, as evidenced by the horrific Tree of Life massacre, whose five year anniversary is tomorrow, antisemitism, often unconscious, that takes place in progressive communities, can be deeply alienating and unsettling.
In many cases, the very activists with whom many Jewish progressives feel aligned on issues ranging from LGBT rights to reproductive rights to immigrants rights to efforts around climate change, abandon their Jewish allies in moments like these.
It is one thing to hold empathy and compassion for the plight of Palestinian people, whose national aspirations are worthwhile. It is another to completely disregard and reject the national identities, and humanity, of Israeli Jews—to reject the millenia-old presence in, and connection to, the land of Israel; to reject their status as refugees and oppressed for those millennia, whose presence was unwanted in country after country, and who were therefore homeless but for their ties to this tiny sliver of land between Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea.
We see unsettling amounts of people — especially younger generations — not only criticizing Israel for its prosecution of this war and its current relationship to the Palestinians, but questioning the very right for Israel to exist, buying into the narrative that Israel is a “settler-colonialist” state and therefore justifying the most horrific of actions towards Israeli civilians under the notion that all “settlers,” even children, are combatants. It is gross, and deeply amoral.
There has to be a full-throated defense of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. No other state that I know of in the international community is being called upon to essentially unwind its existence after three-quarters of a century of existence, which is what many young activists — including many young Jewish activists — are calling for, when they chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
The Jewish experience in world history is a unique one. Perhaps there are other contemporary examples but they are few and far between. Being Jewish is not merely about being part of a religion; it is about being part people. The Nazis, the Czarists, the Romans were uninterested in individual Jews’ religiosity, they were interested in the fact that they were part of a tribe that they saw as being an unwelcome presence in their midst. In response to the perpetual insecurity of the Jewish people, culminating ultimately in the horrors of the Holocaust, and in recognition of the legitimate national aspirations of the Jewish people to organize themselves in the ways that so many other peoples had organized themselves — French, English, Japanese — the United Nations — the body representative of the international community — presented a plan in 1947 that recognized the aspiration of Jews for a homeland in part of their ancestral territory, as well as the aspirations of the Palestinians for a homeland in the land where so many of them had been living. It was a compromise. Neither side would get all, or most, of what it wanted, but it was a means of protecting two profound interests: the dangers the Jews faced without a state, and the rights of the two peoples to form a nation state. This was, in an imperfect world, an imperfectly just response.
Today, we have a similar opportunity to continue to work towards a plan that respects the dignities of two peoples, that removes from power those who would seek to annihilate the other. While it’s possible there is an alternative to a two-state solution, as renowned American Diplomat Richard Haas, recently said, paraphrasing Winston Churchill who once said, “Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time,” the same, said Haas, seems to be true for the two-state solution.
In any event, we pray for a just and lasting peace, that will respect the rights and dignities of both peoples, recognizing that fundamental truism declared in the book of Bereshit: “God created humankind in the image of the Divine.” That is each and every one of us.
