A selection of events and a minority opinion

Time passes, news reports remind us we are moving from 10 months to 11 months since October 7. For families of hostages who might still return home alive, the angst can only be greater and more frightening. Increasingly disappointing with each passing day that your government, does not provide you the safety and security you thought reasonable to expect until October 7, and it appears to do less than it could to bring the hostages home now.

I understand: Hamas is rejecting the deals, uninterested in any deal by any terms other than its own. Yet there are other diplomatic players and a bigger picture. But throughout the stages and negotiations, I see Netanyahu continues with his lies, failure to acknowledge any responsibility. He had opportunities earlier in this saga to handle things differently. Responsibility? A Prime Minister? Speaking to families of hostages on Friday, he was asked accusatory questions. His wife intervened in his defense, that he could not be expected to handle a situation in which the IDF did not inform him. Now, there’s an answer. When, however, did such a thing happen, and if it had, what does it say about his leadership?

Another anecdote this week reflecting the polarization of Israeli society: the mother of a hostage, who is among Netanyahu’s supporters shocked her interviewers on a late-night television program. (Nobody can judge a hostage’s parent and what they are experiencing, but we can see what it reflects about our society, and eliciting no response from Netanyahu). This mother said she could propose the ideal deal to Sinwar and since he speaks Hebrew he would understand without translation: she suggested he return all 109 remaining hostages in exchange for 5 people: the son of IDF Chief of Staff, the son of Min. of Defense, Gallant, the son of the Head of the General Security Service, the son of the IDF Attorney General, and the son of the State Attorney General. (She didn’t offer Netanyahu’s son busy flying the TLV-Miami route.)

When friends warn me of the risks of not first defeating Hamas and then returning hostages (dead or alive), I repeatedly respond that if my child were a hostage nothing but his or her safe return would be first. Unfortunately, fearfully, I believe, once, and whenever, a ceasefire is reached with Hamas, it is only a matter of time until Hamas will violate it. We will quickly be handed that legitimacy for resuming attacks against Hamas. Therefore, if Israel has the power we believe, we won’t be weakened by bringing the hostages home now, only morally strengthened.

Why are voices warning against the growing threat to the State of Israel generated by Jewish settlers’ violence in the West Bank just a series of fleeting headlines? Journalists’ reports and commentators’ analyses do not suffice to evoke a reaction: a handful of violent settlers, have turned into hundreds of violent settlers and the number of arrests has dramatically declined. The responsibility of the Police. The portfolio of the Minister of National Security, Ben Gvir.

On Thursday, the letter of Head of General Security Services, Ronen Bar to Prime Minister Netanyahu was released by the media. Bar warns against the mounting terrorism of the hilltop youth – the same group of extremist settler youth from which Ben Gvir emerged. Apparent police incompetence at deterrence if not covert support for this Jewish terrorism against Palestinians in the West Bank lends legitimacy to their actions. That evolves into their attacking Israel’s security establishment. They engage in confrontations with IDF soldiers if military actions conflict with their extremist agenda. Bar warns that this Jewish terrorism is jeopardizing the existence of the State of Israel. (See report in Haaretz.)

Prior to that news release, I spoke with my favorite young mother. I know she sits on deep fears. If a vehicle explodes as it did this week in Tel Aviv, due to a suicide bomber, a Palestinian terrorist, nothing I say will convince her that she might be able to trust an Arab, that they are not all evil. She is smart, sensitive, and kind. I want to encourage her to reconsider her analysis of the situation. Despite ourselves, we discussed the situation. I mention things perpetrated by Jewish settler terrorists against Palestinians. She has convictions: the Palestinians must have given them reason. I concede that if we know that there is a terrorist in a home, and the IDF takes action against the terrorist, I can accept it.

But I insist: Is it acceptable when a hundred extremist settlers head for a Palestinian village, and set it afire? Can we justify that and only be appalled by behavior familiar from documentaries of the 1940s – a Polish village where villagers take the Jews to a barn and set it afire?  She conceded. I was sad, not the winner of an argument. She maintains a balance in her life responsibilities and emotions in this time of war, when the breach of faith in leadership and the security establishment is shattered. A process of healing and repair is unforeseeable. It is healthier not to delve more deeply into this pain, and essential to take care of your children before seeking to better understand the complexities of this situation. I seek a balance between compelling her to become more knowledgeable – knowing the sadness that incurs – and reminding myself that better me frustrated by her attitudes than her greater sadness that would likely, unintentionally, be conveyed to her children. I see no added value to that.

A young Palestinian father, a colleague, told me this week about the morning when IDF soldiers surrounded his home for no apparent reason, spreading tear gas. They stayed inside. At some point, he chose to leave for work. His mother urged him to stay at home, fearing he might be shot. His mother is a bereaved mother. When he and his late brother were teenagers, his brother was killed by Israeli soldiers because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. This day last week, the soldiers eventually dispersed. No damages. That is if you don’t care about the impact of the experience on an entire family, a family torn by pain and committed to the idea of reconciliation and peace with Israel, despite its personal history and national narrative.

As I write the news broadcasts: three Israeli soldiers fell today in Gaza; extremist settlers attacked on the West Bank today, exacerbating a combustible situation. Pictures on the television screen of the devastation in Gaza. My criticism of Israeli actions often breaks my heart as I express it. My criticism is not a counter argument to assertions that historically Palestinians have always and only wanted to destroy Israel. In my natural tendency to identify with my own people, I am inclined to acquiesce that the narrative delivered to children in formal Palestinian educational settings compared to the narrative in formal Jewish education regarding the conflict is a narrative of hate compared to a narrative recognizing a need to defend ourselves but seek peace. Historically.

Rather than fight this pointless battle of narratives, against all odds, I suggest fueling the fight for mutual empathy. A minority position.

Harriet Gimpel, August 24, 2024