Between Yom Hashoah and Yom Hazikaron – Drawing the Line

Emotional mechanisms send orders to my cognitive mechanisms to shut up. The week between Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) and Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day for Israel’s Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Hostile Acts). Everything feels highly sensitized. Lest I superficially analyze an incident and share an unintentionally offensive conclusion, better to be silent, avoid comparisons, allow each incident its own place in its own right.

As if in contextual preparation, last week, I had a discussion with a colleague, known to hold sociopolitical views similar to mine. I have a predisposition towards arguments with the likeminded. It’s safe, I feel more comfortable being honest – with myself. Maybe when arguing with people positioned elsewhere on the sociopolitical map, I feel compelled to demonstrate solid adherence to my stand, even while conceding to complexity, gray areas, willingness to understand another position. Yet, a high level of frustration evokes adamant statements when others refuse to acknowledge any legitimacy of my ideas.

Speaking with a basically likeminded person, I assume s/he knows where I stand, and my footing relaxes, shifting balances. The conversation can begin without disclaimers like, “I object to lack of gun control.” I simply say, “After a passerby saves civilians from a terrorist attack because s/he is carrying a weapon, it’s harder to criticize the ease of civilian access civilians to legally carrying weapons.” It doesn’t mean I think the latter is ok, or that I cease worrying about implications for domestic violence cases. It means I recognize a current counterargument hard to dispute.

In that spirit, last week in the conversation with my colleague, I related the essence of a recent discussion between me and Haim about human rights. We were not in complete agreement with respect to applying human rights to terrorists. Despite the threat and the cost to me, to my people, I argued for human rights for terrorists, lest we lose ground in demanding our enemies respect for our human rights, regardless of the tremendous distinction between them and us, as we see it. The grounds get sketchy when talking about how the terrorist is defined and who may or may not be the innocent child in Gaza, or the terrorist Jewish settler on the West Bank for that matter. Values are at stake, not in conflict, yet remain unresolved.

It’s a conflict between one’s emotions and the other’s cognitive faculties in a given moment. Laws may compel us to adjust our emotions, and amendments to laws may reflect emotions. Are terrorists wherever they are, and whether before or after demonstrating their capacity – a Sinwar or a would-be Sinwar, Nasrallah, an innocent child or an aspiring terrorist, and a child who could change entitled to human rights? The terrorist killed by the civilian bystander with firearms – no trial – before more civilians were killed. No time for risks, nor trials.

Pondering how it works against your claims for rights of your hostage, a soldier perceived by your enemy as a potential threat to his or her life if not already so proven? The terrorist who murdered, mutilated, raped, faces you in a prison or on a battlefield.  Human rights. International laws. Interpretations. One person knows where to draw the line. Another argues it could jeopardize our position. My likeminded colleague doesn’t nod in agreement or offer support for either nuance of the argument described.

He asks me, rhetorically, “Where do you draw the line?”

Harriet Gimpel, April 28, 2025