Not Exactly Comforting in the Safe Room
Watching television: Four more heroic hostages released from Gaza. Their families await them on Israeli ground. Euphoria. Concern for the remaining hostages notwithstanding. Relief that the four women IDF soldiers walked out of the Hamas vehicle, heads held high, before entering the Red Cross vehicle, in the chain of exchange on their way to a hospital in Israel. Relief, their bravery. But what hides behind their smiles? An anchorperson comments on the anxiety they are likely experiencing surrounded by crowds of Hamas militants in Palestine Square as they leave one vehicle and walk to the other. Surrounded by black-masked faces with green headbands like those they faced when kidnapped on October 7, 2023, amidst violent killing, rape, mutilation, and still posed in front of forces which held them hostage.
Still, the picture from an open tab in my mind seeps through. A recent tweet this week by Alon-Lee Green, Jewish co-director of Standing Together. The picture: ruins in Gaza. His text concludes that anyone looking at the picture who thinks self-defense or security looks like this is delusionary, hallucinating. Israel destroyed 90% of the buildings in Gaza. He has more recent tweets about the number of Israeli soldiers’ lives lost, the saga of the hostages, the Hamas still on its feet with thousands of armed operatives and reaches the obvious conclusion: a military solution is not the answer. He also tweeted this week about Israel’s actions in the West Bank, “We have to talk about it.” That is the attempt to foil a hostage-ceasefire deal with armed Jewish settlers attacking defenseless Palestinian residents in their villages. “This,” he writes, “is not defense.” Israeli law and order officials not interfering or protecting the Palestinians, and pogroms spread. The IDF carries out government policy, with attacks throughout the West Bank, particularly in Jenin. Not particularly newsworthy in Israeli media.
My Palestinian colleagues share video clips. I try not to watch. Too painful. Raises my anger levels – for more reasons than one.
My Palestinian colleagues in the West Bank report their fears. Soldiers arbitrarily searching their homes. The mayor of Hebron spoke of over 110 Israeli checkpoints throughout the city and one gate for entry or departure. Some Palestinian peace activists supposed to go abroad for a conference in Europe with visas in hand were turned back by Jordan – no way out of Palestine.
Israel limits the number of Palestinians allowed to congregate, containing celebrations of Palestinians prisoners released from Israeli prisons as our hostages are released – part of the deal.
But who are these Palestinian prisoners? The list includes people with blood on their hands – frightening; people who would have willingly had blood on their hands had Israeli security forces not imprisoned them first and sometimes minors under administrative arrest because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe the latter were arrested foreseeing a time when Israel would have to release prisoners, and the release of innocent teenagers eases anxiety for those deciding which prisoners, plural, in exchange for which hostage, singular. Maybe some of the Palestinian minors evolved into terrorists during Israeli prison time.
When I hear about settlers setting the car of a Palestinian afire, or burning Palestinian homes, or soldiers carrying out policy that seems more offensive than defensive, I hold my head between my palms and wonder when the next suicide terrorist from the West Bank will make it into Israel and attack an innocent Israeli in a café or at a bus station.
It is too enmeshed to determine which came first. A perpetual cycle – acts of Palestinian terror justifying military incursions and acts of Jewish settler terror – unchecked by Israeli security forces – serving to justify another terrorist attack in the heart of Israel. Justify? No justification either way.
Releasing my head from the hold of my fear-sweaty palms, realizing I’m about to start biting my nails. I ask rhetorical questions in Israeli-Palestinian peace activists’ meetings and in social media: Why did settlers, or the Israeli government, unleash such destruction, in monumental measures, or measured local doses upon innocent Palestinians? “What,” I ask, “will ensue? How many Israelis will a Palestinian terrorist kill in retaliation?”
But there is a missing piece in the discourse. I do not hear my Palestinian colleagues’ anger about Palestinian terrorists entering Israel, taking Israeli lives, if only to say they are angry and blame the terrorist – in part – for imminent Israeli retaliation? Even if I object, and I object to the extent of Israeli actions which it describes as defense, can’t my Palestinian colleagues understand and acknowledge my fears, that my safety and security need to be defended, that my home in Kfar Saba is as vulnerable to Hamas militants in the West Bank as the Gaza Envelope region was on October 7, 2023?
It seems most of the Israeli left – what’s left of it – accepts the greater emotional need of the Palestinian victim for compassion, and inability amidst the threats to recognize my fears. I’m told to let go of futile expectations for their validation of my fears. It is lonely in my safe room.
Harriet Gimpel, January 25, 2025