Sad Truths

Last night, when I was on the way to demonstrate on behalf of the families of the hostages and to join the demand that their return should be the first and only item on the agenda of the Knesset, I had a distressing conversation with someone I care about deeply who does not live here.

October 28th, 2024

She spoke her mind: all war is awful; this war is as awful as any other and continuing to fight in Gaza is unjustifiable; ordinary Gazans are suffering dreadfully and we (Israelis) are the immediate cause of their suffering; another generation of Gazans sees Israel as a terrible, powerful, merciless enemy; Israelis do not see themselves the way the rest of the world sees them because we are so consumed by the suffering here that has overwhelmed us; Jews around the world who want to support us feel increasingly disempowered to do so every day that the war in Gaza continues.

The most upsetting part of our talk was that what she said is mostly what I think (and write).

Like her, I believe that there is no military solution to the conflict.

Like her, I believe that the continuation of fighting in Gaza is a political, ideological choice and not the means to protect the country and certainly not a way to secure the return of our hostages.

But I did not say what I really needed to say: there is an Israeli side to all of this which the world is choosing to forget or ignore.

The attack on October 7^th, 2023 was barbaric and evil and demanded a response.

The Hamas military infrastructure needed to be dismantled and those posing a direct threat to us needed to be disarmed, even if that meant they had to be killed.

Once we started, it was very difficult to know when to stop. So, just because it is clear that we have crossed that point now, I am not sure when the line was crossed between a justified response and an unjustified assault. Please do not blame peace activists for not being quicker to demand an end to this war. We are traumatized.

They are still sending rockets towards us – from the north but also from Gaza.

Houses are being hit.

People are being killed.

Every day, there is another funeral and it makes no difference if you are right-wing or left-wing, religious or secular, everyone is affected and everyone knows someone who is bereaved.

Our soldiers in Gaza are still under fire.

They are still dying there.

That means that Hamas has not been disarmed.

There is still no sign of the hostages returning home. We think about their suffering constantly. Although many of us blame our government for not bringing them home, we know that the evil kidnappers were Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It tears us apart that we cannot just run in and rescue them. (Another naïve friend in America asked me why we just don’t do an Entebbe-like rescue mission?)

Our economy is in ruins. The financial cost of the war is catastrophic. The total mismanagement of the economy is terrifying. The lack of accountability, the blatant disregard for economic principles and the flagrant political abuse of the country’s limited resources for sectorial purposes are even more serious threats to our future than the military threat.

There are thousands of internal refugees here – evacuees from the north and the south. It is still not safe for them to go home to the north and in the south, their communities need to be rebuilt.

Our society is tired, and sad, and concerned.

And the broader international community, which is untrustworthy at best and antisemitic at worst, is the last place we turn to for support.

UNWRA was and continues to be complicit in supporting terrorism.

UNIFIL allowed Hezbollah to build a military infrastructure under their noses.

This fuels the lack of trust by Israelis of the rest of the world. It empowers the extreme right to pass laws which are impractical in the short-term and dangerous in the long-term.

All of what my beloved conversation partner said is true. But there is a lot more truth to add to it.

We need the Jewish community to stand with us, even while criticizing our leadership. Stand with our peace-movement, stand with the families of the hostages, stand with the ordinary Israeli, who just wants to live peacefully.

Because that is one more point that needs to be emphasised: Israel is here to stay and so are the Palestinians. Each people needs to find a way to live with the other. We are past the point of suggesting that there is no justification for a Jewish state. We are past the point of saying that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people. We need the help of Jews abroad to reconfirm both these realities.

Do not let your legitimate criticism to distance you from us. Use it to work with activists here. Use it to open our eyes to what we do not see. Use it to help us find our way to peace.