The Risks Progressives Won’t Discuss

Some progressive organizations around the world find it hard to express empathy toward Israeli victims of the October 7 massacre. However, the phenomenon was not absolute: many did find the courage to condemn the horrific attack and express solidarity with the victims. One could debate how strong their statements were, and to what extent they were emphasized—or downplayed—but such statements did exist. Yet when it comes to recognizing the ongoing risks faced by Israelis (and often by Jews outside of Israel as well), there has been near total silence. It’s as if progressive organizations—including human rights groups—are willing, albeit reluctantly, to express sympathy for Israelis once they become victims, but refuse to discuss the conditions that could prevent them from becoming victims in the first place. Why?

The most obvious answer is that under the guise of “Israel’s security,” many policies have been pursued that have little to do with genuine security: prolonged and systematic oppression of Palestinians, expansionist policies (such as the security zone in southern Lebanon and now in Syria), suppression of civil liberties, and more. From this perspective, one can understand the fear that discourse regarding risks to Israelis might be cynically exploited to justify the oppression of Palestinians. But one cannot justify a total erasure of the issue: if fear of cynical exploitation were enough to shut down talk about Israeli security, then by the same logic, discussions about Palestinian rights could be equally delegitimized, given that Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas exploit them to justify extremism and terrorism. Such a stance is an insult to the public’s intelligence: rather than fighting to distinguish between legitimate security concerns and oppressive policies, progressives capitulate to the Israeli propaganda framing that lumps both together.

But there’s a deeper issue here: the human rights discourse itself suffers from a conceptual flaw; it typically deals with violations that are happening in the present (demanding their cessation) or that occurred in the past (demanding accountability), but rarely addresses potential future violations, even when they are highly probable—especially when it comes to national security issues. Properly addressing future risks would naturally require some overlap between the fields of national security and human rights, since addressing foreseeable threats demands proactive security and prevention measures. Yet national security has long been negatively branded within progressive and human rights circles, and any reference to it tends to be seen as suspect or morally tainted. Again, there is a persistent failure to differentiate between genuine security—which is a cornerstone of the right to life—and the cynical exploitation of “security” to justify unnecessary repression.

Power imbalances and the oppressor-oppressed framework also play a role: recognizing risks to Israelis is seen, in some circles, as acknowledging the oppressor’s vulnerability resulting from its acts of oppression. In this view, if Israel ended its oppression of Palestinians, it would no longer face security threats. Therefore, acknowledging current risks is perceived as enabling the oppressor to continue oppressing safely, without “interference” from violent resistance. Of course, Israel’s ongoing oppression of Palestinians has been a major catalyst for extremism in Palestinian society and throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds. However, it is deeply unrealistic to think that ending the occupation and oppression would immediately erase all hatred and threats toward Israelis. Even if, by some miracle, Israel were to end the occupation and all forms of oppression tomorrow, the hostility and heightened risks would persist for months, if not years. Security threats cannot simply be dismissed as a mere byproduct of oppression that would instantly disappear once the oppression ends. Risks must be addressed in their own right—as part of the fundamental right to life.

Israelis and Jews do not want human rights organizations to belatedly, begrudgingly, recognize their suffering after they have been slaughtered; they want not to become victims in the first place. Many Palestinians, too, based on the voices of numerous Palestinian speakers and activists, do not wish to remain trapped in the destructive cycle whereby harm to Israelis results in far greater harm to Palestinians and an intensification of the oppression they already suffer. Addressing foreseeable risks and developing security models that uphold human rights and allow both peoples to live in freedom and security must be part of the human rights and progressive political discourse—this is precisely what we, at the Initiative for National Security and Human Rights and the Pro-Human Campaign, are working to promote.

The refusal to recognize the risks faced by Israelis is part of the broader dehumanization directed against them—dehumanization that ultimately hurts Palestinians as well. Any position that fails to acknowledge this reality amounts to little more than virtue signaling, rather than a genuine attempt to prevent suffering and future victims.