Two Kinds of Strikes, One Solution

Thursday evening news: Israeli soldiers injured in Gaza. Minimal accounts of recent Israeli strikes. One kind of strike. Soldiers will fall. Lives will be lost in Gaza. New humanitarian aid distribution strategies.

Friday morning headlines: “allowed for publication” – a media phrase – this time, names of two soldiers who fell yesterday. It means families were notified, and now the censor permits publication.

We headed for a “people’s peace convention” in Jerusalem, organized by a coalition of 60 NGOs under the slogan, “It’s Time.” For peace. The word is absent from public discourse.

Strike two: Israeli teachers last week. Reflects public funding distribution injustices. Teachers mostly took sick leave notes from their doctors. Their salaries hardly allow for striking and losing pay. Do I consider the educational message to students appropriate? Teaching them to get doctors’ notes for a stomachache if they’re not ready for tomorrow’s exam? Or teaching them that teachers can be underpaid to finance political interests that serve a minority to keep the government coalition in power. Complicated. Stretching limits of legitimacy when at a loss for means to fight the system?

Eroding law and order. Fascism, anarchy. Strings of words. Fears.

If starving children steal food in Gaza, would you condemn them? If hungry children left ghettos during World War II to steal food, was it condemnable?

As law and order erode, when, before it becomes a historical analysis, do you cease respecting them?

In a job interview for a peace and environmental organization, 17 years ago, I was asked if I would be willing to get arrested for the cause? Implicit: to get the job, don’t say, “no.” I said, “No.” With conviction. Committed to protest within the limits of the law. Part of my commitment to democracy.

Erosion. Judicial reform, according to the government. Subordinating the judicial system to serve its interests, the prime minister’s interests. Exercising the right to freedom of expression within constraints of the law. Seeing prices, at times random, at times personal and targeted. Prices many pay within the framework of the law that seems less stable and secure than we once thought.

Eroding. I don’t condemn teachers taking sick leave to strike. The cause is justified.

Some 4000 people at the People’s Peace Conference on Friday at Binyanei Haoomah, the International Convention Center in Jerusalem. Former Prime Minister Olmert was in the audience during the plenum. Political activists, NGO reps, liberal politicians, Arabs and Jews spoke. French President Macron sent a recorded message of support. An afternoon session allowed over 100 foreign diplomats to mingle with select NGO reps. The event went unmentioned by conventional media. Not a headline. Eroding underpinnings of our regime.

One morning, despite efforts to avoid clips of Israeli attacks on Gaza, I opened a reel. Hearing things I’m embarrassed to think an IDF soldier would say. Imagining how traumatic discussions would be on such a day with my Palestinian colleagues in the West Bank at my previous job. Momentarily, I rationalized on behalf of those soldiers: Post trauma? Maybe? Maybe to some degree. Soldiers with post trauma should be discharged but are repeatedly recruited for more combat. Time for peace.

On Sundays, soldiers on weekend leave (Friday to Saturday), return to their bases, crowding public transportation. A Palestinian woman, citizen of Israel, current colleague, told me Monday that Sunday she took the bus from Haifa to the office. Mother of two young adult children, who don’t serve in the army due to their Palestinian identity, but she is a mother. She described soldiers hugging their mothers before boarding the bus, with fighting resumed in Gaza. She told me their mothers were crying. She told me it was heartbreaking. One solution.

At the peace conference, MK Ahmed Tibi spoke, acknowledging Palestinian citizens of Israel, Jews, and the liberal political camp have controversies that must be put aside to protect democracy. “There is no way to peace,” he said, “Peace is the way.” Descending the stage, he and Olmert hugged.

Harriet Gimpel, May 10, 2025