What would you have us Liberal Zionists do?

A meditation grappling with the terrible choices of the present moment in Israel

Yesterday, a childhood friend in America shared a piece in +972Magazine stating that “Israel’s return to war is a prelude to mass expulsion.” In commentary, he wrote, “Every conversation with a Liberal Zionist for the last two years has been some version of them trying to deny this.” And I haven’t been able to get his comment – and the latent acquisition therein – out of my mind.

Like most Israelis, I believe the resumption of significant military operations in Gaza are politically motivated, a decision by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to maintain his coalition. I believe that returning the hostages should be the top priority, and efforts should be made to protect innocent lives as we work towards that goal. That the current government is willing to sacrifice the hostages to keep their power.

Also, I, like most Liberal Zionists in Israel, believe this war was justified as a response to the heinous attacks planned by Hamas for decades using money funneled to them with Netanyahu’s support. Our friends and family members fighting the war have gone out of their way to ensure the war was fought morally and ethically, and have called out and decried crimes by extremists in our ranks. I, like most Liberal Zionists, have taken to the streets week after week, month after month, year after year, against this government and its policies, and worked through legal democratic means to oppose the coalition’s messianic drive.

And for two years, we’ve faced a complex situation. Unlike many Westerners who deny their consumption-based lives are lived at the expense of the billions who toil in inhumane conditions to produce the latest iPhone or camping tent on Amazon, Liberal Zionists understand that our safety requires the defeat an enemy who would rather die than have us live. We know not all Gazans are Hamas. We see their suffering. Yet we have to contend with the fact that the government of Gaza is Hamas, and that Hamas would rather its people starve than return our loved ones and demilitarize.

Like most Liberal Zionists, I yearn for a future where self-determination is a reality for all who live in our region. I’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with other Liberal Zionists in protesting for two states for two nations and spoken out for the innocents suffering from this war. Yet I cannot ignore that the same government in Gaza deciding again and again to reject our demand to return our hostages and lay down their arms have done so because they are backed by a global network of news channels and influencers and professors and students who want them to fight until the end. People who have not condemned the brutal attacks that killed and harmed our loved ones, who have not called on the attackers to lay down their arms and return those they’ve kidnapped.

I hope my friend would understand that complexity. He lives on land cleared through mass expulsion and wears clothing and uses electronics made in a genocidal empire. His energy infrastructure is heating the planet to a boiling point and killing millions in the process. I hope he understands that even while we seek peace, we need to deter those hellbent on war until the bitter end. But his comment shook me: what does it mean for him to deride the complex, nuanced, self-aware position of Liberal Zionism?

Because we are facing a terrible choice: to be or not to be. We’re facing a globally networked force seeking to kill us because of who we are while fighting a government that has perverted our values. Yet we soldier on. Because we have no other choice until Hamas returns our loved ones and lays down their arms. Until then, I suggest my friend focus his efforts to help us defeat the network backing Hamas while we protest our government here.

I’m writing these words after returning from the funeral of a dear boy, Yishai Urbach, the son of members of our community here in Zichron Yaakov. Yishai fought with a unit that often supports my friend’s team, searching for the bodies of those kidnapped and taken into the tunnels. A team that pulled a body out just weeks before.

Thousands of Israelis joined Yishai and his family on his final journey. Israelis who have lived in the land for centuries alongside those whose grandparents immigrated from Yemen, Poland, Iraq, Germany, Morocco, Switzerland, and Lebanon. A multi-ethnic cohort, a rainbow shedding tears. This is our home. There are people actively seeking to kill us in our homes, who are holding people they took from their homes. I hope that my friend will understand that despite many of us believing this current escalation is uncalled for, we Liberal Zionists will continue to defend our right to defend ourselves, even as we understand the costs. Because we understand the complexity of liberalism, and the price of self-determination.