CONTENT WARNING: this post discusses the I/P conflict and the Rwandan genocide. If you are personally affected by these events, please proceed with care for yourself. And please know: it is okay to have a hard time understanding what's going on and to need more information. I do not have all the answers, and I strongly encourage you to look for a variety of sources on what's happening.
I have historically been very careful about what I say about Israel. In part, I'm careful because it's complex and I don't know everything, and I don't want to misspeak. In larger part, I'm careful because, time and time again, I've been intentionally misread and demonized for having a more nuanced take than "Israel is evil" or "Palestine is evil". I've been accused of having internalized antisemitism because I said Palestinians deserve better lives than they collectively have; I've been accused of being a Zionist because I said there were things I enjoyed about Israel. And all the while, I've faced the constant burden of having to explain, over and over and over, why antisemitic things are antisemitic. After a while, you stop being as outspoken.
But I cannot maintain silence anymore in the face of the horrific events of the past week.
One week ago, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War - when a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt attacked Israel on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar - Hamas staged a brutal series of attacks in Israel. At least 260 people died while at a music festival held in the Negev desert - not only noncombatants, but noncombatants in a place that held no strategic value whatsoever. Elsewhere, civilians were ripped from their homes and families - assaulted, killed, kidnapped. As of this writing, the death toll among Israeli civilians is 1,300 and climbing, with another 3,400 wounded and over 150 still missing. And in Gaza, where civilians have fewer resources, the death toll is 2,200 with 8,700 wounded.
In literally any other place on earth, targeting civilians at a remote music festival would have been unequivocally condemned. But because it was Israel, regarded by leftists as a settler state, I've seen a number of posts and comments actually defending and celebrating this horror. On the flip side, Israeli president Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, a hard-right politician who has clung to power despite exceptionally low approval ratings, stated last Saturday that "the enemy will pay an unprecedented price" - not the sentiment of a rational or peaceable man. Later, it came out that Netanyahu had received several days of advance warning of the attacks from Egyptian sources, which means he chose to do nothing in advance, knowing it would strengthen his political position.
(Not for nothing, but when Netanyahu was trying to form a government to remain in power, leftist Jews tried to discuss it, only to be told by leftist non-Jews that it didn't matter and they weren't interested. Maybe if y'all had taken an interest then, you would have known that Netanyahu's government also oppresses Jews of different denominations, and you would understand now that his actions over the years aren't supported by most Jewish communities, especially leftists. Additionally, if you even nominally think Jewish noncombatants shouldn't be killed, take a moment to think about the situation. Thousands of civilians were killed, injured, or taken hostage. What response could Israel possibly have? Should they roll over and let it happen?)
Meanwhile, on the Palestinian side of the border, civilians have lost power, water, and what safety they had. And there, too, their government is one that most of their citizens don't support or agree with. Many Palestinians, including high-profile people like Gigi Hadid, have posted condemning the violence on both sides of the border. And yet, American leftists with no real investment in either side of the conflict are cheering for Hamas's acts of "resistance", and many American Jews are calling for Gaza to be wiped out.
Y'all, this should go without saying: all oppressive governments are bad and all attacks targeting noncombatants are bad. Israel's hard-right government is and has always been intentionally making life hard for Palestinians, and Hamas is and has always been an extremist group whose stated purpose is the extermination of the Jewish people. Both of these things are bad. Furthermore, these governments do not have widespread support among their citizens. They aren't doing what the people want, they're doing what will gain them power and further their personal agendas. And yet, most of the global conversation conflates Jews with Israel (and specifically the Israeli government) and Palestinians with Hamas.
To my ongoing astonishment and dismay, one of the combinations of sentiments I've seen the most on both sides of the American discourse is that the "home team" (Palestinians/Hamas or Jews/Israel, depending on who's talking) is just defending themselves against the "opposition" (vice versa) and, conversely, that the "home team" is justified in celebrating civilian deaths on the other side. Which is it? Is it reluctant defense from people who want peace and safety, or is it taking joy in wanton violence?
The answer is neither. Most Palestinians and most Jews and Israelis don't want this conflict at all. For most of us, an ideal world is one with a one-state solution where power and responsibility are shared equitably among Israelis and Palestinians. Furthermore, an ideal world is one in which Jews are safe in any other country on Earth; despite the Israeli government's prejudice against Reform and other progressive Jews, Israel remains one of the only places where Jews don't have to worry about government-led genocide.
All this to say: if you, like me, want freedom for Palestinians, part of the process is freedom for Jews. The best way to take away Israel's power as an oppressive government is to give Jews other places where we can be safe. Jews who defend Israel aren't defending it from sheer nationalism, as people do in the States; they're defending it because it's currently our best and only real protection against genocide in our home countries.
In the last week, I've been thinking a lot about the Rwandan genocide. For those of you who aren't familiar, here's as much of an overview as I can easily provide: in the 1930's, Belgium codified an ethnic divide between Hutus and Tutsis, two groups with largely shared language, beliefs, and practices. This divide was based on the belief among European colonizers that Tutsis were inherently more suited to rule (which was itself based on pretty much nothing). People were required to carry cards identifying them as either Hutus or Tutsis, and already imbalanced systems favoring Tutsis became solidified, disenfranchising the Hutus. This disenfranchisement became more and more severe until finally, in 1959, a rumor that a Hutu leader had been killed (he hadn't) led Hutus to revolt against both elite and civilian Tutsis, prompting Belgium to replace many Tutsi leaders with Hutus. Tutsis went suddenly from the ruling class to exiles with no power. While things shifted back and forth for decades afterwards, the Tutsis remained largely disenfranchised at the hands of those they had oppressed, and in 1993, Hutus began making moves towards a genocide of Tutsis. In April 1994, the genocide began abruptly, sparked by the assassination of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, both Hutus. Hutu extremists revolted, assassinating moderate leaders, conscripting Hutu civilians, and killing and terrorizing Tutsi civilians. Over a million people were killed over the course of three months, 94% of them Tutsis.
I've been thinking this week about that, and about how heartbreakingly pointless it was. These were people who had no inherent racial or cultural differences whatsoever; the only thing dividing them was an artificial construct created by colonizers. And yet, each side viewed the other as both inferior and oppressive.
Israel, as a government, claims to have not only a political right to the land, but an ancestral one. Hamas claims the same. The reality is that both Jews and Palestinians have equal ancestral claim to this place. The divide between Jewish and Arab has no basis in material realities. There isn't some inherent factor that separates us.
This is not to say that Israelis are, as individuals, all ethnically Middle Eastern - any more than British citizens are all ethnically Western European. But Israel contains many of the holiest sites in Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Baha'i tradition, and people of all those religions have some claim to their respective sites in the same cities. Furthermore, while the other three are universal religions, meaning that they have no inherent connection to race or ethnicity, Judaism is an ethnoreligion; an enormous number of Jews have genetic roots in that little patch of the world, just as Palestinians do.
Is Israel a settler state? Absolutely yes. The British stole it and then gave it to displaced Jews without acknowledging or compensating the Palestinians who had been living there. (Not for nothing: Israel was colonized by Britain, not by Jews.)
Does Israel's government have a vested interest in maintaining the current power imbalance? Again, absolutely yes. Netanyahu - like Trump, like Putin, like every other hard-right demagogue - holds onto power by creating and targeting a common enemy.
On the flip side, is Hamas a resistance movement? Absolutely not. Hamas is a terrorist organization whose stated goal is the extermination of the Jews. Again like Trump, they draw a flimsy veil across their genocidal plans and pretend that what they're doing is protecting their people against a threat that doesn't exist. There are actual resistance movements in Palestine - the PFLP and DFLP, and even the PLO, are and have been fighting for Palestinians without targeting civilians and without explicitly demanding the death of Jews. Hamas is not one of them.
Are all (or most) Israeli citizens to blame for their government's actions? Are all (or most) Palestinian citizens to blame for Hamas? Absolutely not, any more than all or most American citizens are to blame for Trump. Trump lost the popular vote in a country where roughly half the population don't or can't even vote (ie. he received, at maximum, 25% support, and that was before he did a bunch of horrifying things), and relied heavily on voter suppression and fearmongering.
The stark reality is that this is two opposing factions of extremists trying desperately to destroy each other and using their own citizens as both shields and weapons. We cannot only condemn one side of this conflict, because both sides are doing horrific things. And we cannot treat this as a cultural war when it's not. Most of these citizens don't want what's happening right now on either side, and claiming they do is incredibly disrespectful to everyone. Do not let the people in power abdicate responsibility for their actions.
I don't stand with Israel, and I don't stand with Hamas. I stand with the disenfranchised and disempowered civilians of both states, and with every person around the world who is personally impacted by these events.
I've been harassed this week. I've lost friends this week. Saying that this entire conflict sucks and I have empathy for civilians on both sides of the border is getting me repeatedly lambasted. But you know what? I'm not stopping.
I said it before, but I'll say it again in its own paragraph so you can't possibly miss it:
The best way to take away Israel's power as an oppressive government is to give Jews other places where we can be safe. Israel's greatest moral defense is that it's our only safe place.
So if you are truly committed to freeing Palestine and/or protecting Jews, start by examining your own attitudes and the attitudes of the people around you. Learn to separate Israel from Jews, and Hamas from Palestinians. Learn to be okay with not knowing everything, and to be okay with others not knowing everything. This situation is unbelievably complex, and this article does not do it justice. It's okay not to say anything until you know more.
To those of you reading this who have personal connections to me: if you have a problem with my message, I urge you to silently leave my spaces. I am not interested in hearing about how Israel is the new Nazis (yes, people really say this, and a friend of mine got called a "Zionazi" for very similar takes to mine), or in hearing about how Palestinians are devils from hell and need to be cleansed. If you can't have some goddamn nuance about this, have that lack of nuance away from me.
I stand with my Jewish, Israeli, and Palestinian community members. You should too.
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