Fellow progressives:
You’re compassionate, dedicated to a life motivated by what Jews call Tikkun Olam, repairing the world. You bring your big heart and considerable intellect to evaluating issues. You love the Jews in your life and wouldn’t intentionally fan the wildfire of antisemitism sweeping the globe. I know these things, and yet I’m disturbed by your relentless daily messaging against Israel and in favor of Palestine, by the selectivity of your outrage.
We have much common ground. We agree Netanyahu is a Trump-like, terrible leader under whom Israel has pursued indefensible policies, and that citizens of Gaza have suffered immeasurably before and after Oct. 7. But I ask you to examine the implicit bias that may inform your virulent outspokenness of late, a campaign simplistically assigning one villain to the complicated morass in the Middle East: Israel.
Where were the impassioned social media posts after Hamas’ brutal attack on Israeli civilians? Where is the outrage at the deliberately cruel rapes, vicious beatings, elaborately sadistic murders and abductions of more than 1,400 people, including children and the elderly? Where are cries to bring the hostages home and compassion for the victims? Jews worldwide number only 14 million, a mere 0.2% of humanity. We’re a small family, and many American Jews have a personal connection to someone directly impacted by the events of Oct. 7 – like my friend’s nephew’s family on Kibbutz Be’eri or my distant cousin, an American stabbed to death in Israel by a 14-year-old Palestinian.
I wonder if people understand that Hamas cares even less for Palestinians in Gaza than does Israel. That Hamas knowingly sought on Oct. 7 both to exact its cruelty and to sacrifice Palestinians in Gaza to the Israeli response it hoped to and did incite. Hamas’ goal – stated in its charter – is eradication not only of Israel, but of Jewish people everywhere. Hamas has ruled Gaza since soon after Israel’s 2005 unilateral withdrawal, diverting aid to their sinister purposes rather than bettering the lives of Palestinians in Gaza. Oct. 7 achieved their immediate goal of derailing an historic peace agreement between Israel and the Saudis.
Many young people in particular seem to have learned everything they know about Israel from social media in the last few weeks, accepting a false narrative that Jews arrived in that ancient land only in the decades preceding 1948 as violent colonizers. I won’t synopsize the complex history of the region, but suffice it to say that Jews and Arabs have lived in that region consistently, in substantial numbers for millennia.
It pains me that most people speaking out about the plight of Palestinians in Gaza fail to direct some outrage at Hamas, which even now interrupts the flow of humanitarian aid and the movement of citizens. Where is the indignation at Egypt, which could ease the humanitarian crisis by opening its borders?
Consider that since 1948, Jews have been expelled from every Arab country and remain unwelcome, but Israel welcomes all Jews. Conversely, Arab nations have for these past 75 years kept the Palestinians in Gaza a perpetual underclass that deflects attention from their oppressive and corrupt regimes. I wonder if the liberal Americans who now defend Hamas as a necessary evil understand that Hamas and the Islamic countries of the region do not tolerate LGBTQ+ people, equality for women or free speech. It’s ironic that the liberal youth of America railing against Israel would almost certainly prefer life in Israel to any of its Arab neighbors.
While some are careful to direct outrage at the Israeli government without devolving into overt antisemitism, they are a minority. Is it implicit bias that makes people quick to focus their daily passion on Gaza?
The world, sadly, has no shortage of beleaguered people. Why the Palestinians and not the Uyghurs in China, the Rohingya in Myanmar or the Ukrainians? Consider the terrifying rise in antisemitic expressions and attacks since Oct. 7 – like the mob that vandalized a Philadelphia restaurant serving Israeli food, the marchers worldwide chanting to wipe out the Jews “from the river to the sea,” or the recent display by Ivy League college presidents in Congress who could not bring themselves to say that calling for killing all Jews is bullying or harassment. We Jews are not shocked but no less unnerved to be reminded that antisemitism may go dormant at times, but it is a muscle the world never seems to need much prodding to flex.
I have no answers. I don’t know what Israel should do. I do know that I believe Israel should exist, that I’m furious at Netanyahu and the right wingers who have long undermined efforts at a two-state solution, and that I’m appalled at the intelligence lapse that failed to prevent Oct. 7. And I know that no international conflict is as simplistic as social media posts suggest this one is.
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