Whatever is happening in Gaza cannot make anyone happy. The situation is grim. People are suffering, starving, dying. This cannot continue.
Saying this is easy, but thinking about how to solve the problem is less easy. The reason it is complicated lies, first of all, in the excessive brutality of Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, and the continued suffering of hostages taken on that day. It has been Hamas who has turned the independent Gaza strip into a fortress and source of terrorism against Israel, who withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Hamas aims to eliminate the state of Israel and every critic that does not align with its fake and genocidal version of Islam. A future for both Israel and Gaza can only be achieved with a defeat of Hamas as a military force.
That being said, Israel has a duty to act responsibly. Yes, Hamas started the war, and Hamas does not care about human rights and the lives of neither Israelis nor Palestinians (it has been shown to kill dissenters without remorse). But Israel, as a democracy dedicated to the protection of human life and human rights, and as a multicultural state of Jews, Muslims, Christians, Atheists and others, has to act differently. It has to act with precision and care, not with vengeance and furor.
Part of the problem is that Prime Minister Netanyahu had relied on a rather strange coalition with extremist partners, making concessions to those factions within the country who seek to take additional land for settlement within Palestinian areas. His desire to remake the Supreme Court has also destabilized the country. Criticism of all of this has been the loudest probably in Israel itself. If you don’t believe that, read Ha’aretz. Their coverage is as damagingly critical of what is going on as it could possibly be. Israel has a free press – in contrast to what is going on in surrounding countries.
It is absolutely correct and necessary to stand up for the protection of civilian lives. We need to hold the Israeli government accountable and support Israeli civil society standing up against extremism. We need to also communicate this to our governments, especially if we are not Israeli citizens, after all, it is an Israeli matter. We need to also call on the Palestinian leadership to finally come to a table and find a workable solution to the wider conflict. So far, Palestinian and their neighbor’s response to the establishment of Israel has been war, terror, and rejection of any deal offered (including the Camp David accords).
By now though, the landscape around Israel has changed. Egypt, Jordan and increasingly Saudi Arabia are supportive of their Israeli partners. That means that Israel can work on creating a security framework that may lessen the need for a too strong-fisted control of Palestine. The Abraham accords have provided such a possibility – and have proved stable enough in the light of recent Iranian attacks against Israel.
There can only be one solution: Palestinians and Israelis are both indigenous to the area. They need to recognize the need for peace and cooperation, as many of them already do. Both need to stand up against the antisemites and extremists.
Finally, are the current protests antisemitic? That depends. If people peacefully protest against the suffering and killing of civilians while also recognizing the evil of Hamas’ October 7 attacks, they are perfectly legitimate.
The mantra “From the River to the Sea”, however, is a genocidal slogan demanding the destruction and elimination of the State of Israel and all Jews in the area, and is thus a prime example for the “Anti-Zionist” variant of Antisemitism. If Jewish people are attacked for the actions of the Israeli government, that is antisemitic. If all the evil in the world is attributed to a conspiracy by Israel and/or “the Jews”, that is antisemitic.
Conversely, seeing Hamas as a representation of Islam is also wrong. Condoning the actions of Hamas as somehow justified by Islam is wrong. Seeing all Palestinians or all Muslims as terrorists or terrorist sympathizers is also wrong.
It is, by the way, depressing that this all needs saying somehow.
So, now what?
I remain convinced that a solution is possible.
For Israel, For Palestine, For Peace.
Shalom, Salaam, Peace.
Erratic Attempts 