No need to apologize for feeling you're running behind, posts like this are a testament to the amount of work you are doing in trying to deal with such a complicated issue honestly.
Thank you for a thoughtful, nuanced piece, Justin. It's excellent. I've shared it with people who are following the compelling issues you've raised. You're doing great work!
A very complex topic. Thanks for this. I think trying to wage peace is the way forward. I am currently rereading Richard Rhodes' excellent 4 books about the creation of the Atomic Bomb and the Cold War which followed. I think he clearly makes the case that a visionary leader, who is willing to live with the consequences of de-escalation is key; as well as being clear that that leader need not be lilly-white. I sure hope such a leader arises, and I fear that the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 may have made the arrival of another such leader anytime soon hard to envision.
Great read! I appreciate your attempt to look at this with a nuanced perspective. I also appreciate the many voices you included. I have often been accused of "both siding" this. Our need as humans to identify who is the good guy and who is the bad guy helps no one - let alone Palestinians. I have made a concerted effort to listen to voices from both sides who are interested in peace. That means Israeli and Jewish voices - and the voices of the Palestinian diaspora. The approach they all have in common is this. Neither Israel , nor Palestine is going anywhere. Try as both parties might to eliminate each other, it will not happen short of a real genocide. It is 100% necessary to critique the Israeli government, Hamas and other Iranian proxies (Hezboula, Houthis, etc) for their actions. It is necessary and effective. Advocates for peace do this well. It is possible to "both side" this conflict because both sides are wrong and at the same time justified. One of the things that many of these peace advocates talk about is the need to listen and understand each other's stories. One thing this conflict has taught me is that history is about perspective. Until we are able to sit down and listen and accept that each side has a different perspective of the same history - there will never be peace. I would argue that our constant positioning here in the west as either pro Palestine or Pro Israel perpetuates this and damages the chances for any kind of lasting peace, and from the voices of Palestinian activists - it infantilizes Palestinians. When someone asks me where I stand here is what I say. "I am Pro Palestinian, Pro Israel but most importantly I am pro humanity.
With everything, it matters *how* you 'both sides' an argument. As you point out, Cheryl, if it means actually considering all sides in a complicated conflict: How, on earth, could that be a bad thing? Demanding people set their position based on half the facts is absurd.
The bad kind of 'both sides'ing means never criticizing anyone — or always criticizing everyone — and never taking a stance on anything.
But as you point out, actively advocating for peace is very much taking a side! Thanks for the comment.
I struggle to see how anyone can support the current Israeli governments actions in gaza. It may not be technically genocide, but it’s clearly a massacre that is being propped up by other western nations. Clearly Hamas needs to go, but as you have pointed out, they are not going to be bombed out of existence as they are a reaction to ongoing injustice.
As a bit of an aside, I was in Seattle on the weekend to attend what I can only label a Queer Anarchist Folk Punk show. I am neither queer nor an anarchist, but as a punk rock fan, this is where the fire is currently. If you are 20something and you are not pissed off at the world, there is probably not much hope for you. lol. anyway
The opening band, who identified them selves as anti zionist jews, closed their set by descending into the crowd of 500 people all singing the lyrics to a song protesting the American support of the Israeli government. Everyone in the room seemed to know the lyrics, it was wild.
My partner and I had long conversation on the drive home about the intersection between the queer community and anarchy, when from the out side it seems like one choice in the upcoming election would be better then the other, but it’s potentially not?
There may be a nuanced conversation to be had around the future of Israel, though my personal feelings have not changed in 30 years, but if you are not disgusted with the atrocities being committed I really don’t know what sort of conversation there is to have.
Michael Chabon’s the Yiddish Policeman’s Union is probably worth a re read…
I can't put thoughts into language with the same fluidity as the author, so please accept my point form comments:
• the sympathy the West felt for Israel after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack quickly evaporated due to the disproportionate Israeli response.
• Short of stopping the killing, the only counteraction was a public relations campaign. Pictures of hostages were glued to street posts like children's faces on milk cartons. What were we supposed to do – keep our eyes peeled for hostages in downtown Toronto? “Journalists” were invited to view video of the Hamas attack and its aftermath, and articles were written and published. Some even argued that Hamas was responsible for civilian deaths in Gaza.
• Meanwhile, Israeli supporters tried (somewhat successfully) to portray anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian protesters as antisemitic, an old canard. A girl with an Israel flag draped over her shoulder was harassed as she approached a pro-Palestine encampment and the media portrayed her as a Jewish girl. If someone draped a swastika over their shoulders would they be called a German or a nazi?
Capital Pride criticized Israel and a rabbi said Jews felt excluded. The mayor of Ottawa and other prominent institutions and politicians boycotted the Capital Pride Parade, including hospitals whose mandates would surely suggest that 40,000 deaths is at least concerning.
• There are extremists on every side of every issue in every country, so, yes, there are going to be anti-semites in the protests, but using the few as representative of the majority is an age-old technique to influence public opinion.
• This conflict is about more than the survival of a Jewish homeland. In the nineteenth century, after the British gained control of the Suez canal, they wanted a nearby presence without incurring the costs associated with a colony. Contacts were made with a fledgling zionist movement in Europe and formal talks followed the formation of the Zionist Organization. This was all before WWI when “the sick man of Europe” still held the subject lands.
Balfour Declaration, re-drawing the boundaries of Palestine to include an appendage reaching the Gulf of Aqaba, the British Mandate for Palestine, Jewish immigration – all part of the geo-strategic plan. Britain bowing out and their waning global power, and American waxing global power endowed the plan for Israel with American backing.
When you see Blinken et al publicly travelling and dialoguing for peace while the American president privately streams arms and ammunition to Israel even though 40,000 have been killed, infrastructure destroyed and people living in tents, you know that Israel will always exist as long as the U.S. wants it to, regardless of any organic peace movements in Israel, Palestine or the world. De-humanizing the Palestinians by Israeli governments such as Netanyahu’s also serves this purpose.
40,000 dead in the Sri Lankan Civil War, and we barely noticed. Because they have no diaspora here, and little economic impact. I keep reminding myself to try to take a long historical view, because I can't stop the horror, so I just remind myself this is one of MANY horrors in my world, and I accepted the others, like Sri Lanka and Congo, without going mad. (I also wonder what it was like for Canadians to watch genocidal fascists bomb 40,000 people to death in LONDON, while America continued to keep her hands in her pockets until personally attacked...no anti-American demonstrations over that? Somehow we kept up our relationship...)
With a little luck and vegetables, I'll make it another 10-12 years until a few things will happen in the same decade:
1) "The Middle East Doesn't Matter, Except for Oil" (Gwynne Dyer's cry) will become "The Middle East Doesn't Matter". economically. In mindshare, they will be in the same boat as Sri Lanka.
2) Shifting demographics will make it possible to piss off Israel's strongest defenders in North America and still win an election. "Defenders" does not elide an ethnic reference. Some of the strongest defenders are Christian fundamentalists, who, ironically, are North America's worst anti-semites. But they are also in demographic decline because their kids don't agree.
When those turnovers happen, Israel will find itself in the same historical situation, as those in many previous attempts to colonize a land that broadly opposes you. Nobody has summarized THAT better than journalist Gabriel Rotello, in 2008. It's not good.
I am in total agreement with your caution about how language is used in considering this disaster. I avoid words like "genocide" or even "apartheid" though the latter really DOES apply to "occupied" areas like the West Bank and East Jerusalem. You only have to look at pictures of the actual walls erected around Palestinian towns and neighborhoods, and read about the checkpoints, not to mention the settler attacks.
The biggest language issue is saying that "Israel" is doing X. Most people understand that it is the government of Israel running the show, including reports which detail how the government is keeping the major news outlets in Israel from letting the Israeli people know what their troops are doing. (it's hard to ignore the protests over hostages, but it is hard to see whether absent the hostages the Israeli people would object to the actual execution of the war the way so many of us objected to the war in Vietnam.)
I think it is safe to say certain elements of the government support "genocide" in the broadest sense of forcing Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank to allow expansion of Israel into their lands. Perhaps "ethnic cleansing" is a marginally less loaded word, not having the -cide syllable that suggests it must be by murder.
What throws me most, as a retired lawyer, is the paucity of EVIDENCE of so many allegations, so that it is impossible to decide how to decipher how they fit into the total picture. IDF claims are rarely supported by WHY they claim what they do, and rarely do they report on the results of the investigations they always say they are making of various issues involving behavior of their soldiers, either in Gaza or the West Bank. When they do release the results, there seems to be counterevidence that they ignore--the recent killing of the American-Turkish woman is an example.
Another such problem involves the pre-October 7th attacks by Hamas. One side says those (suicide bombers included) were reactions to things Israelis did to Palestinians--proximately, not in general. The other side calls it "continuing terror" suggesting mindless hatred. I haven't been able to find any actual accounting of the attacks since Hamas took power and what factors were behind each. Similarly, while Hamas lobs missiles, the Iron Dome does stop most of them. How many Israelis have been killed by such, and (again) what--before the war began--prompted the missiles?
I can certainly understand Israeli fears for their safety, certainly in the past year, but I do have questions
a) How realistic is it to claim Hamas is in fact an "existential" threat to Israel on its own? Before the war it had 40-50 thousand members. How many of those were soldiers and how many were just government functionaries--it IS in fact a coup-established authoritarian government handing out perks to members the same way Tammany Hall did, not to mention trump's dreamworld? Even assuming they were ALL soldiers, The IDF has 160K with 465,000 reserves. And how much of the fear of that is being ginned up in a similar way to trump's rants about immigrants? Again, I haven't seen much evidence of WHY Hamas itself should be seen as an existential threat.
b) How much has the war in Gaza made things worse (from an existential point of view) by activating other groups like Hezbollah and the Houthis? That is one way of wondering whether the prosecution of the war is INCREASING any such threat to Israel. Given the reaction of the world to the decimation of Gaza, one can wonder who exactly is the existential threat to Israel: the terrorists or its own government? Certainly on the eve of the war treaties with the major Arab nations were in progress. How much of the idea that every Arab hates Israel based on, well, outdated data?
c) The history of the Jews is one of endless persecution and, with the Holocaust, extreme killings. I have always supported the IDEA of Israel as a corrective to that. But does the fact that a people have been persecuted give them the right to persecute others? Again, this is not just the major killings in Gaza, but also the treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
d) As far as rising anti-semitism in the US goes, my own sense is that this is way more the result of trump's allowing people to let their worst sides all hang out. Antisemitism and racism are not DEAD in American by any means, just tamped under by what for a while was a norm of basic civility. I've been reading Rachel Maddow's "Prequel" and the rampant and open antisemitism of the likes of Father Coughlin and his ilk was not all that long ago--it certainly underlay a lot of society during my own childhood. It feels (again, I myself have no hard evidence) that this "let it all hang out" is triggered against certain groups by outside events: The "China virus" and spike of anti-Asian activity; the BLM protests and animus towards blacks even greater than usual; and now, the Gaza war, oversimplified as Arabs vs Jews. The Christian Nationalists in the US certainly don't count Jews as "white."
f) how many Jewish students actually felt unsafe during the protests and how much were they TOLD they were unsafe, in particular by one rabbi in New York. How many of the "slogans" of the protestors were actually antisemitic? "Free Palestine" can mean just that--not the destruction of Israel but basic ideas of equal rights in light of the West Bank settlers, for example. You don't have to get into the rhetoric of "colonialism" to know that the "settlers" are indeed taking over Palestinian lands by force, nor to recognize the effects on Gaza of the blockade by the Israeli government that has lasted for years. "Gee, settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005" isn't really an answer to the effects of the blockade.
Similarly, stating you are "antizionist" is only antisemitic if you accept the idea that to do so is to deny the right of Israel to exist. That's only one definition: language changes no matter how one protests the fact. Most people refer to the "Zionists" now as those in government and their supporters who DO want to actually take over Palestinian lands.
Even "from the river to the sea" is fraught with ambiguity. It is the least defendable chant, but it can mean "from the river to the sea there must be peace." And one should not forget that Likud in 1977 had an actual manifesto: "Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty." And Netanyahu has used (last January) the actual phrase in relation to his government's aims.
When the war started I spent a LOT of time looking into the background. The Palestinians have been given short shrift since 1947--the best lands were divided back then primarily to the benefit of Israel. After that the 1968 war ate more territory and the Oslo Accords even divided the West Bank into enclaves in what was formally considered all Palestinians. I have subscribed to Haaretz. Admittedly it is left wing, but it is also Israeli, and it regularly brings out things the normal news ignores.
What I am seeing a lot is a bunch of people on both sides who haven't bothered to get educated on the total picture. We are in a war, here, of talking points with no examination of their truth or whether they rely on overgeneralization the same way anti-immigrant paranoia is stoked up.
You are indeed a brave man Justin. I can never really get into thinking deeply about the Israel-Palestine conflict because it's been going on my whole life, in one way or another. I read the comments you posted from your readers with great interest and I thought many had excellent points, until I'd read a rebutal then change my mind! The obvious utopia would be peaceful co-existence brought about by mutual understanding and good will. I do question whether that could ever realistically happen.
Choosing my words carefully here, but do you think certain religious doctrine could be sidelined in the name of peace? I admit I'm skeptical that centuries of anti-judaism and tribal hatred can be overcome in a generation or two. And of course it's not all one-sided, but one can't help but notice that Palestine is just one of many Arab nations, and I don't think any of them get along with Israel, politically or idealogically. Correct me if I'm wrong and yes, I tend to be a pessimist regarding this war.
Thanks for this. I find that there is a lack of knowledge about the history of this area and the peoples who live there. For a very accessible review I would recommend an essay by Wade Davis called The Promised Land in his recent book of essays Beneath the Surface of Things. Written before October 7.
After first reading your Star piece to prepare, followed by this, I can’t help but go… “I have no idea what to do anymore.” Maybe exhaustion is just from being in union circles who have begun infighting because any stance of support for Palestinians leads to accusations of anti-semitism.
It’s really difficult to thread the needle! Even in discussions where you try to have good faith arguments, hear and listen with empathy in discussions, you end up nowhere, and suddenly last minute coups are attempted.
A lot of words are being said and it never feels like enough. It’s depressing as hell. It makes everyone callous and hard.
Thank you for your brevity in bringing this issue forward
This is very catty and well deserved.
No need to apologize for feeling you're running behind, posts like this are a testament to the amount of work you are doing in trying to deal with such a complicated issue honestly.
A well balanced piece of work. I wish we saw more of that from journalists.
Thank you for a thoughtful, nuanced piece, Justin. It's excellent. I've shared it with people who are following the compelling issues you've raised. You're doing great work!
You are indeed a brave man, Justin Ling. A very tough issue.
A very complex topic. Thanks for this. I think trying to wage peace is the way forward. I am currently rereading Richard Rhodes' excellent 4 books about the creation of the Atomic Bomb and the Cold War which followed. I think he clearly makes the case that a visionary leader, who is willing to live with the consequences of de-escalation is key; as well as being clear that that leader need not be lilly-white. I sure hope such a leader arises, and I fear that the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 may have made the arrival of another such leader anytime soon hard to envision.
Thanks so much for this article. And for tackling the issue to begin with. Waging peace is incredibly important and incredibly difficult.
Great read! I appreciate your attempt to look at this with a nuanced perspective. I also appreciate the many voices you included. I have often been accused of "both siding" this. Our need as humans to identify who is the good guy and who is the bad guy helps no one - let alone Palestinians. I have made a concerted effort to listen to voices from both sides who are interested in peace. That means Israeli and Jewish voices - and the voices of the Palestinian diaspora. The approach they all have in common is this. Neither Israel , nor Palestine is going anywhere. Try as both parties might to eliminate each other, it will not happen short of a real genocide. It is 100% necessary to critique the Israeli government, Hamas and other Iranian proxies (Hezboula, Houthis, etc) for their actions. It is necessary and effective. Advocates for peace do this well. It is possible to "both side" this conflict because both sides are wrong and at the same time justified. One of the things that many of these peace advocates talk about is the need to listen and understand each other's stories. One thing this conflict has taught me is that history is about perspective. Until we are able to sit down and listen and accept that each side has a different perspective of the same history - there will never be peace. I would argue that our constant positioning here in the west as either pro Palestine or Pro Israel perpetuates this and damages the chances for any kind of lasting peace, and from the voices of Palestinian activists - it infantilizes Palestinians. When someone asks me where I stand here is what I say. "I am Pro Palestinian, Pro Israel but most importantly I am pro humanity.
With everything, it matters *how* you 'both sides' an argument. As you point out, Cheryl, if it means actually considering all sides in a complicated conflict: How, on earth, could that be a bad thing? Demanding people set their position based on half the facts is absurd.
The bad kind of 'both sides'ing means never criticizing anyone — or always criticizing everyone — and never taking a stance on anything.
But as you point out, actively advocating for peace is very much taking a side! Thanks for the comment.
Thank you Justin for your ongoing effort to make sense of the senseless! I appreciate you!
I struggle to see how anyone can support the current Israeli governments actions in gaza. It may not be technically genocide, but it’s clearly a massacre that is being propped up by other western nations. Clearly Hamas needs to go, but as you have pointed out, they are not going to be bombed out of existence as they are a reaction to ongoing injustice.
As a bit of an aside, I was in Seattle on the weekend to attend what I can only label a Queer Anarchist Folk Punk show. I am neither queer nor an anarchist, but as a punk rock fan, this is where the fire is currently. If you are 20something and you are not pissed off at the world, there is probably not much hope for you. lol. anyway
The opening band, who identified them selves as anti zionist jews, closed their set by descending into the crowd of 500 people all singing the lyrics to a song protesting the American support of the Israeli government. Everyone in the room seemed to know the lyrics, it was wild.
My partner and I had long conversation on the drive home about the intersection between the queer community and anarchy, when from the out side it seems like one choice in the upcoming election would be better then the other, but it’s potentially not?
There may be a nuanced conversation to be had around the future of Israel, though my personal feelings have not changed in 30 years, but if you are not disgusted with the atrocities being committed I really don’t know what sort of conversation there is to have.
Michael Chabon’s the Yiddish Policeman’s Union is probably worth a re read…
anyway.
https://youtu.be/pdG-CkK7KPk?si=ghaX1AdeDvFqj5No
I can't put thoughts into language with the same fluidity as the author, so please accept my point form comments:
• the sympathy the West felt for Israel after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack quickly evaporated due to the disproportionate Israeli response.
• Short of stopping the killing, the only counteraction was a public relations campaign. Pictures of hostages were glued to street posts like children's faces on milk cartons. What were we supposed to do – keep our eyes peeled for hostages in downtown Toronto? “Journalists” were invited to view video of the Hamas attack and its aftermath, and articles were written and published. Some even argued that Hamas was responsible for civilian deaths in Gaza.
• Meanwhile, Israeli supporters tried (somewhat successfully) to portray anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian protesters as antisemitic, an old canard. A girl with an Israel flag draped over her shoulder was harassed as she approached a pro-Palestine encampment and the media portrayed her as a Jewish girl. If someone draped a swastika over their shoulders would they be called a German or a nazi?
Capital Pride criticized Israel and a rabbi said Jews felt excluded. The mayor of Ottawa and other prominent institutions and politicians boycotted the Capital Pride Parade, including hospitals whose mandates would surely suggest that 40,000 deaths is at least concerning.
• There are extremists on every side of every issue in every country, so, yes, there are going to be anti-semites in the protests, but using the few as representative of the majority is an age-old technique to influence public opinion.
• This conflict is about more than the survival of a Jewish homeland. In the nineteenth century, after the British gained control of the Suez canal, they wanted a nearby presence without incurring the costs associated with a colony. Contacts were made with a fledgling zionist movement in Europe and formal talks followed the formation of the Zionist Organization. This was all before WWI when “the sick man of Europe” still held the subject lands.
Balfour Declaration, re-drawing the boundaries of Palestine to include an appendage reaching the Gulf of Aqaba, the British Mandate for Palestine, Jewish immigration – all part of the geo-strategic plan. Britain bowing out and their waning global power, and American waxing global power endowed the plan for Israel with American backing.
When you see Blinken et al publicly travelling and dialoguing for peace while the American president privately streams arms and ammunition to Israel even though 40,000 have been killed, infrastructure destroyed and people living in tents, you know that Israel will always exist as long as the U.S. wants it to, regardless of any organic peace movements in Israel, Palestine or the world. De-humanizing the Palestinians by Israeli governments such as Netanyahu’s also serves this purpose.
Appreciate this nuanced look at a thorny issue.
40,000 dead in the Sri Lankan Civil War, and we barely noticed. Because they have no diaspora here, and little economic impact. I keep reminding myself to try to take a long historical view, because I can't stop the horror, so I just remind myself this is one of MANY horrors in my world, and I accepted the others, like Sri Lanka and Congo, without going mad. (I also wonder what it was like for Canadians to watch genocidal fascists bomb 40,000 people to death in LONDON, while America continued to keep her hands in her pockets until personally attacked...no anti-American demonstrations over that? Somehow we kept up our relationship...)
With a little luck and vegetables, I'll make it another 10-12 years until a few things will happen in the same decade:
1) "The Middle East Doesn't Matter, Except for Oil" (Gwynne Dyer's cry) will become "The Middle East Doesn't Matter". economically. In mindshare, they will be in the same boat as Sri Lanka.
2) Shifting demographics will make it possible to piss off Israel's strongest defenders in North America and still win an election. "Defenders" does not elide an ethnic reference. Some of the strongest defenders are Christian fundamentalists, who, ironically, are North America's worst anti-semites. But they are also in demographic decline because their kids don't agree.
When those turnovers happen, Israel will find itself in the same historical situation, as those in many previous attempts to colonize a land that broadly opposes you. Nobody has summarized THAT better than journalist Gabriel Rotello, in 2008. It's not good.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/israel-the-next-60-years_b_102693
I am in total agreement with your caution about how language is used in considering this disaster. I avoid words like "genocide" or even "apartheid" though the latter really DOES apply to "occupied" areas like the West Bank and East Jerusalem. You only have to look at pictures of the actual walls erected around Palestinian towns and neighborhoods, and read about the checkpoints, not to mention the settler attacks.
The biggest language issue is saying that "Israel" is doing X. Most people understand that it is the government of Israel running the show, including reports which detail how the government is keeping the major news outlets in Israel from letting the Israeli people know what their troops are doing. (it's hard to ignore the protests over hostages, but it is hard to see whether absent the hostages the Israeli people would object to the actual execution of the war the way so many of us objected to the war in Vietnam.)
I think it is safe to say certain elements of the government support "genocide" in the broadest sense of forcing Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank to allow expansion of Israel into their lands. Perhaps "ethnic cleansing" is a marginally less loaded word, not having the -cide syllable that suggests it must be by murder.
What throws me most, as a retired lawyer, is the paucity of EVIDENCE of so many allegations, so that it is impossible to decide how to decipher how they fit into the total picture. IDF claims are rarely supported by WHY they claim what they do, and rarely do they report on the results of the investigations they always say they are making of various issues involving behavior of their soldiers, either in Gaza or the West Bank. When they do release the results, there seems to be counterevidence that they ignore--the recent killing of the American-Turkish woman is an example.
Another such problem involves the pre-October 7th attacks by Hamas. One side says those (suicide bombers included) were reactions to things Israelis did to Palestinians--proximately, not in general. The other side calls it "continuing terror" suggesting mindless hatred. I haven't been able to find any actual accounting of the attacks since Hamas took power and what factors were behind each. Similarly, while Hamas lobs missiles, the Iron Dome does stop most of them. How many Israelis have been killed by such, and (again) what--before the war began--prompted the missiles?
I can certainly understand Israeli fears for their safety, certainly in the past year, but I do have questions
a) How realistic is it to claim Hamas is in fact an "existential" threat to Israel on its own? Before the war it had 40-50 thousand members. How many of those were soldiers and how many were just government functionaries--it IS in fact a coup-established authoritarian government handing out perks to members the same way Tammany Hall did, not to mention trump's dreamworld? Even assuming they were ALL soldiers, The IDF has 160K with 465,000 reserves. And how much of the fear of that is being ginned up in a similar way to trump's rants about immigrants? Again, I haven't seen much evidence of WHY Hamas itself should be seen as an existential threat.
b) How much has the war in Gaza made things worse (from an existential point of view) by activating other groups like Hezbollah and the Houthis? That is one way of wondering whether the prosecution of the war is INCREASING any such threat to Israel. Given the reaction of the world to the decimation of Gaza, one can wonder who exactly is the existential threat to Israel: the terrorists or its own government? Certainly on the eve of the war treaties with the major Arab nations were in progress. How much of the idea that every Arab hates Israel based on, well, outdated data?
c) The history of the Jews is one of endless persecution and, with the Holocaust, extreme killings. I have always supported the IDEA of Israel as a corrective to that. But does the fact that a people have been persecuted give them the right to persecute others? Again, this is not just the major killings in Gaza, but also the treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
d) As far as rising anti-semitism in the US goes, my own sense is that this is way more the result of trump's allowing people to let their worst sides all hang out. Antisemitism and racism are not DEAD in American by any means, just tamped under by what for a while was a norm of basic civility. I've been reading Rachel Maddow's "Prequel" and the rampant and open antisemitism of the likes of Father Coughlin and his ilk was not all that long ago--it certainly underlay a lot of society during my own childhood. It feels (again, I myself have no hard evidence) that this "let it all hang out" is triggered against certain groups by outside events: The "China virus" and spike of anti-Asian activity; the BLM protests and animus towards blacks even greater than usual; and now, the Gaza war, oversimplified as Arabs vs Jews. The Christian Nationalists in the US certainly don't count Jews as "white."
f) how many Jewish students actually felt unsafe during the protests and how much were they TOLD they were unsafe, in particular by one rabbi in New York. How many of the "slogans" of the protestors were actually antisemitic? "Free Palestine" can mean just that--not the destruction of Israel but basic ideas of equal rights in light of the West Bank settlers, for example. You don't have to get into the rhetoric of "colonialism" to know that the "settlers" are indeed taking over Palestinian lands by force, nor to recognize the effects on Gaza of the blockade by the Israeli government that has lasted for years. "Gee, settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005" isn't really an answer to the effects of the blockade.
Similarly, stating you are "antizionist" is only antisemitic if you accept the idea that to do so is to deny the right of Israel to exist. That's only one definition: language changes no matter how one protests the fact. Most people refer to the "Zionists" now as those in government and their supporters who DO want to actually take over Palestinian lands.
Even "from the river to the sea" is fraught with ambiguity. It is the least defendable chant, but it can mean "from the river to the sea there must be peace." And one should not forget that Likud in 1977 had an actual manifesto: "Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty." And Netanyahu has used (last January) the actual phrase in relation to his government's aims.
When the war started I spent a LOT of time looking into the background. The Palestinians have been given short shrift since 1947--the best lands were divided back then primarily to the benefit of Israel. After that the 1968 war ate more territory and the Oslo Accords even divided the West Bank into enclaves in what was formally considered all Palestinians. I have subscribed to Haaretz. Admittedly it is left wing, but it is also Israeli, and it regularly brings out things the normal news ignores.
What I am seeing a lot is a bunch of people on both sides who haven't bothered to get educated on the total picture. We are in a war, here, of talking points with no examination of their truth or whether they rely on overgeneralization the same way anti-immigrant paranoia is stoked up.
You are indeed a brave man Justin. I can never really get into thinking deeply about the Israel-Palestine conflict because it's been going on my whole life, in one way or another. I read the comments you posted from your readers with great interest and I thought many had excellent points, until I'd read a rebutal then change my mind! The obvious utopia would be peaceful co-existence brought about by mutual understanding and good will. I do question whether that could ever realistically happen.
Choosing my words carefully here, but do you think certain religious doctrine could be sidelined in the name of peace? I admit I'm skeptical that centuries of anti-judaism and tribal hatred can be overcome in a generation or two. And of course it's not all one-sided, but one can't help but notice that Palestine is just one of many Arab nations, and I don't think any of them get along with Israel, politically or idealogically. Correct me if I'm wrong and yes, I tend to be a pessimist regarding this war.
Thanks for this. I find that there is a lack of knowledge about the history of this area and the peoples who live there. For a very accessible review I would recommend an essay by Wade Davis called The Promised Land in his recent book of essays Beneath the Surface of Things. Written before October 7.
After first reading your Star piece to prepare, followed by this, I can’t help but go… “I have no idea what to do anymore.” Maybe exhaustion is just from being in union circles who have begun infighting because any stance of support for Palestinians leads to accusations of anti-semitism.
It’s really difficult to thread the needle! Even in discussions where you try to have good faith arguments, hear and listen with empathy in discussions, you end up nowhere, and suddenly last minute coups are attempted.
A lot of words are being said and it never feels like enough. It’s depressing as hell. It makes everyone callous and hard.