Hitzonim | Outsiders

Condemning Hamas; Urging Restraint; Resisting Binary Thinking

I published this post for Newsletter readers on October 13, 2023 (less than a week after 10/7, and I had already condemned the Hamas terrorist actions the day following the attacks right here in this very newsletter. In the two weeks after publishing the following essay, the pressure for categorical statements and choosing a side has dominated the rhetoric about the Israeli-Hamas war and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This rhetoric has advanced the same binary thinking that I cautioned against when writing this post 15 days ago.

While I don’t want to center myself, I want to emphasize that condemning Hamas, while criticizing Israel’s occupation and expressing my concern (remember, two weeks ago) that Israel would engage in a disproportionate military response that would amount to ethnic cleansing were fears that I articulated in the following post. I was able to articulate that complexity because I’ve been advocating for Palestinian human rights and for a secure, sovereign, and self-determined Palestinian state for more than a decade. Working for Palestinian human rights is not only because it is the just and right thing to do, it is also a pro-Israel position. You can be a Jewish state or you can be a democratic state, but you can’t be both.

One problem with social media is that it is transactional, not relational. We don’t share our entire lives on social all the time. I organized and ran the “Indianapolis Interfaith Conversation Network” that convened interfaith participants inside people’s living rooms to work toward understanding and peace-making. I started that maybe 15 years ago! While mostly in-person (long before Covid made everyone virtual savvy), at least a few of those meetings we virtually brought in a Palestinian Muslim to join us.

I don’t share this to get cookies. But the context is helpful, I think. Some of us have been in peace-making work for decades in several different settings. I have beloved family who are Christian, beloved family who are Jewish, beloved friends who are Muslim. I know people who served in the IDF, and I know people who served in the American armed forces. I know people whose lives are centered on Palestinian human rights. It’s important that we don’t assume a person’s political stance on any issue. I’m re-sharing this essay because those new to the issues who want to see categorical statements of this or that could use the reminder that many people have been in the shit for a long, long time.

Shalom, salaam, peace.

Baruch ata ADONAI, haporeis sukat shalom aleinu,
V’al kol amo Yisrael v’al Y’rushalayim.

Blessed are You, LORD, who spreads Your tabernacle of peace over us,
And over all Gd’s people Israel and over Jerusalem.

I opened this week’s Sunday Post with an admittedly shallow few words on grieving the violence in Israel-Palestine and a nod to standing with the innocent Israelis and Palestinians. I call these words shallow not because they were insincere but because they were reactive, spoken before I collected myself to compose an appropriate response.

Though I did not know at the time, Hamas’ attack had (and has) included several more atrocities than indiscriminate rocket fire and military combat, as though that weren’t enough, including targeting civilians, hostage taking, and the killing of children. As with any rapidly evolving situation, the misinformation, disinformation, and unverified reporting must be identified through the noise.

I condemn these attacks perpetrated by Hamas, and I raise my voice with others who demand the immediate release of hostages. I mourn for those who are living this nightmare in Israel and Palestine. Justice must be pursued and Hamas held to account.

Likewise, not knowing at the time—though I think we all assumed/feared it would be the case, Israel’s response would include air strikes and amassing a ground assault that will turn Gaza to rubble. Further, Israel has taken to bombing the Rafah Crossing into Egypt to block exit by Gazans and incoming aid, in what it is calling a “total siege.” Israel’s government is cutting off supplies and fuel into the territory, tying the allowance of aid and supplies to the release of hostages. More than two million Gazans are trapped, vulnerable to pummeling air strikes. Now it appears that the Israeli Defense Forces have issued a call for anyone living in north Gaza to evacuate to the south within 24 hours. This includes a population of more than one million people.

I condemn the acts of Israel’s government that has for decades oppressed the Palestinian people, and in this moment, I raise my voice with others who urge military restraint, establishing humanitarian corridors, and the de-escalation of violence. I mourn for those who are living this nightmare in Israel and Palestine.

I’ve been committed to a peaceful resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict through a two-state solution for several years, and more recently, I’ve been involved in the Just Peace movement, began by the United Church of Christ in 1985. The movement toward a Just Peace (originally an alternative to Just War theory) has an interfaith and international influence. A two-state solution and a Just Peace travel together in my mind.

These ideas—the right to sovereignty, self-determination, and self defense—are the same that I wish for the people of Israel and of Palestine. Yet these ideas also, especially for muddy definitions of notions like “protection” and “defense,” can be in tension with the idea of a nonviolent Just Peace that declares “Peace is Possible!” as its primary conviction. I felt this tension when I typed those words Sunday.

On the one hand, the right to self defense feels exactly like the right position. Hamas is a terror organization that does not represent the people of Palestine. They are the perpetrators of this terrible attack that deliberately targeted innocent civilians, including children and taking hostages. These are war crimes. It is the largest attack and killing of innocent Jewish lives since the Shoah, the Holocaust. People living in Israel are first-hand witnesses to the terror and the loss of life. Jewish people living outside of Israel are first-hand witnesses to pro-Palestinian rallies that, in some cases, include the waving of swastikas. Even disclosing that one is Jewish makes one vulnerable to accusation of aligning oneself with the government of Israel. Of course, being Jewish and criticizing Israel has found many labeled as “self-hating Jews.” This is the sort of binary thinking that we often use as a cudgel to bludgeon nuance—you’re either an oppressor aligned with the state or you’re a self-hating Jew who rejects your own homeland. The truth is that I know many Jews who have been working for Palestinian human rights for decades, and they rightly see their working on behalf of Palestinian rights and sovereignty to be a Pro-Israel position.

Meanwhile, Palestinians are watching as their siblings in Gaza face the total destruction of their homes, hospitals, and houses of worship. Israel has cut off all supplies in and out of Gaza. Our worst fear is that Israel will engage in a military campaign of dehumanization and mass murder of Gazans, a population that is 50% children, given the poor life expectancy at the hands of Israel’s apartheid rule. What is an all out offensive is beginning to look like ethnic cleansing, at worst, like a genocide.

Of course, ethnic cleansing, at worst genocide, is exactly how my Jewish siblings around the world are experiencing this terror attack by Hamas. I have watched many friends raise the very real experience of generational trauma. One friend posted pictures of swastikas drawn on the sidewalks and crosswalks along the path that their kids walk to school.

This is America, 2023.

Jewish parents are escorting their Jewish kids to school while walking alongside swastikas, and many of these same families (it’s true in the instance I’m referencing) have family and friends living in Israel who were just the target of this terror attack.

Somehow we must remind ourselves moment-by-moment that Hamas does not unilaterally speak for all Palestinians, and Israel’s government and settler colonialism does not unilaterally speak for all Israelis or all Jewish people. We must find our humanity in each other by refusing to see events through the window of hatred, death, oppression, and genocide that distorts our understanding of each other, and instead, see each other in the mirror of our own humanity; through b’tzelem elohim that we are all created in the image of the Holy One, as I learn through my tradition.

Because I’ve been involved in interfaith organizing for decades, my social media timelines present posts from my Jewish siblings showing pictures of swastikas and hate speech in their neighborhoods, right beside posts from my Muslim cousins voicing calls to Free Palestine, recognizing the terrible history of occupation. I see friends posting quotes, articles, and infographics detailing the horrors of living life under occupation. We can denounce the acts of terror perpetrated by Hamas, while acknowledging the systemic oppression of Palestinians. We must resist zero-sum, binary thinking that demands of people that they pick a side; with us or against us.

I was in my young-20s when 9/11 and its aftermath ensued. The terrible civilian and military loss of life in the following wars should never have happened. Added to the international loss of life and political destabilization, American society was fractured, with outpourings of hatred toward Islamic communities and communities who are not even Muslim but victims of mistaken identity, like the Sikh community. In the post-9/11 world many failed to make the necessary distinction that those carrying out the attacks were not representing the views of all people from their countries of origin or of all people who share in an ethnicity or a religious tradition. We cannot make the same mistake twice.

I’ve lived through this broad brushed, overly generalized with-us-or-against-us mentality once, and the signs of his myopic view are showing again.

I’ve lived during the time of the Unite the Right rally, the sitting President retweeting “White Power” hate speech, and neo-Nazis marching outside of Disney World. I’ve also lived through the sitting President issue a “Muslim Travel ban.”

A few months ago, new neighbors moved in next door. We were thrilled to learn that each other identifies as Jewish, me and my non-Jewish spouse who supports my traditions, and our new neighbors and friends who grew up in Jewish areas in Chicago and D.C. Our first meeting was deeply meaningful, given that we’re living on the opposite side of the city from the Jewish community. Neither of us imagined that we’d end up living next door to other Jews! We also shared in the same concerns during our first meeting, when our new neighbors wondered out loud, “Can we decorate for Hanukkah around here?” I’m not feigning oppression, I only mean to call out that even in a somewhat affluent suburban neighborhood, tucked away in a back cul-de-sac, surrounded by friendly neighbors, we still think twice before just assuming we can openly decorate for a Jewish holiday or openly disclose our Jewishness. I know people in the tradition of Islam and many other non-Christian traditions or non-European ethnicities experience this unease every day.

I paused these past few days to collect myself and gather the thoughts that I wanted to share. I’m not there yet, and I think it’s OK, better than OK even, maybe it’s actually good to say that I don’t know what to say. Too many broken relationships, harmful remarks, or ignorant bigotry have their source in people speaking before they’ve paused to collect themselves. But so too can harm come from not speaking when we must. I hope that my statements in this post do not cause unintended harm but only serve to supplement all the media with a personal perspective.

I’ll close with this excerpt from an opinion by Yuval Noah Harari, appearing in the Washington Post:

On one level, Israelis are paying the price for years of hubris, during which our governments and many ordinary Israelis felt we were so much stronger than the Palestinians, that we could just ignore them. There is much to criticize about the way Israel has abandoned the attempt to make peace with the Palestinians and has held for decades millions of Palestinians under occupation.

But this does not justify the atrocities committed by Hamas, which in any case has never countenanced any possibility for a peace treaty with Israel and has done everything in its power to sabotage the Oslo peace process. Anyone who wants peace must condemn and impose sanctions on Hamas and demand the immediate release of all hostages and Hamas’s complete disarmament.

A few weeks ago in a post in this newsletter, I included a list of the common set of Jewish values. These were t’filah, prayer, contemplation; tzedakah, the pursuit of justice; and t’shuvah, repentance or return to Gd. May the qualities of contemplation, justice, and return be on our hearts and lips in the coming moments, hours, days, and weeks.

Peace is Possible. Tikkun Olam, or repairing the world to shalom, wholeness, completion is before us. We have a very, very long way to go, and the fighting must stop and hostages released before we take that first step, but take that first step we must.

In community friends. Shalom, salaam, peace,

-a. jPK