As I am writing this, almost 10 months have passed since October 7th. During that time, Israel has been conducting a merciless war in Gaza in which the number of Palestinian dead is close to 40,000, and the number of wounded is climbing toward 100,000. It has become tragically clear that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no objective beyond holding on to his seat and that there is no one and nothing that he would not sacrifice in order to do so. While the number of living hostages is dwindling, the IDF is moving around the Strip in circles, and the population of Gaza is scrambling to stay out of its way and live another day. The mood in Gaza is desperation, and the mood in Israel is despair. There is much to be said about the actions of the Israeli Government over the past 10 months, and none of it is good. There is also much to be said about the consequences its actions will have in the weeks, months, and years ahead. But that is not for this column. My intention here is to focus on what I had thought was my “home team” and how it let me down. To do so, I must begin by looking at that fateful day when the wailing of the sirens across Israel jolted us awake at 6:29 a.m.
Misjudgment of Hamas’s Intentions
Like all Israelis and many Jews around the world, the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7th shook me to my very core. Having been a peace activist for most of my life and a political analyst for many years, it has long been my position that the Israeli Government’s efforts to delegitimize all means of nonviolent protest against the occupation – from the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement through resolutions submitted to the United Nations and appeals to international courts – would eventually leave the Palestinians with no alternative but to resort to arms. This is the context that must be recognized, not as an excuse but as part of the reality that shaped the course of events.
Despite that assessment, I was taken by surprise on many levels. There was the suddenness of the attack, which came at a time when the Israeli coalition was governing under its illusion of deterrence and many observers, myself among them, believed they were seeing signs of politicization in Hamas. The restraint it showed during the clashes between the Islamic Jihad and the IDF in May 2023, inter alia, was interpreted by many as evidence of a strategic change in its development as a political movement. In fact, in a paper published in June 2023 by Sada, an online journal of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Gaza-based political researcher Azzam Shaath wrote that “Hamas is now content to adopt a peaceful resistance approach and accept the idea of a phased solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a basis for a political settlement. Going forward, Hamas is reevaluating its strategy and leaning towards a permanent truce that could lead to direct negotiations with Israel, just as the PLO once did in response to international and regional changes.”
Yahya Sinwar had something very different in mind, however. He played along with Israel’s illusion of deterrence and accepted the applause Hamas received for demonstrating what Shaath described as “self-imposed neutralization,” all the while plotting how to deliver “the last promise” – when all heretics will convert to Islam or die. No need to lay out the fate of the Jewish state in that plan. Some may argue that this was a delusional vision promoted by Sinwar without the backing of what’s known as the “political wing” of Hamas, but that doesn’t absolve any of the Hamas leadership of responsibility for the attacks.
Worse than the suddenness was, of course, the brutality. The savagery of planning and executing the slaughter of entire families or taking toddlers prisoner to be used as bargaining chips is unfathomable. And while I can understand the frustration, anger, and, yes, hatred many Palestinians feel toward Israel and Israelis, I refuse to understand the ability to set human beings on fire. (Hold on, dear reader. There’s no need to remind me of the sadistic acts of terrorism perpetrated against defenseless Palestinians by messianic settlers such as Amiram Ben-Uliel or Yosef Ben-David. I am not suggesting that barbarity is exclusive to the Palestinians; I am saying that nothing justifies it, ever.)
Failures of the Israeli Leadership
Looking at the performance of the Israeli side, one can possibly accept that despite all the HUMINT, OSINT, and SIGINT, even the best intelligence services sometimes get things horribly wrong. One can take issue politically with the fact that the provocative plans of settlers to bring their Simchat Torah celebrations to the doorsteps of the Palestinians led to the deployment of additional troops in the West Bank, but that was not necessarily a mistake from the military point of view. For Israeli society, the trauma of October 7 was less about the errors that led up to the events than about the failure of the leadership’s response, leaving civilians alone to fight off the invading forces and abandoning survivors to fend for themselves in the days that followed.
Much has been said about the breaking of the social contract, about the government’s failure to fulfill its obligations to the citizenry. Having been a vehement opponent of the government since its inception and of the parties it encompasses long before the establishment of the despicable coalition, I cannot claim to have been disappointed. As the events unfolded, however, I was surprised by the lengths to which Netanyahu was and is willing to go in order to stay in power. Somehow, I had thought his desire to preserve what he could of his legacy would keep him from driving the country into the ground, but that does not seem to be the case.
Accepting the People’s Payment for the Sins of the Government
My disappointment came out of left field (pun intended), from some at home but primarily from progressive partners abroad – some of them personal friends and some of them longstanding colleagues in the fight to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict – who have shown themselves incapable of finding room in their hearts and minds to recognize the suffering of the Israeli side. They act as if the sins of the government are to be laid upon the people. Just like the Israeli leaders who proclaimed that there are no innocents in Gaza, these so-called defenders of human rights have failed to apply that humanity to the displaced, kidnapped, raped, wounded, tortured, and murdered Israeli victims.
There is no question that the price being paid by the Israeli side is dwarfed when compared with this second Nakba being experienced by the Palestinians, but compassion is not a numbers game. How is it that the name Hind Rajab, the five-year-old Palestinian left to die in a car in Gaza because the IDF didn’t allow rescue teams to reach her, appears on banners across university campuses but posters of Kfir Bibas, the infant taken hostage by Hamas, are torn down faster than they can be put up? How is it that the assumption of truth afforded women who claim abuse is not being applied when it comes to Israeli women at the hands of Palestinian attackers? Does #MeToo and sisterhood in general stop at the Green Line? How is it that protestors calling to “Free Palestine” choose to block the ambulance entrance to a Jewish hospital in Toronto, denying innocents their human rights and exhibiting racist views that consider all Jews legitimate targets for their rage against the Israeli Government’s oppression of the Palestinians?
But the biggest question, and the one that has led me to sever cooperation with many whom I had considered allies, is how can anyone who sees themself as a proponent of universal values and the rule of law defend the Hamas attacks on October 7th as legitimate resistance against the occupation?
Context Cannot Justify Terrorism
At the very beginning of this article, I talked about context, so I obviously understand that the attacks didn’t happen in a vacuum. And, yes, I am aware that international law allows oppressed peoples to take up arms to fight their oppressors. Had the Hamas attacks been an assault on Israeli military bases and police stations alone, I would have found the loss of life painful, but such is the case when dealing with the casualties of war. The intentional targeting of civilians, however, the scenes of partygoers being hunted down like prey and shot while cowering in dumpsters, the whispers of mothers calling in to the TV studios begging for help as terrorists pounded on the doors of their shelters, the video of Shani Louk’s broken body being paraded through the streets of Gaza to the cheers of onlookers, these are hard to forget and beyond justification regardless of the context. This is not resistance; it is terrorism.
The surprise is that what should be obvious to all defenders of human rights is easily seen when the perpetrators are Israelis but is clouded in rationalizations and apologetics when it comes to the Palestinians. The Israeli left and progressives around the world are quick to hold the Israeli side to account for its transgressions, as they should. My colleagues and I have no problem accusing the Israeli Government of violating international law when it comes to the settlement enterprise, no problem accusing it of apartheid and annexation when it comes to the occupied territories, no problem accusing it of war crimes when it comes to the denial of humanitarian aid, no problem accusing it of ethnic cleansing when it comes to population transfers, and no problem accusing the world of double standards when it comes to comparing its stand on Russia-Ukraine with its position on Israel- Palestine. Yet many of these same colleagues are incapable of mouthing the word terrorism when it comes to Palestinians murdering Israelis and then settling down for a quick snack at their kitchen table.
While both sides have a share in the responsibility for failed peace negotiations in the past, there is no question that successive Netanyahu governments have convinced much of the Israeli public that the two-state solution will lead to the “Final Solution.” With the diplomatic track closed to the Palestinians since the collapse of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s initiative in 2014, it is no surprise that escalating violence filled the vacuum. The nature of that violence, however, cannot be overlooked or excused. Just as Israel’s right to self-defense does not give it the right to carpet-bomb densely populated residential neighborhoods, so the Palestinians’ right to self-determination does not give them the right to massacre civilians.
Prejudice Cannot Be Whitewashed in the Name of Liberation
None of this is to say that I can be counted among the leftists who say they “smartened up” on October 7th and no longer believe that a peace agreement can or should be made with the Palestinians in the foreseeable future. My firm belief in the two-state solution as the only viable way to end the conflict has not been shaken. In fact, while I am hesitant to say that anything good may come out of all the death and destruction of the past 10 months, the international community’s recognition that engagement to resolve the conflict is a global interest and the renewed calls for and, in some cases, the recognition of a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel as measures to make the two-state solution irreversible are cause for hope.
The value of a united left in the pursuit of peace cannot be overstated, but for that to happen, the knee-jerk condemnation of all military action by the Israelis and the absolution of all violence on the part of the Palestinians must end. Anyone who claims to recognize the importance of international law must acknowledge war crimes no matter which side perpetrated them, and anyone who believes in human rights must be capable of sympathizing with all the innocent, no matter what their nationality. Prejudice and intolerance can’t be whitewashed by practicing them in the name of liberation.