Today when many people are criticizing Israel harshly and often soundly for its conduct in Gaza and the West Bank, I offer this reflection in the hope that it presents a long view of the current tragedy of two peoples—equals before God—that is as balanced as the facts allow, and that ultimately will offer hope.
The long-standing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians surged on October 7, 2023, this time caused by the horrific Hamas attack on Israelis near Gaza: an attack that prompted the Israelis to fight back in self-defense and go on to inflict vastly disproportionate carnage, starvation, and societal damage on Palestinian civilians.
As a Quaker, an American, and from my own observations, I believe that all people are created equal. While many people don’t believe this, surely the agony that a Palestinian mother feels is much the same as the agony that an Israeli mother feels on seeing her child shot dead or blown apart. For an American mother, as well, this agony would be equally intense.
My son-in-law, Michael, is a veteran of the Israel Defense Forces. Before marrying him, my daughter, Erin, converted to Judaism in Jerusalem. Their three daughters are Jews. The five of them live in London and have dual citizenship in the United Kingdom. Thirty years ago, Erin, Michael, their newborn daughter Noa, and Michael’s parents had almost completed arrangements to celebrate Noa’s birth in a coffee shop in Rishon LeZion, near Tel Aviv, on the afternoon that a Palestinian blew it up, killing a number of people.
Violence like that, though horrific and counterproductive, is not unprovoked. The same is true for the October 7 attack. How are a people likely to react when another people, who believe they are superior human beings, expel them from their ancestral land or occupy it, demean them, restrict them, harm them, and kill them with impunity? Certainly, many Native American nations reacted violently when my forebears from Europe did this to them. Why would we expect Palestinians who have been treated similarly to react differently? Wouldn’t Israeli Jews probably react with force (violence) if they were in the Palestinians’ place?
Israel clearly has the right to defend itself and also the right to determine for itself, without interference from other nations, the ways it exercises those rights. It is equally clear, however, that exercising these rights provides zero justification for—far exceeding the needs of self-defense—indiscriminately killing tens of thousands of children, women, and civilian men; burying more thousands alive under rubble; starving two million people (many of them to brain damage and death); depriving them of lifesaving medical care; and killing an inordinate number of healthcare providers, humanitarian-aid workers, civilians desperately seeking food, and journalists; as well as destroying homes, schools, mosques, hospitals, universities, and other elements of Palestinian culture that were doing remarkably well in the face of Israel’s long-imposed restrictions. I had thought better of Israel than that it would inflict such cruel, lawless, and needless devastation on its fellow human beings. It is encouraging that many Israelis protest this conduct.
Similarly, Israel’s self-defense against Hamas in Gaza cannot justify its settlers and soldiers destroying Palestinian life and property in the West Bank (which, along with Gaza, the people who live there and most nations of the world call “Palestine”) and continuing to annex land—that is, take without the owners’ permission. This is wrong when Russians do it to Ukrainians, but many say it is okay when Israelis do it to Palestinians.
The extent of U.S. support for Israel’s excesses, and its efforts to stifle knowledge about and criticism of Israel, make this our tragedy, too. They make me sad for my country. Where are free speech, truthful news, academic freedom, the vigorous interchange of ideas, the right to dissent and protest, due process of law, and compassion for the lives of others?
In 2011, my wife, Nancy, and I toured Ramallah Friends School (RFS) in the West Bank with the school’s then-director, Joyce Ajlouny, who now serves as general secretary of American Friends Service Committee. Though most of the school’s 1,200 students grew up speaking Arabic, they all soon became bilingual; we visited an eighth-grade science class that was being taught entirely in English. Palestinians, Joyce told us, had more college graduates per capita than any other Arab country. The school stressed tolerance and listening to opposing views. Joyce had the students read The Diary of Anne Frank to help them see that Jews have their own legacy of horror. Many RFS graduates had become prominent in the Palestinian community, making the school a force for enlightenment and reconciliation—to the extent that the latter was (and is) possible. The school had counselors to help students cope with their anxieties, live with their nightmares, and deal with their fear and anger at being shouted at by Israeli soldiers who were shooting Palestinians with impunity even back then.
The conduct of Israelis and Americans in Gaza and of Israeli settlers and soldiers in the West Bank since October 7 has illogically but predictably inflamed antisemitism across the world. My first memory of feeling the sting of this curse came in high school when a Jewish friend took another student’s antisemitic remarks in silence. I detest it all the more now that four-fifths of my progeny are Jews.
It is illogical, too, to claim—as many now do—that criticizing the excesses of the Jews who run a small nation in the Middle East is necessarily “antisemitic,” which means hating or being hostile toward all Jews everywhere. Many Jews, non-Jews who are not antisemitic, and especially those of us who admire Jews for the vastly disproportionate number of Nobel prizes they have won, have all criticized these excesses.
If 30 or more years ago, the much discussed two-state solution had resulted in the Israelis and Palestinians living side by side, each on their own land, it seems likely that the tragedy that escalated horrifically on October 7, 2023, and continues as I write despite efforts for a ceasefire, would not have occurred. Rather, these two peoples, who worship the same God, would now be living in peace and security, if not in total harmony. Over a thousand dead Israelis and scores of thousands of dead Palestinians—including more than 20,000 children at last report, not including the dead children under the rubble—would still be alive.
It is clear that Israelis desperately need to live in safety and that Palestinians desperately need to live not only in safety but also with their land restored, with no more military occupation, and with the same freedoms that Israelis now enjoy. Is a resolution of the conflict along these lines still possible? Would reaching it help restore Israel’s standing in the eyes of many people and nations? Wouldn’t it finally enable both peoples to live in peace?
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