December 23, 2023
Talking About Gaza and Finding Out
by Hal Wright

Since October 7, I've been called both an ignorant Zionist and an unkind antisemite on social media. Having taught teenagers for 30 years, I've been called worse. And as is the case for teenagers, most of the name-calling boils down to fear and panic, the companions of war. Either friends (and former friends) needed that I be in lockstep with their partisan views, or they needed a punching bag, or both. My empathy for them has not diminished. But their rhetoric is counterproductive and must be addressed.

I was called a Zionist for stating that Israel has a right to exist, that Hamas is a terrorist organization, and that it was necessary for Israel to go to war after October 7. I was called an antisemite for stating that Netanyahu supported Hamas before he began trying to destroy it. The first statement is an opinion, the second, a fact. The statements require context which I am attempting to provide here and in social media posts. Because whenever I criticize Hamas or Israel, the listener assumes I’m fully aligned with the opposite side, which could not be further from the truth.

I have been accused of not knowing what it’s like to be Jewish or to be Palestinian in this moment, and that much is true. I do know how to take apart an argument, though. When an argument uses (or implies) the phrases “our people” and “their people,” invariably “our people” will be portrayed as innocent victims worthy of total security and “their people” will be dehumanized such that slaughtering them is morally acceptable. When an argument starts the clock at October 7 or fast-forwards through October 7 it is cherry-picking facts. When an argument contains the phrase “from the river to the sea” or rejects a two-state solution it will go on to rationalize ethnic cleansing or murder. When an argument delineates all the abuses one side committed against the other it is using the past to justify violence, not looking forward to find peace. When a person “hates Hamas” or “hates Netanyahu,” without condemning their respective atrocities, the “hate” is performative.

Both sides attempt to wrest the mantle of victimhood from the other and both decry the silence of ordinary people in the middle. The Nakba was prompted either by Israeli ethnic cleansing or by invading Arabs. (The Nakba was prompted by both.) Israel has been exceedingly patient while under constant bombardment or it has ruthlessly expanded its borders. (Israel has by turns been both compassionate and exceedingly callous and greedy.) Israel is committing genocide, or it is minimizing civilian casualties as it obliterates Hamas. (Israel hasn't committed genocide, yet.)

Perhaps the silence of people in the middle stems less from antisemitism or Islamophobia and more from not wanting to set foot into a propagandistic morass. Perhaps the only people motivated to remain engaged are thick-skinned policy wonks like me who want to end the violence, avoid an expansion of the war, and protect United States interests in an increasingly incendiary environment.

Hamas must be weakened to where it can never attack Israel again. But methodology, given the deadly consequences, matters. I stand with the Biden administration, which wants Israel to proceed more deliberately and surgically and to begin imagining a humane political and rebuilding process after conflict ceases; in short, to acknowledge the basic civil and economic rights of Palestinians. I wish Biden and Congress would give this message teeth by linking aid to Israel's strategic plan.

The Israeli-Hamas war represents a spectacular, horrific failure of politics on both sides. Hamas and Netanyahu rely on rage and hate to stay in power. And so far, ordinary people on both sides are giving them more than enough rage and hate to fuel a catastrophic war. At the same time, Hamas was unpopular prior to October 7 (though it's popularity has increased during Israel's invasion), while Netanyahu was unpopular prior to 10/7 and has remained so. Hamas is a brutal authoritarian regime which cares very little about popularity. Israel is a democracy, albeit not quite democratic enough to rid itself of its flawed, authoritarian leader.

On the other side, turning the entirety of an unincorporated, densely populated territory into a rocket-firing military fortification disqualifies Hamas from claiming they have any regard at all for lives of ordinary Palestinians. And their continued refusal to acknowledge the right of Israel to exist and indeed Jewish people to stay alive made devastation in Gaza of some form or another inevitable.

I have angered both sides by focusing mostly on the present and only a little on this history. I have been accused of not knowing anything about the history of Palestine because I haven't mentioned it much. For me though, an obsession with the past is why Hamas felt obligated to attack on October 7. An obsession with the past is why Israeli leaders feels obligated to level most of Gaza and to place Gaza's entire population in mortal jeopardy. Such obsessions are predictable human reactions to ongoing trauma. Tormented by their memories, people between the river and the sea and their allies experience perpetual, heartbreaking misery.

Israel isn't going anywhere. Palestinians will remain aggrieved, oppressed and scattered until they have a homeland. The answer, a two-state solution with economically-connected enclaves, is staring us all in the face. Until ordinary Palestinians and Israelis see themselves as members of the same group — victims of dysfunctional governments and the bloodthirsty minorities which support them — there will be no peace. While a coalition of the peaceful seems now, as it did in 1948, over the horizon and out of reach, such a coalition is the only hope.