A Tragic Impasse

Children Of Israel Are Never Alone

Hey, beloved tribe.

As I type this newsletter, I am also engaged in a very raw, very emotional ongoing conversation on a former Facebook friend’s page, where real life friends have entered the chat.

I want to share excerpts of these conversations here because I’m fully confident they’re emblematic of conversations taking place all over the internet between left-leaning Jews and our fellow progressives.

If I read them over in the most generous light, with the most optimistic interpretation, I can squint hard and see these exchanges as an authentic dialogue between people of mutual goodwill.

That’s what makes the impasse so tragic.

The post I responded to read:

I guess it’s too late for the Israeli military to go back in time and realize that using *civilian starvation* as a lever to make fanatical terrorists surrender is both clueless and a literal war crime. But in present reality, one idea would be to stop shooting at the crowds of starving people who are trying to access the limited amount of food you finally allowed back in? Just spitballing here.

One of the comments I posted in response was this:

I would be willing to bet money you have absolutely no idea what goes on at those sites. The threat of Hamas operatives rushing the aid. The looting. The capitalization on the chaos and confusion. The threats to the Israelis tasked with the impossible. So easy to judge from America as an outsider. Why don't you worry about our own fascist government?

Her:

I don’t believe someone needs to be an aid-distribution expert themselves to say “wow it is really bad that people are starving.” Your question reminds me of gun fanatics who demand granular knowledge of every make and model if someone expresses a wish for tighter laws.

Me:

Of course it’s really bad that people are suffering and dying in any war. That doesn't mean the calculus of how to aid civilians without fortifying Hamas is simple. And it doesn't absolve the West of only blaming Israel, ever, for every single thing that Hamas created and could also end at any moment but is choosing to sustain.

Her:

Look, obviously Hamas is a formidable enemy, or else I assume this war would have lasted weeks, not 20 months and counting. No one is saying that feeding the Palestinian population is operationally EASY under these circumstances, though the invading country still has legal and moral obligations to innocent civilians. But by Israel’s own statements, it’s deliberately blocking civilian aid as a bargaining chip. That sounds more like “won’t” than “can’t” to me. If it really is just a matter of lacking the ability to fulfill its humanitarian obligations unilaterally, there’s an entire battalion of NGOs and UN teams waiting to help.

Me:

It's not true at all that Israel is blocking aid. I follow this closely every day. One problem is that Hamas has placed cash bounties on GHF staff—both American security personnel and Palestinian aid workers, and 12 team members have already been killed and/or tortured. Meanwhile more than 4,500 trucks filled with flour, baby formula, and other staples have entered Gaza since May 19 and the issue is not access but distribution. Around 950 trucks are languishing on the Gazan side while international agencies fail to collect and deliver them.

(Here, as an aside, I should say that the most recent in-depth overview I’ve absorbed on this topic — which describes Israel’s many efforts to feed Gazans and the endless challenges to these measures posed by Hamas and the UN — was provided just this morning by the Jewish Federation.

If anyone else is interested in that, you can listen to it HERE.)

In any event, not long after this exchange, my real-life friend G. broke in to say how depressing the whole thread was. And to draw parallels between the Zionists there and MAGA types.

Here I’ll share an abridged version of our online conversation as well:

ME:

I hate Trump as much as you do, I am attending rallies and giving speeches and donating way more money than I can afford to fight this regime AND I am fucking repulsed by the world screaming ONLY at Israel, which is trying to provide aid while Hamas literally MURDERS aid staff and does everything in its power to keep it from being distributed.

Who cares if you or the OP pay lip service to fairness in a single obligatory sentence by saying Hamas sucks? You have seen a THOUSAND protests and marches and rallies and political actions against Israel and NOT ONE against Hamas ever. Imagine what might be different today if the world protested Hamas they way they do Israel instead of encouraging those fucking sociopaths by isolating, ostracizing and even murdering Jews around the world, to the utter indifference of progressives. I'm so fucking sick of it and I don't care what anyone says about me, thinks about me or does about it anymore.

G:

Believe me, I know you despise Trump and are working hard to convince others to realize he is not a friend of the Jews. I have witnessed you fighting with people about it online and I know you are passionate and sincere in those feelings.

While we do not agree on the situation in Gaza, and have not for some time, we agree fully on Trump. I, too, would also like to see protests calling on Palestine to be liberated from Hamas…and I hope there will someday be such protests if there is a Palestine to rebuild and be liberated, just as we are (FINALLY!) seeing the global community, sans Trump and Putin, uniting against the policies of the Taliban.

As I see it, however, the Palestinian people are in a terrible hard place between two rocks wherein they cannot rebuild or liberate themselves when under relentless attack from one nation AND kept from a free democracy and free thought by the terrorist organization that has a stronghold on their country. I just do not know what anyone expects Palestinians to do right now… Hamas is going to have to be dealt with eventually in the global community—there is no question!

ME:

I agree that Palestinians are in a terrible position AND I wish others could see that Israelis are as well, that there are no good choices for Israel.

How will there EVER be a global response to Hamas if it can't even start with words and signs and public outcry by people other than Jews? Can you at least admit that is not happening? That no non-Jewish progressives care about the ways Jews are being pushed out of academic and cultural life? That there is no progressive outcry when Jews are murdered by pro-Palestinians here in the US? That Jews are understandably embittered and frightened by THAT maybe even more than by the violence itself, and that makes us cling tighter to Israel than ever?

I feel deeply lucky that you and I love each other and don't question one another's decency but even people like you aren't willing to even read substacks like mine for perspective and nuance and the BUT/AND multiple truths you apply to literally every other issue. An obligatory sentence condemning Hamas — which honestly reads like you’re checking a box — before you write paragraphs of impassioned moral outrage against Israel does not help us and does not make the progressive stance even-handed or realistic.

G. is someone I truly love and will always love, but that does not mean I assume our friendship will survive this war. I will never unfriend her, virtually or actually, but I am completely willing to BE unfriended if that turns out to be one of the many steep costs of holding fast to my Zionism.

Writing “Feed the children” is literally the easiest thing in the world. My God, the luxury of being able to think no more than one millimeter deep about this whole ghastly mess — the luxury of being able to represent oneself with the safest, simplest slogan that radiates nothing but humanitarian decency! I can’t even imagine how good that would feel. Unfortunately it’s a luxury we don’t have.

An Israeli friend shared with me recently that his family has attended over 30 funerals in the last 21 months, more than he’d attended in the rest of his life combined, each one involving parents burying their children. Israel could have conducted this war with its air force alone, without putting a single Israeli boot on the ground, and the reasons parents are burying their children with such annihilating regularity is that Israelis are dying in the process of trying to minimize needless civilian deaths.

Meanwhile, the bone-deep western presumption that Israel is morally obligated to incur the ongoing costs of feeding 2 million people a day, in order to relieve a humanitarian crisis Hamas created and is doing everything in its power to sustain — while said Hamas leaders incur no censure from the rest of the world, because the world’s fury is reserved solely for the Jewish nation — it’s a master class in gaslighting, and yet again, I don’t know what Israel is supposed to do.

Do I think there are bad actors in the Israeli government? Absolutely, yes I do. Do I think Israel has likely committed war crimes within the last two years? If I’m honest, I don’t doubt this for a minute. But can I accept the double standards and demonization against Jews and Jews alone, which only gather strength with every passing week? I can’t. I won’t. Even if it means this hill will be my deathbed.

Yet again, I’m sorry my lead-in to our Sabbath isn’t sunnier. I’m glad it’s only hours away. I need it this week — and every week these days — like I need oxygen.

I do pledge to bring you some good things next week. I’ll announce our next book pick. I’m working on a couple of JOTU profiles that are inspiring and uplifting. And many other good things are in the works: that I can promise.

In the meantime, I hope your weekend is restorative and lovely. I’m sending ardent, heartfelt love to you all.

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.