I think we're not as far apart on this as it seems. I do not tolerate antisemitism and I have addressed it whenever and wherever I've encountered it. But I can separate true, good old fashioned antisemitism from criticism of Israel. This does not mean that I'm in any way an apologist for Hamas. As I've said many times - Hamas is a Suni extremist Iranian-backed proxy. What occurred on October 7 was horrific. I condemned Hamas, as did everyone I know, love and associate with. I would not tolerate any kind of excuse-making for what Hamas did on October 7.
There is no rewarding Hamas. They have no place in the future of Gaza or in any plan for a two-state solution. However, as a Jew, I feel an obligation to point out that this situation is not a binary of Evil Hamas vs. Innocent Jews. My people, my mess, my responsibility. There's a huge power imbalance between Israel, that receives billions of dollars in military aid, no questions asked, has an army, a navy and total control over both Gaza and the West Bank, and the Palestinians, who as I've pointed out all over Medium, are one of the youngest populations in the world. So, they weren't old enough to have voted for Hamas or hadn't even been born yet. Meanwhile, moderate Palestinians were sidelined by Netanyahu. So of course, you can argue that you can't negotiate with a terrorist organization for a two-state solution if you sideline the alternative.
It's simply not a fair fight.
And look at what Israel has become? My maternal grandparents came to Palestine in the 1930's. Israel, when it was established in 1948 was a socialist state. How did a young nation, founded by socialists turn into a right-wing theocracy?
My dad - a Holocaust survivor served in the IDF. On October 8, he said it was inconceivable that Israel's intelligence network was unaware of what was brewing in plain sight in Gaza. He suggested that Netanyahu ordered the IDF to ignore the warnings to allow a Hamas attack to take place. It would be the excuse the administration needed to launch a counter-attack and retake Gaza. I thought he had lost his mind. It sounded like a MAGA-style conspiracy theory, however, the more I researched and learned about some of the major players in Netanyahu's administration, the more plausible, then probable it began to sound.
I believe the IDF knew that Hamas was planning an attack. Of course, Netanyahu and the people in his administration had no idea just how sideways things were going to go. They just figured, Hamas and its little band of losers would lob some rockets, which would be the perfect opportunity to invade and fulfill the fundamentalists’ fantasy of mission creep to reclaim the biblical borders of Judea and the Kingdom of Israel.
You'd like for me to write more about the hostages. I've written exactly one piece about the conflict since it began in which I do talk about the hostages. At this moment though, I feel like banging on about the hostages, the hostages is tone deaf. I'm thrilled for every hostage that's been successfully extracted from the hell that is Gaza. I'm happy for their families. But emphasizing how important the redemption of prisoners is to Judaism just sounds like we value Jewish lives more than the lives of Palestinians.
Upward of 300 Palestinians were killed during the last rescue operation. I'm not gonna lie: if those were my family members, I wouldn't care how many people had to die to secure their release. That's being human. But it's not the time for us, collectively, as Jews to be reminding the world about the hostages, whose rescue came at the expense of so many innocent lives. You'd like to establish parity: we do this, because Hamas did that, but it's not a tit for tat: Hamas did this, and we kill hundreds of Palestinian women and children, because they're expendable, collateral damage, in line with our casualty-to-target neutralization ratio.
Look into National Security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, Finance Minister - two far-right politicians whose rhetoric doesn't sound any different than Hamas'. These aren't just two "bad apples." They both espouse a virulently racist, ant-Arab ideology and have conflated Zionism with religion and ultra-nationalism that's permeated Israeli society at every level. In 1994, Baruch Goldstein dressed in an IDF uniform opened fire on Palestinians while they prayed at a holy site in Hebron, killing 29 and injuring 100 before he was beaten to death. To Ben-Gvir, Goldstein died a hero.
Imagine two decades of a MAGA administration - one in which the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene oversee the Department of Homeland Security or the DOJ or the EPA or the BLM. We have a chance to unite as Jews and say, we will support you, but you must clean house. We will hold you accountable. And it has to be more than lip-service. I f you have the time, I highly recommend this 3-part NYT Magazine investigative peace published on May 16. It really brings to light just how deeply pervasive extremism has become in Israeli politics.