Israel Palestine and Me

Standing up for compassion.

Like you, perhaps, I have a fairly cursory understanding of the very complicated history of the Middle East and its people. In these last few days since the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas launched a horrific surprise attack on the people of Israel, I've been trying to say what’s in my heart. Yet, dear friends are telling me that the way I’ve chosen to respond is offensive. I’m not pleased by this, certainly not proud of it, nor am I trying to incur your support by saying this. I’m just saying that if someone like me (good with words, leads from the heart, highly educated) is “getting it wrong,” or is not fully understanding the situation, then perhaps that’s happening to you too, and if so, you’re not alone.

I’ll pause and say I don’t even necessarily have the right icon for this post. I’ve chosen one that – to me – represents compassion. It’s the best I’ve got.

Here’s where I am: I know that modern Israel is the one homeland that Jews have, and that Jews are some of the most despised people on the planet due to anti-Semitism across the millennia and around the globe. I married into a Jewish family. My mother-in-law is Orthodox. I sleep with a Jewish man. My children are half Jewish. I love Jewish people. I have learned so much from them as they’ve welcomed me into their homes and synagogues, and invited me to participate in their culture, traditions, and rituals. I know that the experiences of the African diaspora (of which I am a member) and the Jewish diaspora are similar in many respects, as we’ve continually tried to make our way and thrive as peoples, despite the hatreds and prejudices levied against us.

I’ll add that I love people of all backgrounds.

And that I abhor colonialism, which is the scourge that plundered the riches and people of the Global South and elsewhere to pad the pockets of the colonizers, and led to the exploitative oppression of capitalism that rules the Globe today. Maybe you didn’t expect that here, but it’s relevant to this conversation.

Because I know that back in 1947 (this is a brief and cursory history, and reflects my understanding… and has been updated to correct some facts) in the wake of the Holocaust (in which 6 Million Jews were systemically murdered), the British (colonizer) had “owned” Palestine for some time. (Palestine surrounded Jerusalem, a city that is the place of origin for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.) When the British “owned” Palestine up through the late 1940s, it was populated with Jews, Palestinians, and other Arabs (both Muslim and Christian). In 1947 the UN passed a resolution to partition the British occupied Palestine into two states: one Jewish and one Palestinian. The Jews accepted it. The Arabs and Palestinians did not. In 1948, the day after Israeli independence was declared, the Arab states attacked Israel and war ensued. The Palestinians have continually sought to define their cultural and historical existence and independence and create their own independent state, and I know that they feel like second or third class citizens in Israel — or worse, penned into their “territories” on Israel’s borders known as the Gaza Strip, where Israel (and Egypt) prohibits nearly everyone from exiting or entering, and the West Bank, which Israel occupies and where it severely limits Palestinian freedom of movement. And as an African-American, I feel a strong connection to the Palestinian struggle, and to the struggle of all colonized and enslaved people.    

One wants to go back to that colonist, Empire Britain, and tell them this was not theirs to own and divvy-up (this piece of land, and of course countless others). One wants to go back and unravel the stories of the Jews and Palestinians all the way back to the very first great misunderstanding, and have a proper truth and reconciliation, and I’m not sure if I mean go back to the last century, or to the century before that, or to five hundred years before, or more than a thousand.

I am in favor of a two state solution where Jews and Palestinians can coexist peacefully. I am in favor of policies and practices and reconciliations that allow all humans to live in peace.

Now to the present moment. To me, it is without question that last week’s attack on Israel by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas should be condemned wholly and without exception. What Hamas is doing to Israeli civilians is absolutely horrific. They are out to achieve the “final solution”(Nazi terminology for the annihilation of the Jews). I call for the protection of Jews in Israel and around the world. And to all my Jewish family and friends, and to Jews I do not even know, I stand with you and for your right to be treated with dignity, kindness, and compassion and to enjoy a safe and peaceful existence. Period.

Simultaneously (and this is where I’ve been told that what I’m saying is offensive) I am also opposed to the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinian civilians in Gaza prior to this attack and after. Why must this also be spoken of now, even as Hamas is committing horrific atrocities against Jews? Because the Israeli government is responding to the terrorism wreaked by Hamas by taking its rage out on innocent people who have had nothing to do with Hamas, who can’t really get out of Gaza because it is structured to pen them in, who just want to LIVE, and who have been living in a state of oppression for so long. Hamas does NOT equal Gaza. Hamas does NOT equal Palestinian. Yet the Palestinian men, women, and children in Gaza are facing the wrath of an understandably irate Israel.

Rather than stay silent right now for fear of saying the wrong thing (as too many people are) I am choosing to use my brain, heart, spirit, and words to express my anguished compassion even if some will say I’m getting it wrong.

What I’ve said is offensive to some because I appear to be equating the actions of the terrorists known as Hamas with the actions of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). I understand the difference between a terrorist organization and a government. Terrorism is never justified. And I also think that when a rocket destroys your home, or your body is injured by violence, or your power, water, and food supplies are cut off, it doesn’t matter who is doing it. And when our governments, particularly democracies which act as representatives of the people, respond to terrorism by harming so many more people than the terrorists themselves, we must question whether these so-called justifiable retaliations are in fact defensible. (Look at US actions in Afghanistan and Iraq following 9/11.)

Also, I speak to this issue because Western hearts and minds tend to preference some lives over others. (Compare Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where Ukrainian refugees are met with open doors and compassion, whereas Syrians seeking similar refuge from war are treated like they’re the problem.) The New York Times chart below shows the deaths on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in just the most recent 15 years, with Palestinian civilians dying at a rate of at least 25:1 yet I don’t hear a mainstream collective outrage and compassion over these deaths.

In Western society, unconscious bias leads to a collective shrug when Black and Brown lives are taken. So in the U.S., we say “Black Lives Matter” to implore our society to behave in ways that demonstrate that the deaths of Black and Brown people DO matter just as much as the deaths of light-skinned people do. My point is simply that Palestinians are brown-skinned people, and we should be collectively outraged over their suffering, too.

From my perch here in California, I look across the U.S., and an ocean, and over years of anguish, and see mothers, fathers, children and humans of all kinds just trying to exist in peace, who do not want to be hated or mistreated or tortured, maimed, raped, or killed on the basis of their ethnicity, ancestry, or religion, or because of a decades-old or centuries old conflict that we cannot at this point go back and untangle.

It is unfathomable what humans can do to each other. I have no answers. And I feel helpless. Few times in my life have made me feel more helpless than I do right now. Part of that is my age. I’m fifty-five and the optimism of my youth is giving way to the resignation that these wrongs are systemic and cyclical and endemic to the “us/them” tribalism hard-wired into us, and I fear we humans may never change.

People are posting their flag pictures “I stand with Israel” and “I stand with Palestine” and to me it is more complicated than “standing with” one or the other.

What I can do is stand up with my heart and spirit full of love for all humans and act toward peace. I urge you to do the same. At the very least, let your Jewish friends know that you know that what is happening to Jews in Israel must feel absolutely terrifying to them. Ask them how they are doing and hold space for them to say what they are feeling, and let them know that you are so sorry that Hamas has done these unspeakable things. ALSO let your Palestinian friends know that you are anguished over what is happening to them, their people, and their homeland, and that they deserve to live in peace and to move about freely without fear.

I will end with a quote from Senator Cory Booker who was in Israel when the horror unfolded (perhaps he still is there?) and whom I hope will be President of the U.S. one day. “We who believe in peace and freedom and human rights, for Palestinians, for Israelis, for all humankind, must reject those who use terror as their weapon.”

That’s something I can stand for.

xo

🤗 Here’s a hug for anyone who is scared right now.

📰 If you want to learn more about the history of this conflict, I found this lengthy, accessible, well-designed historical summary at heyalma.com to be very illuminating. It’s a Jewish-run site, so with that caveat they say, “Our aim was to make these articles as unbiased and factually-based as possible; our only agenda is to make a complicated issue easier to understand. That being said, we are a Jewish website, and certain inherent biases may be at play.” I also find this resource “Decolonize Palestine” to be very helpful. It is a website run by Palestinians living in the West Bank. It takes more radical stances than Hey Alma, but they do so while maintaining a focus on human rights for all people living in Israel and Palestine. 

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