Introductory Notes:

I’m stunned by this poll showing that in the 18-24 age group of young Americans surveyed, far too many believe that the State of Israel should “cease to exist, and instead be replaced by a Palestinian entity.”

This is what the monthly Harvard CAPS/Harris poll (scroll down to page 46) discovered (I post below the Times of Israel article about the poll).

This poll did not break down the positions of young 18-24 year-old American Jews, and I hope that the percentages in America generally are not parallel with similar numbers amongst America’s young Jews. Whether they are or not, we have to assume that our 18-24 year-old American Jews and, for that matter, under 40 year-old American Jews too, are confronting either on college or high school campuses, in work and amongst their friends, sentiments such as this poll suggests are held given the dramatic rise in antisemitism in America since October 7 and over the past few years.

I believe that my re-issued 2019 book “Why Israel and its Future Matters – Letters of a Liberal Rabbi to the Next Generation – 2023 edition” with a Foreword that I wrote after October 7, is an important read for young Jews starting in early high school, but for older generations as well, because I offer nuanced broad-based thinking about why, despite this war with Hamas, we American liberal Jews need to support Israel for our own sake and for the sake of our Israeli brothers and sisters. I argue that we also need to support next steps in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a matter of necessity for Israel’s democratic and Jewish character and as a matter of justice for the Palestinians living under occupation.

My book is available from the publisher – Ben Yehuda Press – https://www.benyehudapress.com/   – or on Amazon.com. I ask you to consider purchasing it for your children and grandchildren from the age of 14 or 15 onwards, and for yourselves too – since its initial publication, people have told me that this is an important book for older American Jews too.

See my blog for more details about the book, and the list of endorsers – https://rabbijohnrosove.blog/2023/11/12/rabbi-rosoves-new-updated-2023-edition-why-israel-and-its-future-matters-letters-of-a-liberal-rabbi-to-the-next-generation-publ-november/

Here is the report of the poll in The Times of Israel:

Majority of all respondents support Israel, but results from 18-24 age group show majority think IDF campaign ‘genocidal,’ while saying calls for genocide of Jews are legitimate

By ToI Staff 17 December 2023

Over half of young Americans surveyed on Israel’s conflict with Hamas believe the Jewish state should cease to exist, and instead be replaced by a Palestinian entity, according to an online poll conducted this week.

The monthly Harvard CAPS/Harris poll found continuing support for Israel in its campaign against Hamas among every age demographic but 18- to 24-year-olds.

Overall, the survey found that 81 percent of respondents back Israel. Among the youngest age bracket, though, support is evenly split between Israel and Hamas.

On several questions, voters in that age group seemed to express contradicting or muddled views. For instance, despite 51% replying in the affirmative when asked if Israel should be “ended and given to Hamas and the Palestinians,” 58% of respondents in the group also thought Hamas should be removed from running Gaza.

However, most of the entire pool of respondents (60%) preferred a two-state solution to the conflict.

The survey found that 66% of respondents in the 18-24 age group think that Hamas’s October 7 massacre constituted genocide. At the same time, 60% think that the attacks were justified by Palestinian grievances, indicating that they believe that genocide of Israelis is justified.

Overall, 73% of respondents said the onslaught was genocide, and similarly 73% believed it to be unjustified.

Additionally, a majority of all respondents across the board view the October 7 massacre — when Hamas-led terrorists rampaged through southern communities, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping some 240 to Gaza — as a terrorist attack (84%), including 73% in the 18-24 bracket.

Sixty-three percent of all respondents answered that Israel was trying to defend itself with its military offensive aimed at eliminating Hamas, which has ruled the Strip since 2007. But 60% of 18- to 24-year-olds said that the campaign constitutes genocide against Gazans.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has claimed that, since the start of the war, more than 18,800 people have been killed, mostly civilians. These figures cannot be independently verified and are believed to include some 7,000 Hamas terrorists, according to Israel, as well as civilians killed by misfired Palestinian rockets. Another estimated 1,000 terrorists were killed in Israel during and in the wake of the October 7 onslaught.

Young people were also against the overall trend on the question of a ceasefire: While 64% of respondents said a ceasefire should be agreed to only after the release of hostages and Hamas being booted from power, 67% of 18- to 24-year-olds favored an unconditional deal that would leave things as they are.

The poll also asked respondents about antisemitism on university campuses, which has been on the rise since the beginning of the war.

Many 18- to 24-year-olds seemed to be okay with hate speech at universities: According to the poll, 53% of young people thought students should be free to call for Jewish genocide on campus without punishment, though 70% said such calls constituted hate speech.

Out of all respondents, 74% answered that those who make the calls should face disciplinary action, while 79% said the calls were hate speech.

The survey also asked respondents about the congressional hearing on college antisemitism earlier this month, when the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania failed to answer in the affirmative that calls for Jewish genocide violate the universities’ code of conduct, saying only that they do so in certain contexts.

Their responses provoked a backlash from Republican opponents, along with alumni and donors who said the university leaders are failing to stand up for Jewish students on their campuses. Penn’s president Liz Magill resigned due to the criticism, while the other two have remained in their positions.

While 67% of 18-to 24-year-olds think the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn universities went far enough in condemning antisemitism, when faced with comments they made during congressional testimony — that calls for Jewish genocide are only punishable depending on the context — 73% said they should resign.

Furthermore, a majority of respondents (68%) acknowledged that antisemitism is prevalent on university campuses, with 63% of 18- to 24-year-olds responding in the affirmative.

The poll also asked respondents who they believed was responsible for antisemitism on campus, with 24% saying the hatred has always had a presence; 20% blamed students; 18% left-wing political movements; 11% university presidents and administrators; 11% foreign funding of universities and student groups; 7% university professors; and 8% answered none of the above.

Only 8% in the 18-24 bracket believed antisemitism had always existed on campus.

Most of those in that age bracket said they watched or read about the presidents’ testimonies in the poll, which was conducted online among 2,034 registered voters on December 13 and 14.

“The heart of Hamas is evil.” So said Edmund Husain who discusses what Islamic theology and history tell us about both Hamas and the future of Israel.

Edmund Husain is a British writer and political advisor who served as a senior advisor to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. His doctoral studies include Western philosophy and Islam. He has held senior fellowships at think tanks in London and New York, and is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Among his books are The Islamist, The House of Islam: A Global History, and Among the Mosques.

This hour-long podcast is exceptionally worthwhile, and I recommend it highly.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/foreign-podicy/id1313495723?i=1000637231707

I haven’t been posting for a while because I haven’t known what to say beyond what I’ve already said about this awful war that Hamas thrust upon Israel and the Jewish people.

I’ve been grieving along with everyone I know in Israel and the United States the loss of the 1200 Israelis murdered and desecrated on October 7, and the growing number of young Israeli soldiers fighting and dying in Gaza. I’m deeply worried about the lives and well-being of the Israeli hostages still imprisoned by Hamas. I’ve not stopped feeling the rage I experienced after the vicious and cruel attack, and my disgust has intensified like bile in my mouth as reports became known of how badly the freed hostages (children, women, and the elderly) were treated in their captivity in Gaza. And my shock and rage have been strengthened exponentially when I learned of the massive sexual violence perpetrated by savage Hamas terrorists against Israeli girls and women on October 7.

I’ve also been saddened by the deaths of all the innocent Palestinians in Gaza and I empathize with their families too, because that’s what we Jews do – mourn the loss of every innocent life.

I was recently reminded of a poem by Mary Oliver called “Heavy.” She expressed well how I’ve been feeling since all this began and how I presume so many Israelis and perhaps, many of you reading this also are feeling in these days:

That time / I thought I could not / go any closer to grief / without dying

I went closer, / and I did not die. / Surely God / had his hand in this,

as well as friends. / Still, I was bent, / and my laughter, / as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found. / Then said my friend Daniel / (brave even among lions), / “It is not the weight you carry

but how you carry it— / books, bricks, grief— / it’s all in the way / you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not, / put it down.” / So I went practicing. / Have you noticed?

Have you heard / the laughter / that comes, now and again, / out of my startled mouth?

How I linger / to admire, admire, admire / the things of this world / that are kind, and maybe

also troubled— / roses in the wind, / The sea geese on the steep waves, / a love / to which there is no reply?

Regaining perspective in these days is important for our emotional and mental well-being. So is breathing, seeing and appreciating the quieter things that are meaningful and filled with beauty and loveliness – the natural things, family and friends and creativity of all kinds.

May our people in Israel be fortified in this fight, and may the IDF be victorious over the evil it is confronting. Then may peace come to Jerusalem and to all the peoples of the Land.

This blog also appears at The Times of Israel Blogs – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/when-mourning-is-going-close-to-death-without-dying/

Yehuda Kurtzer, Director of the North American Hartman Institute and host of the Podcast “Identity/Crisis,” interviews Tal Becker, an Israeli lawyer, Senior Fellow at the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, Legal Advisor of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a veteran member of Israeli peace negotiation teams. They discuss the ethics of Israel’s war against Hamas.

Yehuda and Tal explore just war theory through legal, philosophical and Jewish frameworks and analyze the actions of the IDF and Hamas accordingly.

This is among the most important podcasts I have listened to since October 7. Their conversation is cogent and clear and goes far beyond the headlines and looks at the reality of this unprecedented war and the moral values of Judaism and Israel.

If you are confused by any aspect of this just war, are not certain that Israel is behaving according to the Laws of War even though everything Hamas did on October 7 is contrary to all ethics in war and are obvious war crimes, or want to understand more clearly the nature of the enemy that is Hamas and the principles of war that Israel has indeed followed to the best of its ability, listen to this hour-long podcast. You will be glad you did.

Listen here – https://www.hartman.org.il/fighting-a-just-war/

Dear Friends,

Days after October 7, my publisher at Ben Yehuda Press called to tell me that he wanted to reissue my 2019 book “Why Israel and its Future Matters” with a new cover and tag line “Letters of a Liberal Rabbi to the Next Generation” plus a Foreword that I would write about the Hamas massacre of 1200 babies, children, men, women, and the elderly in southern Israel, Hamas’ kidnapping of 240 hostages, and the Israel-Hamas War.

I agreed and on November 10, the book was reissued. Here is a brief description of the volume:

“Presented in the form of letters from a rabbi to his adult sons, this volume argues that Jews of all ages need Israel as a source of pride, connection, and Jewish renewal, and Israel needs them for the liberal values that they can bring to the Zionist enterprise. Exploring the roots and antisemitic branches of the campaign against Israel, Rabbi Rosove demonstrates why it’s wrong to characterize Israel as an oppressor state and damn it with blanket condemnation. A 15-page appendix features a timeline/mini-history of Zionism and Israel from the 19^th century through October, 2023. After each letter/chapter are a series of discussion questions for families, book groups, and courses on Israel and Zionism.”

The Foreword discusses how Israel and the Jewish world are different after October 7 and how the Hamas attack shines a light on Hamas’ mission to destroy Israel, murder all the Jews of the Jewish State, and establish an extremist Muslim Caliphate on all the land between the river and the sea. Rosove explains that Hamas is an existential threat to the Jewish people and to anyone interested in Israeli-Arab and Israeli-Palestinian peace, that Israel has no choice except to prosecute its war fully to eliminate Hamas’ military capacity and its brutal sovereignty over Palestinians in Gaza while striving to retrieve the hostages, avoid killing innocent Palestinian civilians, and avoid opening up wars against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Palestinians living under Occupation in the West Bank.”

The new edition is now available at Ben Yehuda Press (https://www.benyehudapress.com/WIM-2023) or online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Consider purchasing copies as gifts for Hanukah for your yourselves, your children, and grandchildren.

“A must read!” – Isaac Herzog, President of Israel

“This thoughtful and passionate book reminds us that commitment to Israel and to social justice are essential components of a healthy Jewish identity.” – Yossi Klein Halevi, author, Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor

“Rabbi Rosove grapples with modern Israel, Jewish identity, relations between Israelis and Diaspora Jews, and perhaps most significantly whether ‘you can maintain your ethical and moral values while at the same time being supporters of the Jewish state despite its flaws and imperfections.’ It is a book that many of us wish we had written for our children.” – Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, Former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt (1997-2001) and to Israel (2001-2006), Professor of Middle East policy studies at Princeton University

“In its call for ‘aspirational Zionism,’ the book is honest and tough about Israel’s flaws, but optimistic about the country’s direction and filled with practical strategies for promoting change. This is a no-nonsense, straight-talking work, intellectually rigorous but deeply personal.” – Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, President Emeritus, Union for Reform Judaism

“Rabbi Rosove’s optimism, and his boundless faith in Jewish peoplehood and Jewish values, makes this book an invaluable blueprint for Jews, both in Israel and around the world, to help the Jewish State live up to its founding values of acceptance, pluralism, and democracy and become a true light unto the nations.” Anat Hoffman, Chair of Women of the Wall, former Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center

“A moving love letter to Israel from a rabbinic leader who refuses to give into despair, but instead recommits to building a democratic Israel that lives up to the visit of its founders.” – Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Executive Director, T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights

“In a beautifully written, passionate, emotional and heartfelt book, Rabbi Rosove describes his love for Israel. Always honest, authentic and sincere, John does not attempt to hide Israel’s imperfections. His forty years in the rabbinate taught him that anything human is imperfect, and that true love requires engagement in the work of improvement and repair. The form of Rabbi Rosove’s book is a series of touching letters to his adult children. In this way, John writes to all our children. Read and Reread Rabbi Rosove’s book. Turn the pages over and over again. You will glean his spirit, and the spirit of our people that has created and sustained the State of Israel – one of the great miracles of the world.” – Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, Senior Rabbi, Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, New York City, and host of “In These Times Podcast”

This message and the video below was sent by Shir Nosatzki, an Israeli woman who told the extraordinary story how on the morning of October 7 Israeli Arabs saved Jews at Kibbutz Be’eri. She wrote:

“Out of the horrible darkness of the October 7th massacre, there are shreds of light emerging in the form of heroic stories of rescue and humanity – Arabs and Jews facing the terrible inhumanity together and helping each other. 

Watch this inspiring story (no traumatic images). This video reached over a million views throughout Israel in less than 24 hours. It was shared widely throughout social media by both Jews and Arabs, further strengthening our belief in a Jewish-Arab partnership. While there are people in Israel, including senior government officials, who are trying to fan the flames between Jews and Arabs and use this horrible moment to try and break us apart – we resist. We will not let them, nor Hamas, destroy what we’ve built.

Please share this [blog] with friends to spread the notion that October 7th was not a war between Jews and Arabs. It was between light and darkness. And there are Jews and Arabs on both sides. Let us all spread light.” 

Watch here: https://youtu.be/CrXtTYm_NB8?si=IgXIO-baQNkFKzT1

The following, posted by Jonathan Alter (the American journalist and author) that he calls “Thinking Straight about the Israel-Hamas War,” was signed by more than 400 Columbia University and Barnard College faculty about the Israel-Hamas War that I would have signed in a New York minute. Alter wrote at the end: “This fine letter should be a model for statements from other institutions and communities. Higher education, in particular, must now face a reckoning. It will either retreat to the status quo ante, failing to instill the proper “ideals and values” in students or undertake a much-needed assessment of what a liberal arts education — or any education — means.”

Here is the open letter:

“There are many statements, letters, and counter letters circulating, and we have no interest in waging a war of words while an actual war is raging. Still, given what we have heard from others on campus, we are moved to write to emphasize three simple points.

First, at a great university like Columbia, there should be robust debate about complex and difficult issues, such as whether a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is appropriate or feasible, who is to blame for the miserable conditions in Gaza, and what the wisest strategy is, going forward, to produce a just and secure peace in the region.  The signatories to this letter themselves have diverse views on these subjects. The university must foster an environment where debate on these important issues can proceed without intimidation or harassment.

At the same time, there is no excuse for Hamas’s barbaric attack on Israeli civilians, which was an egregious war crime. There is no justification for raping and murdering ordinary citizens in front of their families, mutilating babies, decapitating people, using automatic weapons and grenades to hunt down and murder young people at a music festival celebrating peace, burning families alive, kidnapping and taking hostages (including vulnerable populations of elderly, people with disabilities, and young children), parading women hostages in front of chanting crowds, and proudly documenting these nightmarish scenes on social media. We are horrified that anyone would celebrate these monstrous attacks or, as some members of the Columbia faculty have done in a recent letter, try to “recontextualize” them as a “salvo,” as the “exercise of a right to resist” occupation, or as “military action.” We are astonished that anyone at Columbia would try to legitimize an organization that shares none of the University’s core values of democracy, human rights, or the rule of law.  Any civilian loss of life during war is awful but, as colleagues on the faculty acknowledged in the letter mentioned above, the law of war clearly distinguishes between tragic but incidental civilian death and suffering, on one hand, and the deliberate targeting of civilians, on the other. We feel sorrow for all civilians who are killed or suffering in this war, including so many in Gaza. Yet whatever one thinks of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or of Israeli policies, Hamas’s genocidal massacre was an act of terror and cannot be justified, or its true purpose obscured with euphemisms and oblique references. We ask the entire University community to condemn the Hamas attack unambiguously. We doubt anyone would try to justify this sort of atrocity if it were directed against the residents of a nation other than Israel.

Finally, the University cannot tolerate violence, speech that incites it, or hate speech. Just as we condemn any bigoted comments or acts directed at Palestinian and Muslim students, we are appalled by the spate of antisemitic incidents on campus since October 7. These incidents, which include antisemitic epithets, physical assault, and swastikas scrawled on bathroom walls, are growing in frequency and are creating a hostile and unsafe environment that impacts our entire community. In the same way that the University defends other groups from this sort of disgusting conduct, it is essential to do the same for Jewish and Israeli students. To do otherwise would betray our ideals and the values of Columbia as a great university.”

The more we know from security analysts and military experts, the greater will be the clarity of our thinking about achievable goals in Israel’s war with Hamas and how Israel wages war, and the clearer we will be in our values as we wade through the pain, sorrow, and grief after October 7.

I have written twice in this blog after the pogrom since October 7, the first of which I posted the photos of two young sisters (ages 25 and 22) who grew up in my synagogue’s elementary school and were murdered at the music festival on October 7. What happened to our Jewish brothers and sisters shook Israel and the Jewish world to our foundations in a way we’ve not experienced as a people since the end of the Shoah in 1945. Even in the aftermath of the 1973 War of Yom Kippur when Israel was existentially threatened by Egypt’s and Syria’s surprise attack, we as a people have not been so shaken. We thought after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 that “never again” would we be vulnerable to the butchery of savage antisemites. October 7 showed the depths of human depravity and that we remain vulnerable, even though we have Israel today.

Our desire for revenge and retaliation engulfs so many of us in these initial weeks, and though I feel all of it like many of you, as time passes and as I learn and listen to Israeli intelligence and military experts about achievable goals that Israel’s IDF can accomplish against Hamas, and as I worry about the lives most specially of the 220 Israeli hostages, I am beginning to understand tactically the options facing Israel and what might be possible, without (of course) any guarantees.

This week, I participated in a webinar sponsored by J Street and hosted by J Street’s CEO and President Jeremy Ben-Ami. I had written to Jeremy the day before because I have felt so deeply torn, tortured, and confused about what Israel has experienced and what it is planning to do in its massive military build-up on the Gaza border. Jeremy suggested that I tune into the next morning’s webinar with two Israeli security analysts, Nimrod Novick and Noa Shusterman-Dvir. I’m glad I did (see link below). What follows is a summary of what they shared with the hundreds of participants on the webinar. Their clarity of thinking, experience, understanding of the military and strategic options facing Israel, and their cool analytical minds helped to clarify my own thinking and moral confusion, and I am grateful to them.

The two analysts asked and addressed the essential questions and challenges facing Israel in these days, and they analyzed the multiplicity of responses upon which the Israeli war cabinet and the IDF must deliberate and decide. They said there are three essential goals in this war: to save the 220 hostages, to eliminate the military and governing capacity of Hamas over Gaza, and to plan for the days, months and years after the war is won.

The first question Jeremy posed is whether they thought it is feasible to eliminate Hamas’ militarily and governing power and what they expected from the Hezbollah threat in the North should a northern front open. They presented 3 options for the IDF regarding Gaza:

[1] A massive Israeli invasion and the difficulty of success given the 300 miles of Hamas tunnels and booby-traps and the potentially high number of Israeli losses, the loss of the 220 hostages, and the death and injury of thousands more Palestinian civilians;

[2] A tactical incursion into Gaza, meaning a limited operation of killing Hamas leadership in Gaza and outside Gaza in Qatar where the top Hamas leadership has lived and operated for years;

[3] Waiting until the lack of fuel that Hamas needs to support life in the tunnels in its operation of air compressors forces the 20,000 to 30,000 Hamas terrorist fighters to come to the surface and fight Israel in the open. Israel has said that it supports humanitarian aid to Gazans including water, food, and medicine, but not fuel because Hamas needs the fuel to support their tunnel existence and to build more missiles to be used against Israeli civilians. That fuel, however, is necessary also for humanitarian purposes in Gaza, for electricity and hospitals, etc.

Novick and Shusterman-Dvir said that in the early days after October 7, Israel’s “blood was boiling and Israelis had a difficult time considering what might be next in Gaza, and who or what organizations would govern.” They noted, properly, that Israel cannot ultimately destroy Hamas, that to think it can is an illusion, but Israel can destroy Hamas’ capacity to govern Gaza and remain a military threat to Israel. They confessed that this war will take time to fulfill Israel’s three broad goals above. By waiting to attack, the time gives negotiators in Qatar the opportunity to free more hostages. Israel does not, however, have years to wait, but in waiting weeks or a month or two, it can leverage the time needed to retrieve more of the hostages and enable Hamas fuel to run out thus forcing a land battle when massive numbers of Israel soldiers can put boots on the ground and have a far greater potential for success with far fewer losses.

These two experts did not believe that this war will go on for months. They reasoned that Israel will use a combination of the three options, each in its time. They were highly confident, despite the army’s failure in the initial hours of October 7 to protect Jews in the south, that the IDF is highly capable and will be successful in the execution of the war and the destruction of Hamas’ weapons depots, military centers, and many mid-level operatives, especially the thousand or more terrorists that entered Israel and attacked our people so mercilessly.

Jeremy questioned Novick and Shusterman-Dvir about the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. The first thing they said is “Israel is not Hamas. We don’t starve people, but time is running out. One hundred trucks of aid are required every day to enter Gaza.” The evidence suggests that Hamas and Egypt are holding up those trucks from entering Gaza for their own reasons.

They commented that allowing Hamas to free 2 hostages every 2 to 4 days is unacceptable. At some point, they said, Israel will demand the release of all the hostages without conditions.

Regarding the north – they noted that Hamas is likely frustrated that Hezbollah has not joined full force into the battle against Israel. Both Israel and Hezbollah are engaging with each other sending missiles back and forth. However, Hezbollah seems to be only trying to show that it is doing something without going too far and risking a full-scale war with Israel. America’s military presence in the region is a significant deterrent against both Hezbollah and Iran.

They expressed their concerns about the opening of another front in the West Bank. The IDF has arrested 1000 suspected Palestinians there of which 750 are likely Hamas.

Finally, they spoke about the options for the governance and control of Gaza after the war. They believed that some kind of coalition of forces ought to be established including the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, the UN, Saudi Arabia, and Israel to govern and help rebuild Gaza so that Islamic terrorists like Hamas do not rise to power again and threaten Israel.

At the conclusion of the webinar, I sensed that cooler heads are emerging on the Israeli leadership side, and though Israelis and so many American Jewish supporters of Israel want a massive retaliatory ground campaign, those in the military command are thinking more carefully than they may have been thinking in the initial days of Israeli and Jewish rage following October 7. The effect of the United States also cannot be underestimated. President Biden, Secretaries Blinken and Austin, are advising Israel, advocating for humanitarian aid being delivered to Gaza, and urging Israeli patience.

This hour-long webinar can be watched here – https://jstreet.org/j-streets-response-to-hamas-attacks-israeli-palestinian-crisis/

I recommend listening to the following:

The podcast “The Axe Files” with Ilana Dayan, a leading Israeli journalist in an extraordinary conversation with David Axelrod on the before and after October 7 massacre of Israeli Jews

The podcast “Politics War Room” with James Carville and Al Hunt in their interview this week with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Admiral James G. Stavridis

An interview by CNN’s Jake Tapper of the son of a founding member of Hamas who flipped years ago because of Hamas’ brutality, became an Israeli informant from within Hamas, and now is an American citizen living somewhere in the United States https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#inbox?projector=1

The humanitarian disaster in Gaza ought to be of great concern to every Israeli and Jew who cares about the health, well-being, and safety of innocent Palestinians living in that wretched corner of the world, especially Palestinians who hate Hamas, who want only to live without fear, and who would welcome any other Palestinian representative that accepts the legitimacy of the State of Israel.

Anyone who denies the truth of the Hamas massacre of 1400 people in southern Israel and Hamas’ hostage taking of 210+ women, children, men, babies, and elderly Jews on October 7, and shifts the narrative, as so many are now doing, from Hamas’ atrocities against the Jewish people to accusations against the Jewish State that Israel is committing  war crimes, is morally compromised.

Yes – Palestinians are suffering greatly in Gaza, but not because of Israel; rather, because of Hamas. Over the 17 years of Hamas’s extremist and brutal rule, it took hundreds of millions of dollars of aid from UNRWA and Arab nations to build a fortified underground labyrinth of 300 miles of tunnels, and doing little to assist Gazans in developing their lives and communities, establishing an economy that provides jobs for Gaza’s 50 percent unemployed, and building schools and hospitals to educate and care for its citizens. Hamas could have done well for its people during that time with such vast financial resources, but instead it built an elaborate and complex infrastructure to attack Israel and murder Jews. That truth ought to be clear since October 7.

Again, Hamas is to blame for the state of Gazan life, not Israel. Despite legitimate criticisms that can be lodged against Israel in its treatment of Palestinians living under Occupation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, nothing excuses the Hamas atrocities on October 7 or Hamas’ consistent abuse of its own people.  

The attack against Israel, the cruelty and savagery of Hamas’ assault, hit Israel very hard. Hamas was temporarily victorious and, at least in the short term, succeeded in provoking rage in the Arab street throughout the Middle East and setting back years of diplomacy aimed at bringing peace to Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Hamas did something else as well. It unified Israel and the Jewish world that had been fractured during a year when pro-democracy activists feared a civil war might erupt in the Jewish state as a consequence of PM Netanyahu’s coalition government’s efforts to diminish the authority of Israel’s judicial branch and compromise Israeli democracy.

In America, I’m hearing that many Jews (especially young Jews) who before October 7 did not identify strongly with Israel, Zionism, and Judaism have been awakened to who they are as part of a unique people that contributed much to western civilization and who often have stood alone against antisemitic hate and violence.

Even more significant than these consequences of Hamas’ attack on October 7, Hamas dealt a serious blow to Israel’s deterrent capacity and international image. What now worries so many of us who love Israel and are concerned with its long-term security and viability, is that unless Israel eliminates Hamas’ capacity to attack Israel again, Israel will be on the road to being a failed state. That would be an intolerable consequence and contrary to what the Zionist movement and the establishment of the State of Israel were meant to do, provide safe haven for the Jewish people against pogroms and violence and be a center for the development of the Hebraic spirit.

Israel has no choice except to go into Gaza on the ground, to root out Hamas leadership and its 20,000+ terrorists, and destroy Hamas’ underground tunnel system and the armaments that are stockpiled there. The risk of failure is an existential one to the Jewish state and Jewish people. Not completing this effort successfully will encourage Hamas to strike again, and for Hezbollah and Iran to fortify the ring around Israel and one day attack all at once.

The future between Israel and the Palestinians and the moderate Arab world need not be necessarily dark. There can be in time a peaceful negotiated resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will bring to Israel security and peace, and to the Palestinian people the fulfillment of their national aspirations in two states for two peoples. It is hard to imagine this in the current situation. After the Yom Kippur War it was difficult to imagine that Israel and Egypt and then Israel and Jordan could make peace after its history of deadly conflict. But it happened.

I believe that peace is possible because there are thousands upon thousands of Palestinians living in Israel and under Occupation who want peace and a state of their own, just as there are thousands upon thousands of Israelis who want it too, despite their suspicions of Arab and Palestinian intentions.

We Jews here in America are different from our Israeli brothers and sisters, and we have to understand what our differences are, though I think October 7 brought us closer together. We American Jews have been acculturated to want to be liked and loved by others in America, to be respected by different religious, racial, ethnic, and political groups. We learned early on in our history in the United States that to get along means to go along, to assimilate into the American mainstream, and to contribute to our society to protect ourselves against antisemitism. We American Jews succeeded beyond the wildest expectations of my grandparents’ generation. We are, according to polls, the most respected religious group in the United States.

In Israel, however, Israelis are surrounded by potential enemies and they care less about being liked than being safe. Despite that, the impulse of Israeli Jews has been to improve the world. Israel has contributed an enormous amount to the betterment of humankind in every conceivable discipline, but Israelis don’t worry so much about being loved. They worry about being secure, and if they can be secure without being loved, that’s enough.

Perhaps this war against Hamas has taught us American Jews something new; that though it’s adaptive for us to get along with everyone, if the “other” doesn’t understand us or empathize with us, then perhaps the alliances we have nurtured over so long need to be revisited and hard conversations need to be had with those who, whether they realize it or not, harbor deep-seated animus and distrust towards Jews, or ignorance about Jews and our identity and relationship with the people and State of Israel.

Polls, thankfully, indicate that the vast majority of Americans side with Israel against Hamas in this war. Peoples of faith throughout Christendom are expressing their solidarity with the Jewish people. The Congress of the United States is overwhelmingly supportive of Israel, though there are a few Members on the far left who side with the Palestinians against Israel, and there are those in the MAGA Right who are no doubt antisemites.

Never before has a President of the United States ever spoken and acted towards Israel with the depth of support and understanding than Joe Biden. He will go down in history as the greatest friend of Israel ever to occupy the Oval Office, and there have been other pro-Israel presidents going back to Harry S. Truman.

The young American stand-up comedian, Drew Michael, posted this past week on Instagram words that unveil a morally questionable reality spreading among some in the young adult progressive non-Jewish population in the United States as well as among university students, faculty, and some presidents of colleges and universities. He wrote:

“Last Saturday [October 7], Jews everywhere were deliberately dehumanized through an act of terror, traumatized by some of the worst images imaginable, and then re-traumatized by the antisemitic discourse that followed.

The gist: when Jews are murdered, raped, and kidnapped on camera, it’s the Jews’ fault; when Palestinians die, it’s the Jews’ fault. When Jews say something antisemitic, we are lying.

And this isn’t coming from MAGA neo-Nazis; it’s coming from the left. Any other form of bigotry, liberals accept the narrative of the people most affected by it: racism is defined by people of color; homophobia is defined by queer people; but antisemitism, when Jews try to define it, people question us, refute us, gaslight us by telling us we are trying to manipulate them (which is double antisemitism).”

We Jews are forced to recognize in these days who are our friends and allies, and who are not. Not recognizing which is which is not good for our sense of Jewish identity and well-being.

It is my hope that Israel prosecutes this war decisively according to the highest ethical standards and rules governing warfare. And it is my fervent hope that innocent Palestinians will be spared from death and injury because of the hell that Hamas has unleashed upon them, and that every Israeli soldier and every hostage will return home to their families and friends whole.

May peace come to Jerusalem.