I’m sixty-seven. Like you, Ms. Gaitskill, I had a father who served in WWll. He was radically wrong about a great many things in his life, but he was right about one thing. When I was around forty, he told me that he was glad he had grown up during the Depression, then fought in the war as a teenager. “I was still young,” he said, “when I saw the worst the world could do. I suspect you’ll be old when you see it.”
i wrote and deleted several things already and thought i would take time to provide more historical context and also decry the hypocrisy of the silence for all the other atrocities happening now in this world except for the outrage against Israel for defending itself (you know Hamas’s aim and that they never stopped attacking even through the ceasefire - and just rejected another one!) and you must’ve read the nyt piece this week about the depraved sexual brutality which still doesn’t pierce the hearts of the justice mobs, or that no matter the evidence of diverted aid money into terror tunnels and it goes on and on and if you care to read about it, i can tell you that much has been written with nuance and historical detail about Israel’s history but all i can think of is that you reposted someone’s disgusting comment that the Israelis should have known better than to dance in their own country!!! As if!!! And all must know that this attack was planned and paid way in advance --- and talk about blaming the victim... i am so sad to see the twisting of well intentioned people to virtue signal how hard it is to see the innocents suffer... it’s hard on everyone, except the demented! Do we let the barbarians win? I don’t have the answers and i don’t know how to come to terms with radical islamists who believe in killing apostates and jews and gays and don’t think the US is immune. I am still most stunned by that comment from such an admired writer - please rethink your words.
Kathi, I didn't "repost" what someone said, I repeated a verbal conversation with someone, a Jewish woman, who expressed a point of view that, as I wrote, I "argued with." It matters because when you repost something it is usually because you agree with it and want to disseminate it. Not only did I say that I argued with her, but some paragraphs down I said that if I were a young Israeli with liberal sympathies to Palestinians, and someone invited me to a rave a few miles outside Gaza I would go, that it would not occur to me to think I was doing anything harmful to Palestinians. So why did I repeat the conversation at all? Because part of what I wanted to emphasize was that many Jewish people do not support what is happening, and some said things that were shocking to me. I don't think Hamas attacked because they were upset about a dance party! I know the attack was planned in advance and anyway am not blaming those kids--even the woman who made the comment was not saying they deserved what happened, no one in their right mind would. I only briefly mentioned it, but the same lady spent some moments raging about how "bloodthirsty" and insane Hamas is before she made that comment. She was in a state about the whole thing and to me her comment indicates that, despair at the madness of the situation.
But its true, while I don't think Palestine is blameless I think Israel has become a bad actor here, even with the evil of Hamas. I don't want to try to debate with you every example or reason of why I've come to where I am in this, and even if I did I would not expect to change your mind. But I do want to recommend an essay I read by a self-described Zionist (Leon Weiseltier) who is very against the way this war is being prosecuted as well as much that lead up to it--I think you would find it interesting at least. He starts out describing his visceral love for Israel and his rage at Oct. 7th, his desire for revenge. He gets into a lot of history and experience. Towards the end he says: "There is no "context" that can absolve Hamas of this culpability. It started this war. But that does not mean that any Israeli target will do. Strategy is made by choosing between options, in both means and ends, and strategic choices must have valid reasons. The culpability of one's enemy is a historical consideration, not a strategic one, and it does not bear upon the moral analysis of war-fighting." Here's a link to it: https://libertiesjournal.com/articles/savagery-and-solidarity/
You might have to pay for it, but I think you'd find it worthwhile; even if you don't agree with him finally I think you would appreciate his erudition and passion. He is saying something like what I have come to feel, though from a very different perspective.
Thank you for taking the time and your reply. I appreciate the perspective of those closer to the core and read the pieces you cited but I don't see the war now as revenge but as a struggle for survival. If Israel lays down its arms, it will cease to exist. If Palestians do, they can achieve peace and prosperity. Hamas and its proxies are the enemy of all free people.
If I were Palestinian - and if the evil that is Hamas no longer existed - I would definitely not trust Israel to let me live in peace and prosperity whilst the current Israeli government is in power. I do not believe Netanyahu wants peace. He seems to want a perpetual state of war. Perhaps, in time, he will be charged as a war criminal. In which case I trust that he will be given a fair trial.
Thank you for staying with this. Today's New Yorker blog had an Isaac Chotiner interview with a Palestinian political analyst who enlarged the conversation in a way that I found meaningful, bringing the differences of the situation into consideration.
I would like to rephrase my last comment and apologise for being rude. Instead I say the following:
Gaitskill has offered a sophisticated range of perspectives on an incredibly difficult and painful situation. It does not help anyone if one accuses those with whom we disagree of ‘virtue signalling’.
Gaitskill did not ‘repost’ a comment about having a ‘party’ near a ‘concentration camp’, she offerd sone considered personal viewpoints concerning an article in the New Yorker and its reception, and what she had gained from reading the TEXT.
what i meant was that i feel by sharing a perspective that the festival goers were in anyway to be blamed for what hamas did is abhorrent and twisted. gaza was evacuated by israelis years ago and its deplorable conditions are due to hamas not the israelis. you should be railing against them for palestine freedom.yet the tragedy of gaza is blamed on Israel. i appreciate your apology and understand that there are other perspectives and the horror of seeing suffering innocents. i am overwhelmed however by how easy it is for people to blame Israel and the current fervor of hate against jews.
No one has blamed the festival goers. A lot of people have criticized and blamed Israeli Intelligence for being blindsided so badly. It was a catastrophic failure. Whether or not the festival should have been held so close to the border is a different matter. I have not read anything about why that particular site was chosen or what safety precautions were considered in advance by the festival organizers. That, I think is a reasonable question to ask in hindsight.
Likewise, no one questioned the ‘right’ of Israel to retaliate in the beginning. No one has questioned the need for the return of the hostages. It is the extent of the retaliation that is being questioned now, notwithstanding that so many of the hostages have not been freed. Unfortunately, most people have forgotten about the hostages when all the media shows is images of destruction in Gaza and reports now focus on the numbers of children, women, journalists and Aid Workers who have been killed at the hands of Israeli’s.
People have forgotten that Hamas has vowed to kill every Israeli/Jew. The world has conflated Israel with being Jewish/ all Jews. Hence the alarming rise of Antisemitism globally. We know that Muslim’s far outnumber Jews numerically. What has shocked and still shocks me is how much this war has given so much of the world an excuse to be antisemitic-- which we see playing out on university campuses globally.
My father proposed the motion at a Cambridge University Debate in 1945 that “In the opinion of this house Palestine should be given to the Jews as their national home”. He lost. Re-reading his typescript now, there are a few sentences in his closing argument that stand out.
First: “The Jews are in Palestine already. The Jewish national home is already there; it cannot be removed. As at present constituted it is sufficiently big to be an irritant, but not sufficiently strong to be a bulwark.”
Second: “If Arab consent is to be a pre-condition of any political settlement in Palestine, hope must be given up of Justice for the Jewish people. The solution is simple. Palestine must be designated a Jewish State.”
Three years later the State of Israel came into being. Close to 80 years later, Israel is no longer a bulwark- it has its own sophisticated army. It is way more than an irritant. It has proved itself to be both a formidable defender and formidable aggressor. As a Jew, I am proud of Israel’s achievements. As a person, I can’t be proud of the failure on one hand to integrate with others who have also called Palestine home for thousands of years, while on the other fostering hatred by establishing one of the most arcane bureaucracies in the world.
While I understand the logic behind Hamas wants to destroy us and brought about horrendous destruction, ergo we need to destroy Hamas. I cannot get my head around the destruction that has taken place on Gaza. I also cannot get my head around blaming the residents of Gaza for its “deplorable conditions”. To me that’s as inane as blaming festival goers for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. People don’t chose where they are born or the conditions they are born into. It’s the people in power who are the dictators, set mandates, and control the message. They set the standards of us versus them, and sow the seeds of discontent and hatred. If we are going to blame anyone for the current situation, my vote is for the megalomaniacs currently in power. So while as a Jew, I will always defend Israel’s right to exist, I cannot condone what is happening in Gaza today, just as I cannot condone how Orthodox Jews treat women.
You say 'if we are going to blame anyone, my vote is for the megalomaniacs currently in power' - do you mean Hamas leadership or is your blame on the Israeli government? And the deplorable conditions in Gaza most certainly can be blamed on Hamas - diverting aid money into terror tunnels is undisputed, teaching their children to take up arms to kill Jews and die martyrs is well documented, the lack of care for their own people is blatant and rampant. This reminds me of a Joan Rivers clip where she looks at the camera and says... what is wrong with you people? they started it!
Thank you for speaking up and for the link to Masha Gessen. I have stopped saying similar things out of fear of alienating traumatized Jewish people I know and being perceived as anti-Semitic. My father had his arm blown off in Italy in WWII. Ann Frank inspired me to keep a journal and think about moral responsibility.
I grew up in societies (South Africa, England, and the US) that were covertly anti-Semitic and largely indifferent to the murder of Jews during WWII, when they turned away Jewish refugees. I went to a private school with many Jewish students because other WASPY Boston area prep schools had quotas. The League of Nations (do I have this right?) created the boundaries of Israel in the aftermath of a Holocaust in which now-guilt-stricken and belatedly horrified Europeans had been complicit.
They then "solved" the so-called "Jewish problem" by fobbing it off on other people ---villagers, goat herders, farmers, voiceless people, non-Europeans--- the Palestinians -- on the theory that when Jews once again had a nation-state, they could defend Jews everywhere and all would be okay.
History has since repeated itself. Generational, historical and cultural trauma is continually re-enacted: first in 1948 when Palestinians were violently forced out of their villages and off their land and repeatedly since. Perhaps Oct. 7 was experienced by many Jews as Kristallnacht and the pogroms rolled into one. When trauma is triggered, it is frequently re-enacted and visited on the bodies of others.
I think those of us who are not Jewish have an obligation to understand this history better. I recommend two other books along with "A Day in the Life" -- My Promised Land, (by an Israeli journalist) and "Apeirigon," by an Irishman who I bet saw similarities to The Troubles.
I don't buy the conflation of "Anti-Semitism" (the hatred or dislike of Jews as Jews and indifference and inaction in the face of attacks on them) with "political opposition to the acts and policies of Israel." Nor do I buy the conflation of "opposing Israel" or "calling for a cease-fire" with "supporting Hamas." Nor do I buy minimizing or erasing the power differentials between Palestinians and Israelis.
Boycotts, sanctions and divestment worked in my native South Africa.
I first heard the treatment of Palestinians analogized to Apartheid by the Jewish-American pollster Stan Greenberg decades ago when he was a grad student at Yale. I was horrified by the labelling of Palestinians as "animals" to pave the way for the bombing and murder of women and children. There are enormous power differentials at work between displaced and ghettoized Palestinians and the Israeli nation-state, which draws some of its destructive power from our bombs, our no-strings and enabling military aid. It has become difficult to say this without fear of being shamed as anti-Semitic.
Surely Hamas wanted a war, just as al-Qaeda did in 2001, doing something so ugly that the response was bound to be disproportionate and full of its own horrors. By making their knees buckle, the powerful can be made to lose their minds. The US lashed out incoherently in 2001; it didn't make anything better. Mossad used to be very--scarily--capable of managing police actions, which should for God's sake have been the approach taken in the circumstances. Not war. My country doesn't get that, and maybe I don't have a right to expect Israel to do better. Horror without end: a first thought should be how not to invite more of it.
Thanks for this, as usual from you, so sophisticated and original exploration of various facets of an incredibly difficult issue. It is really helpful to me personally, as I was recently on a silent vipassana meditation retreat for 8 weeks, in seclusion from all news. Re-engaging with world news is extremely difficult, and your article really helps me.
Thank you. Every voice willing to denounce the horror is a mitzvah. As an American Jew about your age, I was steeped in the hasbara tropes of “making the desert bloom,” etc. I think most American Jews, at least the educated ones, are experiencing a cognitive dissonance of epic proportion. Sooner or later the dam will burst. It may not be loud but it’s coming.
Thanks, Mary. This was helpful. It doesn't make anything easier, but clarity of mind is always helpful. And thanks for recommending Masha's piece -- I hadn't seen it.
I wish Israel's response was more proportionate, but I'll share a simple, contrary view.
Palestinians have many legitimate grievances against Israel, but they don't turn these grievances into anything productive. Some people might think, "We've been oppressed by Israel for so long, and now we're going to organize so they can't oppress us anymore." Palestinians think, what? In 2000 they turned down a peace deal that was far better than anything you could imagine today. They commit formless violence that's always going to be outmatched by Israeli violence. Israel has an official policy of disproportionate retaliation. What they're doing in Gaza is very predictable.
People are now full of expressions of sympathy for Palestinians. It reminds me of a quote: "There is only one thing I hope to see before I die, and that is that my people should not need expressions of sympathy anymore." When Palestinians are able to think like that, we'll be much closer to peace.
I agree with the principle of a wish that "people should not need expressions of sympathy anymore." Not the moment for it, though, is it? Nor for the comment that "they don't turn these [legitimate] grievances into anything productive"--which minimizes those grievances to a nullity. The peace initiative needs to start with Israel, as the party with the only recognized authority, which so far has hedged on whether Palestinians may not be herded out of existence.
Who does the Israeli peace initiative talk to? There's Hamas, dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and the Palestinian Authority, despised by Palestinians as corrupt. Palestinians need to organize if they want peace (or anything else). Until they do, they'll have to console themselves with being the object of liberal sympathies.
Well, without talking to anyone, Israel can declare either that Palestinians will be entitled to full representation as citizens of Israel, or that they can have their own country, with borders drawn by a neutral body. Could start--should have a long time ago--by actually disallowing settlements and confiscations. People know lots more about this than I do. I'm just noting it as something obvious that Palestinians have no equality, and that without that being granted, no solution is imaginable.
Dec 31, 2023·edited Dec 31, 2023Liked by Mary Gaitskill
Any borders are going to directly impact Israel, so it needs to be a party. Furthermore, you can't just give people a country. Having a country requires organization, nationalism, some kind of unifying principles. Western people take these things for granted, but they're things that Palestinians (and many postcolonial people) don't seem to be able to muster.
Israel has a sizable minority (~20%) of Palestinians. They are citizens and get full representation. The Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are not Israeli citizens, and I doubt they want to be considered as such. It would make more sense for them to become Jordanian or Egyptian citizens, but neither country wants that to happen.
I agree that Israel should dismantle settlements/stop future settlements.
Palestinians (aka Arab Israelis) already live in Israel and are represented in government, and all sectors of society. The ones who have elected regimes who won't accept any sort of peace are left of a situation of their own making.
Have a like at “Jerusalem: The Spatial Politics of a Divided Metropolis” by Anne B. Shlay and Gillad Rosen, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2015. Anne is a Jewish-American sociologist, Gillad, an Israeli geographer. It’s well written and easy to read. One theme throughout the book is the additional complexity Israel adds to anything bureaucratic that affects Israeli Arab’s. True, Israeli Palestinians/Arabs have members of Parliament, but they are few in number and far outweighed by orthodox Jewry. They are not ‘equal’ citizens in any way, shape or form. Bureaucracy has made them unequal. True, Jerusalem is a global anomaly as a city, given its importance to so many religions. But the divides within it are at least a partial reflection of Israel as a whole.
Again, I agree. Furthermore, I suspect that those Israeli settlers in the West Bank who are persecuting peaceful Palestinian farmers are no better than Hamas terrorists who continue to persecute peaceful Israelis and Palestinians.
It’s weird to say, but I am reading Operation Shylock right now and learning a lot from it. I don’t normally look to novels to “learn from” them, and I haven’t always loved Philip Roth. But the novel is set in Israel and Gaza (for the most part) and looks at these places and the people in them from all sorts of angles. Even though it’s got an annoying-sounding metafictional premise (a writer narrator named Philip Roth finds out he has a doppelgänger imposter in Israel who is going around advocating for Jews to abandon Israel and return to Europe) it’s full of different voices and histories and is a lot more balanced and also deep than a lot of essays I’ve read about this issue. It’s also funny in an absurdist dark way at moments and a weird page turner. I recommend it I think.
I have feelings about Israel and Palestine, but very little real understanding. In my heart, I know my ignorance has been willful and self-protective. That needs to change.
Thanks again to you, Mary, my favourite blogger 😏 Since getting your email last evening, I’ve been thinking more about Gaza, Israel, Ukraine and Russia. It’s much like looking in a mirror, isn’t it, seeing the human condition writ large, much too large.
This is no time for pithy comments. Gessen’s words rang true when I read them a few weeks ago. And now yours set off an entire new set of memories.
My dad too, in North Africa before setting off for fascist Italy. And as a kid entering teenager-hood, totally enraptured by reading what turned out to be the original Israeli PR exercise, aka Exodus by Leon Uris. So, a few years later being introduced to another form of passion by Judith, fresh from a kibbutz, there were stars aplenty in my firmament before they began to be dimmed by Vietnam.
Fast forward to just about now. My initial reaction to the walls that came tumbling down on Oct 7 was much like that on 9/11 - brilliant tactics and just deserts for so many wrongs. And as the horrors began to be magnified, whose stories should be believed?
Ah yes, it’s easy to utter outrage from the comfortableness on this island in the far west of Canada, sipping coffee in the winter sunshine, awaiting a new year that will soon reveal the same old tired human traits of power, greed and racist corruption, escaping into old age by the skin of my teeth until sea levels rise, earthquakes hit and realizing there is really no escape at all.
Thanks for your words - again and again - and for listening.
“brilliant tactics for just desserts” in reference to 9/11 and october 7th? stunned by the hate-fullness and ignorance! and if you don’t know who to believe as you say, keep quiet.
I'm not qualified to tell Israelis or Palestinians what to do. I'd like to think I'd stay true to my pacifist beliefs if I were a member of any nation/people/whatever, with all the risks that would entail. But who knows what would happen if the IDF attempted to draft me, or a guy from Hamas put a gun to my head?
I have a similar, if more continuously schooled background with the history as yours, Mary. One little thing niggled from early on, though. I watched the Six Day War on the news in 1967, and realized that what I was seeing was French planes, piloted by Israelis, blowing up American tanks, driven by Jordanians. That's the point where I started wondering if maybe the US and NATO should stop facilitating the violence. The USSR too, of course, but my voice and vote didn't matter there.
The fact of the matter is this: the US has picked a side. And the question that Americans have to answer is: Does our picking of a side advance genuine peace?
Looking what we're seeing in Gaza, I'm comfortable saying that the United States ought to be doing something different. What that is, I don't know, but I'm growing more and more convinced that sending Israel more bombs is a mistake.
It’s not just Israel who has powerful supporters, so does Hezbollah. Hamas never quite so much, perhaps because they’re so extreme. Significantly, a. Number of Hamas leaders are not based in Palestine. They are in other Arab countries ensuring their funding and supply chain of armaments. the West Bank becomes overly embroiled.
You're certainly right to remind us that there are people genuinely attempting to create peace. Some of them are Israeli, Palestinian, Arab, Iranian, European, and American, maybe even Chinese and Russian. I wish there were more.
And you're also correct that there are multitude of states and other entities involved, many with bad intent.
I guess what galls me worst about it all is that we Americans pretend that we're neutral arbiters, rather than interested parties, whose interests may not coincide with peace and justice. I don't need to assert that burning children to death is wrong for Hezbollah to conclude that it's a use of my tax money I can't countenance.
Don’t forget the countries that have picked the other side(s) or the ones who are seeking to negotiate peace. If the conflict extends big time into the West Bank, Hezbollah has far more powerful backing than Hamas. All the players theoretically have access to armaments. The one thing Hamas apparently didn’t plan for was the total blockade of Gaza including water, power, emergency supplies etc. they planned their attack really well, but they didn’t plan for what to expect afterwards. Perhaps that’s because so many of Hamas leaders aren’t actually based in Gaza.
I really admire the self-examination and effort to learn and listen that this carefully written piece exemplifies. I especially appreciated the consideration given to how the words "simple" and "complex" are applied to make cases. Thank you.
Thank you so much for these thoughts, especially the perspective of your generation’s experience of Jewish people’s stories, whether through books or school or actual family trauma. I’m fascinated by how we react to events on account of our upbringing, and the bombing and killing occurring at this moment is certainly shaking up multiple generations’ understandings of Palestine and Israel.
Thank you for this, I thought it was good. I've never bought the idea that Israel is "imperialist/colonialist." I wonder though if the writer's hope for a moderate outcome in the end still looks plausible even to him.
But I can't help thinking of one of my favourite stories of yours, 'Mirrorball', when I daily witness where almost everyone seems to be going in their endless reactions to this conflict. No other that I can recall in my lifetime seems to inspire such intense feeling. Layer upon layer of deep deep 'dreamings' and projections seem to reveal themselves in so many reactions I see or hear or read, and coming from all sides... It feels like it triggers so much more to us all about many things way way beyond the actual conflict itself... I hope you don't mind me drawing the parallel. But it speaks loudly to me, even though of course the story isn't directly about anything 'political.'
I don't mind the comparison at all! I'm curious though to hear more about the prismatic reactions you are hearing as most of what I hear is one side or the other in very stark terms. But yes to "deep deep 'dreamings' and projections":
"It feels like it triggers so much more to us all about many things way way beyond the actual conflict itself"
This seems very true to a degree that is frightening but also makes sense given the unavoidable connection with the Holocaust and even more the locale of the conflict, an ancient and holy site of three major religions, actually in the same place, a compound known as Temple Mount and al-Aqsa Mosque.
Even if you are an atheist (I'm not), this circumstance is historically profound for reasons I don't feel equal to giving words to at the moment, or any moment. It feels like a common root of humanity is under attack by humanity. Terrifying.
I am likely younger than most commenters here (35 yrs) and this article is bringing up some feelings/reactions. I have no particular expertise on this subject but have been following it closely (compulsively?) since the attack on October 7th.
I think that this writer is dismissing claims of genocide much too casually, and wants to act as though there is no Israeli ideological thread linking the staggering civilian casualties in Gaza to the slower yet still violent encroachment of settlers in the West Bank. He also states that the Israeli goal in Gaza is to minimize civilian deaths "for practical reasons" and then makes no effort at all to substantiate that claim. The medical system in Gaza has been rendered nonfunctional, universities bombed, graveyards and religious sites have been desecrated by Israeli troops. There are videos of soldiers planting Israeli flags on bombed out shells of Palestinian homes. I don't know the exact legal definition of genocide, or maybe even the exact definition of colonialism, but it is clear at a minimum that Israel wants to make the continuation of any kind of normal life for Palestinians in Gaza impossible, with the ultimate aim of controlling their land. As of my writing this comment Israel is poised to make a ground invasion into Rafah, densely populated by civilians at the southern border because that's where they were forced to go. Genocide war crimes semantics semantics.
My second objection is more of a tonal thing- I find it bizarre that this author finds it bizarre (his word choice) that American college kids care about this so much when our government is so invested in it and so unwilling to suspend $$ to Israel no matter what they do, and I'm put off by his dismissiveness, apparent distaste, and lack of empathy for young people. Young people often feel things intensely, and they are coming to adulthood in a society that increasingly disenfranchises them. When channeled that intensity is a strength, and the author seems afraid of it.
I appreciate the willingness in this article to get into the blow-by-blows of the history, which is certainly complex. I do still have the sense that in some pretty important ways he is missing the forest for the trees. There is more to say but I'm out of steam. Thank you Mary for your thoughtfulness as always.
I’m sixty-seven. Like you, Ms. Gaitskill, I had a father who served in WWll. He was radically wrong about a great many things in his life, but he was right about one thing. When I was around forty, he told me that he was glad he had grown up during the Depression, then fought in the war as a teenager. “I was still young,” he said, “when I saw the worst the world could do. I suspect you’ll be old when you see it.”
Your father sounds extremely wise, thank you for posting his words.
i wrote and deleted several things already and thought i would take time to provide more historical context and also decry the hypocrisy of the silence for all the other atrocities happening now in this world except for the outrage against Israel for defending itself (you know Hamas’s aim and that they never stopped attacking even through the ceasefire - and just rejected another one!) and you must’ve read the nyt piece this week about the depraved sexual brutality which still doesn’t pierce the hearts of the justice mobs, or that no matter the evidence of diverted aid money into terror tunnels and it goes on and on and if you care to read about it, i can tell you that much has been written with nuance and historical detail about Israel’s history but all i can think of is that you reposted someone’s disgusting comment that the Israelis should have known better than to dance in their own country!!! As if!!! And all must know that this attack was planned and paid way in advance --- and talk about blaming the victim... i am so sad to see the twisting of well intentioned people to virtue signal how hard it is to see the innocents suffer... it’s hard on everyone, except the demented! Do we let the barbarians win? I don’t have the answers and i don’t know how to come to terms with radical islamists who believe in killing apostates and jews and gays and don’t think the US is immune. I am still most stunned by that comment from such an admired writer - please rethink your words.
Kathi, I didn't "repost" what someone said, I repeated a verbal conversation with someone, a Jewish woman, who expressed a point of view that, as I wrote, I "argued with." It matters because when you repost something it is usually because you agree with it and want to disseminate it. Not only did I say that I argued with her, but some paragraphs down I said that if I were a young Israeli with liberal sympathies to Palestinians, and someone invited me to a rave a few miles outside Gaza I would go, that it would not occur to me to think I was doing anything harmful to Palestinians. So why did I repeat the conversation at all? Because part of what I wanted to emphasize was that many Jewish people do not support what is happening, and some said things that were shocking to me. I don't think Hamas attacked because they were upset about a dance party! I know the attack was planned in advance and anyway am not blaming those kids--even the woman who made the comment was not saying they deserved what happened, no one in their right mind would. I only briefly mentioned it, but the same lady spent some moments raging about how "bloodthirsty" and insane Hamas is before she made that comment. She was in a state about the whole thing and to me her comment indicates that, despair at the madness of the situation.
But its true, while I don't think Palestine is blameless I think Israel has become a bad actor here, even with the evil of Hamas. I don't want to try to debate with you every example or reason of why I've come to where I am in this, and even if I did I would not expect to change your mind. But I do want to recommend an essay I read by a self-described Zionist (Leon Weiseltier) who is very against the way this war is being prosecuted as well as much that lead up to it--I think you would find it interesting at least. He starts out describing his visceral love for Israel and his rage at Oct. 7th, his desire for revenge. He gets into a lot of history and experience. Towards the end he says: "There is no "context" that can absolve Hamas of this culpability. It started this war. But that does not mean that any Israeli target will do. Strategy is made by choosing between options, in both means and ends, and strategic choices must have valid reasons. The culpability of one's enemy is a historical consideration, not a strategic one, and it does not bear upon the moral analysis of war-fighting." Here's a link to it: https://libertiesjournal.com/articles/savagery-and-solidarity/
You might have to pay for it, but I think you'd find it worthwhile; even if you don't agree with him finally I think you would appreciate his erudition and passion. He is saying something like what I have come to feel, though from a very different perspective.
Thank you for taking the time and your reply. I appreciate the perspective of those closer to the core and read the pieces you cited but I don't see the war now as revenge but as a struggle for survival. If Israel lays down its arms, it will cease to exist. If Palestians do, they can achieve peace and prosperity. Hamas and its proxies are the enemy of all free people.
If I were Palestinian - and if the evil that is Hamas no longer existed - I would definitely not trust Israel to let me live in peace and prosperity whilst the current Israeli government is in power. I do not believe Netanyahu wants peace. He seems to want a perpetual state of war. Perhaps, in time, he will be charged as a war criminal. In which case I trust that he will be given a fair trial.
Thank you for staying with this. Today's New Yorker blog had an Isaac Chotiner interview with a Palestinian political analyst who enlarged the conversation in a way that I found meaningful, bringing the differences of the situation into consideration.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/whats-behind-israels-crackdown-in-the-west-bank
This is all beyond horrible, but I think this interview gives a sane perspective at least.
Sorry, that should have read "bringing the differences of the situation in the West Bank into consideration."
First thank you for your apparent restraint, its appreciated. I want to answer in more detail but it will take me a day or so.
I would like to rephrase my last comment and apologise for being rude. Instead I say the following:
Gaitskill has offered a sophisticated range of perspectives on an incredibly difficult and painful situation. It does not help anyone if one accuses those with whom we disagree of ‘virtue signalling’.
Gaitskill did not ‘repost’ a comment about having a ‘party’ near a ‘concentration camp’, she offerd sone considered personal viewpoints concerning an article in the New Yorker and its reception, and what she had gained from reading the TEXT.
what i meant was that i feel by sharing a perspective that the festival goers were in anyway to be blamed for what hamas did is abhorrent and twisted. gaza was evacuated by israelis years ago and its deplorable conditions are due to hamas not the israelis. you should be railing against them for palestine freedom.yet the tragedy of gaza is blamed on Israel. i appreciate your apology and understand that there are other perspectives and the horror of seeing suffering innocents. i am overwhelmed however by how easy it is for people to blame Israel and the current fervor of hate against jews.
No one has blamed the festival goers. A lot of people have criticized and blamed Israeli Intelligence for being blindsided so badly. It was a catastrophic failure. Whether or not the festival should have been held so close to the border is a different matter. I have not read anything about why that particular site was chosen or what safety precautions were considered in advance by the festival organizers. That, I think is a reasonable question to ask in hindsight.
Likewise, no one questioned the ‘right’ of Israel to retaliate in the beginning. No one has questioned the need for the return of the hostages. It is the extent of the retaliation that is being questioned now, notwithstanding that so many of the hostages have not been freed. Unfortunately, most people have forgotten about the hostages when all the media shows is images of destruction in Gaza and reports now focus on the numbers of children, women, journalists and Aid Workers who have been killed at the hands of Israeli’s.
People have forgotten that Hamas has vowed to kill every Israeli/Jew. The world has conflated Israel with being Jewish/ all Jews. Hence the alarming rise of Antisemitism globally. We know that Muslim’s far outnumber Jews numerically. What has shocked and still shocks me is how much this war has given so much of the world an excuse to be antisemitic-- which we see playing out on university campuses globally.
My father proposed the motion at a Cambridge University Debate in 1945 that “In the opinion of this house Palestine should be given to the Jews as their national home”. He lost. Re-reading his typescript now, there are a few sentences in his closing argument that stand out.
First: “The Jews are in Palestine already. The Jewish national home is already there; it cannot be removed. As at present constituted it is sufficiently big to be an irritant, but not sufficiently strong to be a bulwark.”
Second: “If Arab consent is to be a pre-condition of any political settlement in Palestine, hope must be given up of Justice for the Jewish people. The solution is simple. Palestine must be designated a Jewish State.”
Three years later the State of Israel came into being. Close to 80 years later, Israel is no longer a bulwark- it has its own sophisticated army. It is way more than an irritant. It has proved itself to be both a formidable defender and formidable aggressor. As a Jew, I am proud of Israel’s achievements. As a person, I can’t be proud of the failure on one hand to integrate with others who have also called Palestine home for thousands of years, while on the other fostering hatred by establishing one of the most arcane bureaucracies in the world.
While I understand the logic behind Hamas wants to destroy us and brought about horrendous destruction, ergo we need to destroy Hamas. I cannot get my head around the destruction that has taken place on Gaza. I also cannot get my head around blaming the residents of Gaza for its “deplorable conditions”. To me that’s as inane as blaming festival goers for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. People don’t chose where they are born or the conditions they are born into. It’s the people in power who are the dictators, set mandates, and control the message. They set the standards of us versus them, and sow the seeds of discontent and hatred. If we are going to blame anyone for the current situation, my vote is for the megalomaniacs currently in power. So while as a Jew, I will always defend Israel’s right to exist, I cannot condone what is happening in Gaza today, just as I cannot condone how Orthodox Jews treat women.
Thank you Louise.
You say 'if we are going to blame anyone, my vote is for the megalomaniacs currently in power' - do you mean Hamas leadership or is your blame on the Israeli government? And the deplorable conditions in Gaza most certainly can be blamed on Hamas - diverting aid money into terror tunnels is undisputed, teaching their children to take up arms to kill Jews and die martyrs is well documented, the lack of care for their own people is blatant and rampant. This reminds me of a Joan Rivers clip where she looks at the camera and says... what is wrong with you people? they started it!
Don’t you dare accuse those with whom you disagree of ‘virtue signalling’!
Thank you for this, Mary. I admire how you’re able to think yourself into understanding so many points of view.
Thank you.
Thank you for speaking up and for the link to Masha Gessen. I have stopped saying similar things out of fear of alienating traumatized Jewish people I know and being perceived as anti-Semitic. My father had his arm blown off in Italy in WWII. Ann Frank inspired me to keep a journal and think about moral responsibility.
I grew up in societies (South Africa, England, and the US) that were covertly anti-Semitic and largely indifferent to the murder of Jews during WWII, when they turned away Jewish refugees. I went to a private school with many Jewish students because other WASPY Boston area prep schools had quotas. The League of Nations (do I have this right?) created the boundaries of Israel in the aftermath of a Holocaust in which now-guilt-stricken and belatedly horrified Europeans had been complicit.
They then "solved" the so-called "Jewish problem" by fobbing it off on other people ---villagers, goat herders, farmers, voiceless people, non-Europeans--- the Palestinians -- on the theory that when Jews once again had a nation-state, they could defend Jews everywhere and all would be okay.
History has since repeated itself. Generational, historical and cultural trauma is continually re-enacted: first in 1948 when Palestinians were violently forced out of their villages and off their land and repeatedly since. Perhaps Oct. 7 was experienced by many Jews as Kristallnacht and the pogroms rolled into one. When trauma is triggered, it is frequently re-enacted and visited on the bodies of others.
I think those of us who are not Jewish have an obligation to understand this history better. I recommend two other books along with "A Day in the Life" -- My Promised Land, (by an Israeli journalist) and "Apeirigon," by an Irishman who I bet saw similarities to The Troubles.
I don't buy the conflation of "Anti-Semitism" (the hatred or dislike of Jews as Jews and indifference and inaction in the face of attacks on them) with "political opposition to the acts and policies of Israel." Nor do I buy the conflation of "opposing Israel" or "calling for a cease-fire" with "supporting Hamas." Nor do I buy minimizing or erasing the power differentials between Palestinians and Israelis.
Boycotts, sanctions and divestment worked in my native South Africa.
I first heard the treatment of Palestinians analogized to Apartheid by the Jewish-American pollster Stan Greenberg decades ago when he was a grad student at Yale. I was horrified by the labelling of Palestinians as "animals" to pave the way for the bombing and murder of women and children. There are enormous power differentials at work between displaced and ghettoized Palestinians and the Israeli nation-state, which draws some of its destructive power from our bombs, our no-strings and enabling military aid. It has become difficult to say this without fear of being shamed as anti-Semitic.
Thank you for the book recommendations, I do want to understand the history better.
Surely Hamas wanted a war, just as al-Qaeda did in 2001, doing something so ugly that the response was bound to be disproportionate and full of its own horrors. By making their knees buckle, the powerful can be made to lose their minds. The US lashed out incoherently in 2001; it didn't make anything better. Mossad used to be very--scarily--capable of managing police actions, which should for God's sake have been the approach taken in the circumstances. Not war. My country doesn't get that, and maybe I don't have a right to expect Israel to do better. Horror without end: a first thought should be how not to invite more of it.
Thanks for this, as usual from you, so sophisticated and original exploration of various facets of an incredibly difficult issue. It is really helpful to me personally, as I was recently on a silent vipassana meditation retreat for 8 weeks, in seclusion from all news. Re-engaging with world news is extremely difficult, and your article really helps me.
Thank you. Every voice willing to denounce the horror is a mitzvah. As an American Jew about your age, I was steeped in the hasbara tropes of “making the desert bloom,” etc. I think most American Jews, at least the educated ones, are experiencing a cognitive dissonance of epic proportion. Sooner or later the dam will burst. It may not be loud but it’s coming.
Thanks, Mary. This was helpful. It doesn't make anything easier, but clarity of mind is always helpful. And thanks for recommending Masha's piece -- I hadn't seen it.
I wish Israel's response was more proportionate, but I'll share a simple, contrary view.
Palestinians have many legitimate grievances against Israel, but they don't turn these grievances into anything productive. Some people might think, "We've been oppressed by Israel for so long, and now we're going to organize so they can't oppress us anymore." Palestinians think, what? In 2000 they turned down a peace deal that was far better than anything you could imagine today. They commit formless violence that's always going to be outmatched by Israeli violence. Israel has an official policy of disproportionate retaliation. What they're doing in Gaza is very predictable.
People are now full of expressions of sympathy for Palestinians. It reminds me of a quote: "There is only one thing I hope to see before I die, and that is that my people should not need expressions of sympathy anymore." When Palestinians are able to think like that, we'll be much closer to peace.
I agree with the principle of a wish that "people should not need expressions of sympathy anymore." Not the moment for it, though, is it? Nor for the comment that "they don't turn these [legitimate] grievances into anything productive"--which minimizes those grievances to a nullity. The peace initiative needs to start with Israel, as the party with the only recognized authority, which so far has hedged on whether Palestinians may not be herded out of existence.
Who does the Israeli peace initiative talk to? There's Hamas, dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and the Palestinian Authority, despised by Palestinians as corrupt. Palestinians need to organize if they want peace (or anything else). Until they do, they'll have to console themselves with being the object of liberal sympathies.
Well, without talking to anyone, Israel can declare either that Palestinians will be entitled to full representation as citizens of Israel, or that they can have their own country, with borders drawn by a neutral body. Could start--should have a long time ago--by actually disallowing settlements and confiscations. People know lots more about this than I do. I'm just noting it as something obvious that Palestinians have no equality, and that without that being granted, no solution is imaginable.
Any borders are going to directly impact Israel, so it needs to be a party. Furthermore, you can't just give people a country. Having a country requires organization, nationalism, some kind of unifying principles. Western people take these things for granted, but they're things that Palestinians (and many postcolonial people) don't seem to be able to muster.
Israel has a sizable minority (~20%) of Palestinians. They are citizens and get full representation. The Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are not Israeli citizens, and I doubt they want to be considered as such. It would make more sense for them to become Jordanian or Egyptian citizens, but neither country wants that to happen.
I agree that Israel should dismantle settlements/stop future settlements.
Thanks to both you and Chris for the respectful tone.
Is there any solution other than a choice between a two-state solution, and a perpetual state of war?
Israel was ‘just given’ in 1948.
Nah they fought a war, and the UN's plan was not implemented. No one is "just given" a country. The international world isn't orderly like that.
Palestinians (aka Arab Israelis) already live in Israel and are represented in government, and all sectors of society. The ones who have elected regimes who won't accept any sort of peace are left of a situation of their own making.
Have a like at “Jerusalem: The Spatial Politics of a Divided Metropolis” by Anne B. Shlay and Gillad Rosen, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2015. Anne is a Jewish-American sociologist, Gillad, an Israeli geographer. It’s well written and easy to read. One theme throughout the book is the additional complexity Israel adds to anything bureaucratic that affects Israeli Arab’s. True, Israeli Palestinians/Arabs have members of Parliament, but they are few in number and far outweighed by orthodox Jewry. They are not ‘equal’ citizens in any way, shape or form. Bureaucracy has made them unequal. True, Jerusalem is a global anomaly as a city, given its importance to so many religions. But the divides within it are at least a partial reflection of Israel as a whole.
OOps first sentence should start with: Have a look at...... autocorrect misunderstood me
Again, I agree. Furthermore, I suspect that those Israeli settlers in the West Bank who are persecuting peaceful Palestinian farmers are no better than Hamas terrorists who continue to persecute peaceful Israelis and Palestinians.
Thank you. I agree.
It’s weird to say, but I am reading Operation Shylock right now and learning a lot from it. I don’t normally look to novels to “learn from” them, and I haven’t always loved Philip Roth. But the novel is set in Israel and Gaza (for the most part) and looks at these places and the people in them from all sorts of angles. Even though it’s got an annoying-sounding metafictional premise (a writer narrator named Philip Roth finds out he has a doppelgänger imposter in Israel who is going around advocating for Jews to abandon Israel and return to Europe) it’s full of different voices and histories and is a lot more balanced and also deep than a lot of essays I’ve read about this issue. It’s also funny in an absurdist dark way at moments and a weird page turner. I recommend it I think.
I have feelings about Israel and Palestine, but very little real understanding. In my heart, I know my ignorance has been willful and self-protective. That needs to change.
There is hope for The Other Bob Ryan.
Thanks again to you, Mary, my favourite blogger 😏 Since getting your email last evening, I’ve been thinking more about Gaza, Israel, Ukraine and Russia. It’s much like looking in a mirror, isn’t it, seeing the human condition writ large, much too large.
This is no time for pithy comments. Gessen’s words rang true when I read them a few weeks ago. And now yours set off an entire new set of memories.
My dad too, in North Africa before setting off for fascist Italy. And as a kid entering teenager-hood, totally enraptured by reading what turned out to be the original Israeli PR exercise, aka Exodus by Leon Uris. So, a few years later being introduced to another form of passion by Judith, fresh from a kibbutz, there were stars aplenty in my firmament before they began to be dimmed by Vietnam.
Fast forward to just about now. My initial reaction to the walls that came tumbling down on Oct 7 was much like that on 9/11 - brilliant tactics and just deserts for so many wrongs. And as the horrors began to be magnified, whose stories should be believed?
Ah yes, it’s easy to utter outrage from the comfortableness on this island in the far west of Canada, sipping coffee in the winter sunshine, awaiting a new year that will soon reveal the same old tired human traits of power, greed and racist corruption, escaping into old age by the skin of my teeth until sea levels rise, earthquakes hit and realizing there is really no escape at all.
Thanks for your words - again and again - and for listening.
“brilliant tactics for just desserts” in reference to 9/11 and october 7th? stunned by the hate-fullness and ignorance! and if you don’t know who to believe as you say, keep quiet.
I'm not qualified to tell Israelis or Palestinians what to do. I'd like to think I'd stay true to my pacifist beliefs if I were a member of any nation/people/whatever, with all the risks that would entail. But who knows what would happen if the IDF attempted to draft me, or a guy from Hamas put a gun to my head?
I have a similar, if more continuously schooled background with the history as yours, Mary. One little thing niggled from early on, though. I watched the Six Day War on the news in 1967, and realized that what I was seeing was French planes, piloted by Israelis, blowing up American tanks, driven by Jordanians. That's the point where I started wondering if maybe the US and NATO should stop facilitating the violence. The USSR too, of course, but my voice and vote didn't matter there.
The fact of the matter is this: the US has picked a side. And the question that Americans have to answer is: Does our picking of a side advance genuine peace?
Looking what we're seeing in Gaza, I'm comfortable saying that the United States ought to be doing something different. What that is, I don't know, but I'm growing more and more convinced that sending Israel more bombs is a mistake.
It’s not just Israel who has powerful supporters, so does Hezbollah. Hamas never quite so much, perhaps because they’re so extreme. Significantly, a. Number of Hamas leaders are not based in Palestine. They are in other Arab countries ensuring their funding and supply chain of armaments. the West Bank becomes overly embroiled.
You're certainly right to remind us that there are people genuinely attempting to create peace. Some of them are Israeli, Palestinian, Arab, Iranian, European, and American, maybe even Chinese and Russian. I wish there were more.
And you're also correct that there are multitude of states and other entities involved, many with bad intent.
I guess what galls me worst about it all is that we Americans pretend that we're neutral arbiters, rather than interested parties, whose interests may not coincide with peace and justice. I don't need to assert that burning children to death is wrong for Hezbollah to conclude that it's a use of my tax money I can't countenance.
Don’t forget the countries that have picked the other side(s) or the ones who are seeking to negotiate peace. If the conflict extends big time into the West Bank, Hezbollah has far more powerful backing than Hamas. All the players theoretically have access to armaments. The one thing Hamas apparently didn’t plan for was the total blockade of Gaza including water, power, emergency supplies etc. they planned their attack really well, but they didn’t plan for what to expect afterwards. Perhaps that’s because so many of Hamas leaders aren’t actually based in Gaza.
I really admire the self-examination and effort to learn and listen that this carefully written piece exemplifies. I especially appreciated the consideration given to how the words "simple" and "complex" are applied to make cases. Thank you.
Thank you so much for these thoughts, especially the perspective of your generation’s experience of Jewish people’s stories, whether through books or school or actual family trauma. I’m fascinated by how we react to events on account of our upbringing, and the bombing and killing occurring at this moment is certainly shaking up multiple generations’ understandings of Palestine and Israel.
Whatever else, I think this is good to go into the mad mix of this collective dream / nitghtmare situation:
https://archive.vn/njsDG
Thank you for this, I thought it was good. I've never bought the idea that Israel is "imperialist/colonialist." I wonder though if the writer's hope for a moderate outcome in the end still looks plausible even to him.
I agree on all you say here.
But I can't help thinking of one of my favourite stories of yours, 'Mirrorball', when I daily witness where almost everyone seems to be going in their endless reactions to this conflict. No other that I can recall in my lifetime seems to inspire such intense feeling. Layer upon layer of deep deep 'dreamings' and projections seem to reveal themselves in so many reactions I see or hear or read, and coming from all sides... It feels like it triggers so much more to us all about many things way way beyond the actual conflict itself... I hope you don't mind me drawing the parallel. But it speaks loudly to me, even though of course the story isn't directly about anything 'political.'
I don't mind the comparison at all! I'm curious though to hear more about the prismatic reactions you are hearing as most of what I hear is one side or the other in very stark terms. But yes to "deep deep 'dreamings' and projections":
"It feels like it triggers so much more to us all about many things way way beyond the actual conflict itself"
This seems very true to a degree that is frightening but also makes sense given the unavoidable connection with the Holocaust and even more the locale of the conflict, an ancient and holy site of three major religions, actually in the same place, a compound known as Temple Mount and al-Aqsa Mosque.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Mount.
Even if you are an atheist (I'm not), this circumstance is historically profound for reasons I don't feel equal to giving words to at the moment, or any moment. It feels like a common root of humanity is under attack by humanity. Terrifying.
I am likely younger than most commenters here (35 yrs) and this article is bringing up some feelings/reactions. I have no particular expertise on this subject but have been following it closely (compulsively?) since the attack on October 7th.
I think that this writer is dismissing claims of genocide much too casually, and wants to act as though there is no Israeli ideological thread linking the staggering civilian casualties in Gaza to the slower yet still violent encroachment of settlers in the West Bank. He also states that the Israeli goal in Gaza is to minimize civilian deaths "for practical reasons" and then makes no effort at all to substantiate that claim. The medical system in Gaza has been rendered nonfunctional, universities bombed, graveyards and religious sites have been desecrated by Israeli troops. There are videos of soldiers planting Israeli flags on bombed out shells of Palestinian homes. I don't know the exact legal definition of genocide, or maybe even the exact definition of colonialism, but it is clear at a minimum that Israel wants to make the continuation of any kind of normal life for Palestinians in Gaza impossible, with the ultimate aim of controlling their land. As of my writing this comment Israel is poised to make a ground invasion into Rafah, densely populated by civilians at the southern border because that's where they were forced to go. Genocide war crimes semantics semantics.
My second objection is more of a tonal thing- I find it bizarre that this author finds it bizarre (his word choice) that American college kids care about this so much when our government is so invested in it and so unwilling to suspend $$ to Israel no matter what they do, and I'm put off by his dismissiveness, apparent distaste, and lack of empathy for young people. Young people often feel things intensely, and they are coming to adulthood in a society that increasingly disenfranchises them. When channeled that intensity is a strength, and the author seems afraid of it.
I appreciate the willingness in this article to get into the blow-by-blows of the history, which is certainly complex. I do still have the sense that in some pretty important ways he is missing the forest for the trees. There is more to say but I'm out of steam. Thank you Mary for your thoughtfulness as always.
Thank you Laura for such clear and considered writing. I find myself in agreement with everything you write in your love post