Yesterday marked two months of violence in Israel and the Occupied Territories — punctuated by an all-too-brief cessation of hostilities tied to the release of some hostages and political prisoners.
It is an anniversary that coincides with Hanukkah, the post-biblical holiday that commemorates an earlier Jewish war victory and the reclamation and rededication of the temple in Jerusalem — which many in the Jewish community believe is not just coincidence, but augurs something grander.
Anshel Pfeffer writes in Haaretz that Jews “are living in the most fateful period” of our modern history, “at least for anyone born after the Holocaust and Israel's foundation.” The murderous assault on Oct. 7 — on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah — raised questions for Israelis about “what kind of Israel and Jewish lives we want to live, and what kind of relationships we will have with our neighbors.”
American Jews feel a special connection to Israel. Many see the nation as fulfilling the long-prevented desire for a Jewish homeland. And because there has been a measurable rise in antisemitic acts and speech in the United States, the Jewish community in the United States is wrestling with similar questions — about our relationship to the Jewish state and what kind of state it should be. “But first,” as D.D. Guttenplan writes in The Nation, “we need to stop the atrocities—murder on the ground as well as murder from the air—and secure the release of all civilian hostages.”
To do that, we need to assemble the broadest, most effective coalition possible. Which, for a start, requires us all to engage in the delicate, challenging task of learning to speak a shared language—or, at least, a language as many of us as possible can live with and stand behind.
Sadly, we are far from speaking with the same tongue. The most vocal of Israel’s supporters view the last two months of vengeful violence as a just response, as a defensive action. Israel, they argue, is targeting a terrorist group bent on its destruction, and in doing so it also is making a statement on behalf of World Jewry against the tidal wave of antisemitism we are facing.
Critics — rightly, I think — see what Israel is doing in Gaza as the use of mass weaponry and military might to cleanse the Gaza Strip of its population.
Both things can be correct at the same time. Israel has engaged in indiscriminate and total war that and amounts to what I believe is a series of war crimes, actions that follow on a history of repression of Palestinians in Gaza and the use of thuggish “settlers” to carve up the West Bank into disconnected bantustans that are designed to prevent Palestinian unity.
And Hamas committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in its murderous assault, targeting civilians with violence that included rape and sexual assault, the killing of children, and the taking of civilian hostages.
I want to see this blood shed end, and I think we need a vibrant, pro-peace protest movement worldwide that aims first at the ending the war and, second, at finding a solution to what has been more than a century of dispute and fighting.
But I can’t endorse today’s call for a National Day of Protests. I can’t because its goal seems to be more than an end to the war and an end to the occupation. I can’t because it defines the occupation in a way that feels like a call to erase Israel as a nation from the map. The press release issued by the ANSWER Coalition invokes the phrase “from the river to the sea” — a phrase that has multiple meanings that include the basic demand for freedom for Palestinians and an end to Israeli apartheid, but also the more eliminationist erasure of the Jewish state from the map.
This is especially so when the phrase is placed in the context of ending “the Israeli occupation of all Palestinian land” — as said Manolo De Los Santos, executive director of The People’s Forum, does in an ANSWER press release I received this morning. This framing turns all Israeli Jews into occupiers, which then turns them into legitimate targets, and makes the creation of a common language and set of common goals impossible.
“Arguing over slogans wastes the time we need to spend stopping the slaughter—and working toward a just peace,” Guttenplan argues, though we can’t move toward a “just peace” if we do not agree on what that might look like.
In the end, as he says, “This is a dispute about land, not language—and ultimately, the land will have to be shared” — whether that means a single, non-ethnic or religious state, two states, or some kind of confederation. None of this will happen while the war rages, while Palestinians are chased south and their institutions are turned to rubble. None this can happen unless the rights of all people in the region — Palestinians and Israelis — are recognized and protected.
We cannot go back to the early 20th Century and, even if we could, it would look a lot different than the mythological version crafted by Palestinians and Israelis.
Right now, the debate has been one or the other, as I hear it. Especially among many Zionists, though a large pro-Palestinian contingent seems to see it that way. Both extremes are driving the debate. I prefer a democratic secular state, but want a solution that allows all groups to live peacefully and in security.
Just reading this, finally!
You seem to be saying two conflicting things: that the protest movement wants to see an end to the Jewish state but also that any lasting peace solution might mean one, non-ethnic/-religious state:
“In the end, as he says, “This is a dispute about land, not language—and ultimately, the land will have to be shared” — whether that means a single, non-ethnic or religious state, two states, or some kind of confederation.”
By its very nature, a one-state solution means the end of the Jewish state. In terms of numbers and in terms of equal rights. And that is the thrust of the protest movement’s wanting to see its demise. Not because of antisemitic hatred, but the undeniable fact that an ethnostate necessarily engages in apartheid and structural inequality (especially when it’s built on top of people already living there).
So, I’m confused whether you see the one-state solution as an option or a nonstarter?