Hearing Jewish voices on Gaza
7 key sources
I am having trouble getting to my writing desk lately. It is hard to write big, bold statements about building the future in place when I daily see a people’s place in Gaza being bombed to hell, while they are denied food, water, electricity, medical supplies, the basics of life. I am emotionally overwhelmed by what I see. But I am doing a lot of thinking about it, and I hope to have something for you soon. The issues we see unfolding in Gaza are a microcosm of four of the greatest obstacles to building a future - militarism, nationalism, fundamentalism and tribalism - and indeed may blow up any kind of future at all. Meanwhile, I want to share with my readers several Jewish voices who are informing my thinking.
An Open Letter from Jewish Students, a piece published just today by Jewish students at Brown University supporting their Palestinian peers, is as eloquent and comprehensive a statement on the issue I’ve read. If you don’t read any other of these links, please read this one.
‘Don’t destroy Gaza’: Families of Israelis killed or taken hostage by Hamas make emotional pleas for peace. “Israeli families of those killed or taken hostage by Hamas have issued heartfelt pleas to stop the ‘destruction of Gaza’ and work towards ‘long-lasting peace.’ Magen Inon, who spoke to The Independent from London, said his family were devastated by the loss of his parents Bilha, 75 and Yakov, 78. The couple were likely killed at the start of the 7 October rampage, on their village, which is among the closest Israeli communities to Gaza. ‘In the immediate term, we are calling for the de-escalation of the situation. We are devastated by the loss of my parents, but we are continuing their legacy in which we see beyond the hate. We are not sure what the way is but we are confident that the goal is to achieve long-lasting peace.’”
Two pieces detail how the version of Zionism that called for the establishment of an ethno-nationalist Jewish state in Palestine was actually opposed by many Jews, including religious Jews who felt it was a form of idolatry, and the left, who saw it as a diversion from the real struggle.
Jewish Alternatives to Zionism: A Partial History Ben Lorber writes at the Jewish Voice for Peace website, “For over a century, Jews around the world have maintained a robust critique of Zionism and the state of Israel. The tradition of Jewish dissent against Zionism has taken many forms. From the moment Theodore Herzl strode upon the world stage, many of us have insisted that leaving the diaspora for a Jewish nation-state is the wrong way to achieve safety, fight antisemitism, actualize Jewish identity, and work for justice in the world. Many have claimed that our peoples’ relationship to the land of Israel is far more complicated than a narrow nationalist vision can allow, or that we are religiously forbidden, at this time, from setting up a Jewish state in the holy land. And many have protested Israel’s dispossession of the Palestinians indigenous to the land of Israel.”
The Forgotten History of the Jewish, Anti-Zionist Left: A conversation with scholar Benjamin Balthaser about Jewish, working-class anti-Zionism in the 1930s and ’40s. “ . . . before the end of World War II, and even a little after, most Jews disparaged Zionists. And it didn’t matter if you were a communist, it didn’t matter if you were a Reform Jew, Zionism was not popular . . . the Jewish left in the 1930s and 1940s understood, critically, that the only way Zionism would be able to emerge in Palestine was through a colonial project and through the expulsion of the indigenous Palestinians from the land.”
Two pieces call into question the narrative that the 1,400 Israelis said to be slaughtered by Hamas were actually all killed by that group, and documents that many in fact were killed by the Israeli military in actions against Hamas.
Israeli forces shot their own civilians, kibbutz survivor says, from Electronic Intifada, based on an interview on Israeli radio. “An Israeli woman who survived the Hamas assault on settlements near the Gaza boundary on 7 October says Israeli civilians were ‘undoubtedly’ killed by their own security forces. It happened when Israeli forces engaged in fierce gun battles with Palestinian fighters in Kibbutz Be’eri and fired indiscriminately at both the fighters and their Israeli prisoners. ‘They eliminated everyone, including the hostages,’ she told Israeli radio. ‘There was very, very heavy crossfire’ and even tank shelling. The woman, 44-year-old mother of three Yasmin Porat, said that prior to that, she and other civilians had been held by the Palestinians for several hours and treated ‘humanely.’”
A growing number of reports indicate Israeli forces responsible for Israeli civilian and military deaths following October 7 attack, from Mondoweiss, a Jewish Anti-Zionist outlet. “Some reports are beginning to appear, including documentation of the killing of Israelis by Palestinian fighters, but there are a growing number of reports that indicate the Israeli military was also responsible for Israeli civilian and military deaths on October 7 and the days after.”
Finally, an hour-long interview by Chris Hedges of Jewish-American scholar of Gaza Norman Finkelstein, whose family on both sides apart from his parents were wiped out in the Holocaust, on why he will not condemn the actions of Hamas. He compares them to the brutal actions of an earlier revolt, by slaves led by Nat Turner, and the refusal of abolitionists to condemn them. Whether or not you agree, Finkelstein’s well-crafted arguments are worth a listen.
I am finding these days emotionally gut wrenching, along with many of my friends, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. And I am heartened by the rising resistance to Israeli actions. May the manifest darkness of the moment lead to a dawning of the light, summoning the better angels of our nature to indeed build a future in which we treat all people as members of a common human family.
Anti-Zionist Jew here; thanks very much for this post. The history of Zionism is really well done.
p.s. One of my grand uncles was Louis Lipsky. Look him up on on Wiki... lol
Thank you, Patrick, this is what we all need to read. Hoping everyone will read each source you have listed. We are all woefully undereducated from a system that wishes to keep us ignorant and in denial of the longtime suffering of Palestinians. Thank you to every Jewish person speaking out for Peace and an end to the oppression of Gaza. We must look to them for guidance.