Originally Published on 12th of May 2021, in the midst of “Operation Guardian of the Walls”, on The Rocky Road post.
Posts I’ve seen shared online by my English-speaking friends from abroad compelled me to give some perspective of how just messily complicated this whole mess truly is. These people are good people with good intentions, that only want to help. Yet having good intentions does not necessarily lead to a good outcome. Sharing posts of how Israel is responsible for an “ethnic cleansing” or alternatively, failing to see the true horror the Palestinians are faced with in Gaza and the west bank (much more than Israel is currently faced with) troubles me deeply. Often these posts are shared by people who never visited Israel, nor read about the conflict, never took the time to consider what it means to have missiles shot at your house. These people, who are often truly empathic to others’ pain, simply see images of suffering without context, having been fed one form of “pro-Palestine” or “pro-Israel” narrative.
Too Long Didn’t Read:
TL;DR – If you have no patience to read about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and are satisfied with reading only short TL;DRs (or even shorter Instagram posts), then you have no say on the matter and your opinions on the conflict are not only ill-informed, they are deeply damaging, adding fuel to the fire of hate, fear, suffering, and violence we are currently facing.
12th of May 2021, 3 AM Israeli time: I heard the loud familiar siren making me rush down for shelter at the bottom of my building, barefoot with no time to fix my backward t-shirt. I was not alone, in the last 24 hours, this has been the experience of almost all Israelis nationwide, and was done, evidently as to avoid the missiles being shot at us from Gaza. The experience is quite uncanny, and is difficult to explain to someone who never lived here – you hear the siren, which you recognize from your childhood and your teens, you choose one thing to take with you and rush down as soon as possible. Hopefully, your dog was chosen if you have any bit of heart, or maybe because you need a friend for the next couple of the long uncertain minutes and hours. Then entering the shelter, you wait, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, it is hard to count because you are so disoriented having just woken up. And just as the siren predicted, explosions are heard, some are so close and so loud, you don’t know if they were intercepted mid-air by the aerial defense “Iron dome” system, hundreds of meters above your head, or landed near your college friend’s house. Should you go check on her, WhatsApp her? You’re underground, there is no signal, you just need to wait and hope that they too are protected and safe. Around you, seeing neighbors you’ve just met for this first time, some sob quietly, some cry loudly, some try to distract themselves with dark-humor small-talk: “and to think I had just started such a nice long-sleep, couldn’t they schedule these missiles for the afternoon lunch break or something?”. During all this, I can’t help but wonder – how does this look to my international friends abroad? Are they concerned? Some of them attempt to send me messages –yet do they realize what is going on?
So, after the sirens temporarily quieted, I walked back up to my apartment. Unable to sleep like most others, I was shocked to see the posts of many of my old friends from abroad: people from the USA, Canada, and Europe. What they share is not a call for de-escalation or a call for peace, but rather sharing posts supporting Palestine, showing how attempting to kill me, my family, and my country is justified, because, well, oppression. The absurdity of the whole ordeal takes time to sink in – at the same night I was awoken as to ensure I will evade the possibility of death or injury, people that have never been to Israel are claiming carelessly, that I, along with everybody I know here, am in charge of nation-wide genocide. I wish someone had told me that’s what we are doing, I would have packed better hiking clothes for such an ambitious endeavor.
I continue to browse other posts by my friends, the discrepancy between the Arab, Israeli, and European social networks are truly staggering – it’s as if they are looking at completely different places. Yet it’s specifically the Anglo-European accounts’ posts I found most disturbing. Words such as “ethnic cleansing”, and “genocide” pop out, some posts claiming this is not a “conflict” and this term “conflict” is too misleading. I mean it is not like there are two sides to every story, God no that would be too complicated, too close to the truth (and will get too few likes), to them, this is a simple story of good vs bad, oppressed vs oppressors.
The epistemological gap between Israel, Palestine, and the international community has never been, in recent memory, this great. Both emotionally, rationally, and factually, it’s as if we are living in different “moral matrices” (to use Jonathan Haidt’s term) that make us incapable of understanding where the other stands, thinks, or feels. The actions of others explained by sole hate, and our actions explained by rationally justified self-defense, and vice versa.
This utter lack of nuance, the sheer inability to view the complexity of the situation we are currently in troubles me deeply. As almost every news source or social media post I encountered seems to suggest, this is the time to fall back to instinctive tribalism. I would like to highlight some of the key elements missing in the discourse I am confronted with on both sides of this conflict. Israel is an apartheid state– this claim is flawed, misleading, and again lacks the nuance a discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must tolerate. Israel is troubled, there exists inequality, there are tensions and there is no lack of racism to go around, explicitly or implicitly directed at the Arab-Palestinian minority inside and outside of Israel’s borders.
Yet Israel is in no way an apartheid state, not in any way close to South Africa in the 20th century. The racism is bad, the inequality should be dealt with, but this is in no essential way different than the same tensions faced in most western countries between majority and minority groups. Why isn’t the USA and Canada blamed for taking part in apartheid for their treatment of black, Latin, and indigenous minorities? It’s just that here deadly violence, whose roots are intertwined with the religious doctrine of Jihad is more apparent and is dealt with not only with the police but with the army itself, often escalating to the use of guns and knives.
Just as Important, Israel in no way denying the access of an Arab Palestinian representation in the Knesset (Congress), this year we just might have seen one in the government. Arab-Palestinians, who make 20% of Israel’s population, have voting rights, yet many choose not to participate in democratic politics to nearly the extent they can. It is partly, due to frustration at the system, a lack of hope for better change. Yet instead of working within the boundaries of a democracy, which Israel certainly is, many choose violent protests, which give a greater sense of control, of empowerment, even if people, Israelis and Palestinians alike, are hurt in the process. As for the Palestinians living in Gaza or the West Bank, they cannot seem to choose a democratic representative that will act according to their best interests and focus on improving education or infrastructure.
Israel is killing people for fun – as we are talking, Israel continues to attack in Gaza, and pictures and videos of injured and screaming civilians are circulated worldwide. Yet a crucial difference between the tactics employed by Israel and Hamas is that instead of firing all-over in the hopes of killing civilians, Israel always targets only military bases, where Hamas rockets and intelligence units operate. Yet regrettably, these bases are strategically located by Hamas in densely populated areas, so there is no way to stop rockets without hurting the nearby civilians. Though there are attempts from the IDF to evacuate everyone near the site of the attack, statistically and geographically, not having collateral damage is virtually impossible. Hamas’ main technique, quite intelligently and appallingly, is to rely on the gruesome pictures of dead women and children, that will find their way into international news. So, the narrative of “good” vs “bad” may be amplified by the same clickbaity posts calling for Palestinian support.
I wish to ask my friends in Spain, Canada, the USA – how would you want your country to react when your house is been literally fired at? Your family in danger? How would you wish the army in charge of the protection of your country to behave? Would you want the firing to stop in the fastest way possible? Or would you prefer the army to turn to pacifism where more rockets and more injured and dead on your side will surely continue to rise?
I always express my concern that Israel often plays the same integral role in the cycle of death and destruction that we see now. I always wish that better discourse with Arabs and Jews, Palestinians, and Israelis may be facilitated rather than shunned. More financial resources giving to schools in east Jerusalem. Completely halting the building of settlements that mostly fuel the rage that imploded today. The trust of the Arabs in Israel’s democratic institutions must be restored, as this Sheikh Jarrah fiasco, where the court ruling was irrefutably racist and unjust, exemplifies. Yet at this very moment, when danger looms close – I cannot see any valid alternative than the taking out of the source of immediate danger. I would not wish any of my friends in Europe to be in my shoes, concerned for friends who still haven’t finished their mandatory military service. Yet if any of the same people criticizing Israel’s current line of action are in this situation, I would wish for them that the source that is actively trying to kill them will cease to exist, as fast as possible, and with as few casualties as possible.
The difference in the death count – the only reason why Israel has so few deaths compared to the deaths in Gaza, around 1:10 ratio currently, is a result of a country’s infrastructure, priorities, and technology. Specifically, something many critics of Israel seem to not be familiar with, or at least never seem to mention is the Iron Dome. Even though at the time of writing, more than 1200 rockets have been fired to all the major cities in Israel, including Beer-Sheva, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv, only a relatively few rockets hit civilian houses and shops (though much more than any time in recent memory, killing more Israeli-civilian lives than can be remembered). This is because Israel has in its arsenal a simple yet powerful technology, that allows us to continue living life (if only compared to our neighbors in Gaza), though rockets continue to explode above our heads. This technology is the “Iron Dome” and it is able to shoot down incoming missiles, albeit with a 90% accuracy. So luckily, though we are engaging in war, we can go into shelters, arrive in times after the sirens warned, and most importantly, 9 out of 10 missiles shot from Gaza will be intercepted with minimum damage. The unfortunate people living in Gaza do not, in any way have the same kind of luxury. Gaza, being so densely populated with no place to hide when Israeli airstrikes begin, there is little for them to do to ensure their safety. Thus Hamas, by baiting Israel, knowing it will attack, gets to use the horrific footage in the international battle for sympathy.
Pointing to the number of deaths as a measure of morality is flawed in essence. This logic, that morality should be measured by the death count on each side, means that in order for Israel to act morally, it needs to stop its defense of its citizens, allow for more Israeli civilians to die, especially children, so when we count the number of deaths we will be on a more “equal moral footing”. The absurdity is, I hope, self-evident.
Israel is 100% justified in every action made – the attacks on Gaza are unfortunate but arguably necessary. Yet, we should always ask are they excessive? Is there an alternative? This is a difficult question to answer, as in order to ensure peace and quiet, you must pluck the problem from its immediate root – the missile launchers and Hamas personnel in charge of the firing. Yet the deeper root, the years of hate and fear, is only strengthened and no action has been taken in the last 16 years to change the problematic status quo.
Israel should, without a doubt look itself in the mirror, much more than it currently does, both for the actions taken in this time of escalating tensions, but also for those of years passed and of those years to come – how come there was no talk of Sheikh Jarrah and it caught us Israelis, collectively by surprise? Are the conditions in the territories so hopeless deprived that they see no other alternative than violent protests and missiles? Why is there no continuing negotiation? Or at the very least the active betterment of Palestinian living conditions, within and outside of Israel’s borders? Where is the dialogue? Where is the Palestinian voice that is missing from the mainstream media and positions of power? Arab representation in the government, though possible, is such a taboo, how absurd is it that this sentiment is so widely held? Can we see the Palestinians who as a friend we are trying to help rather than an enemy we need to stop?
My old friend from school, an Arab-Palestinian (who also happens to live abroad), explained to me that for them, these violent actions are taken as a “last result mentality”. Other methods seem to fail, so maybe a violent attack, both via riots and missiles, “a war from inside and outside” is the only solution they see. I strongly disagree with him, and still firmly believe there are valid and efficient manners to cause lasting change, from the Palestinians and Arabs themselves, via education, social mobility, and more active participation in government, politics, and Israeli life. Yet this event illuminates the discrepancy between the Israelis and the Palestinians and calls for a long look at ourselves, our policies, and the occupation’s effect on our current circumstances.
I despise the “support Israel” vs “support Palestine” paradigm – this is not a soccer match and there are no winners and losers, there are just losers on both sides.
Every injured person, every dead woman, and child is a grave tragedy that cannot be overstated. The only thing that should be supported is dialogue and an immediate de-escalation. Sharing a post “support the Palestinians” or “supporting Israel” this week, after people are hurt and stabbed to death, one near my apartment and university, is triable, damaging, and simply unhelpful. Similarly, writing “I am with Palestine” immediately after Hamas shot rockets at my house, is in essence, no different than supporting an American school shooter right as he started his killing spree.
There are democratic and peaceful ways to achieve long-term solutions, starting by ending the continued building of settlements. I wholeheartedly agree that illegal settlements are indeed responsible for displacing many Palestinians and do nothing more than add fuel to the Israel-Palestinian fire. Yet instead of engaging in discourse, instead of trusting the democratic institutions instead of assembling politically, many choose violence and war. Yet, this is a blind war – it is not aiming at a solution – it aims everywhere, like a fit of rage of a toddler, where everyone and everything is a potential target. These days will, if anything, worsen the treatment of Palestinians and Arabs by Israel and would make any hope of a better future less likely.
De-escalation and long hard dialogue – this is what we need, not more death and no more senseless suffering.