A Reflection Since October 7th

I am no longer the same person as I was on October 6th, 2023. On October 7th, the terrorist group Hamas attacked Israel through the Israel/Gaza border and carried out the largest slaughtering of Jews since the Holocaust—over 1,200 people killed in one day (Boxerman 2023). The death count is still an estimate, largely because many of the bodies were so horribly mutilated that it was difficult to tell one corpse from another. The testimonies of survivors describe unimaginable cruelty. Grandparents, Holocaust survivors, children, mothers, taken hostage and murdered on video (Impelli 2023). Videos of naked raped teenage girls being forcibly paraded through the streets, blood pouring down their legs, posted by Hamas themselves (Lee & Piper 2023). The list of atrocities is endless and unbearable, weighing heavy on my mind, body, and soul. Over 240 hostages have been held for almost two months, with only the first 70 released in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel (Ott & Czachor 2023). Everyone knows this—the attacks by Hamas made headlines on every news outlet on October 7th and have since. People know what happened, or at least they saw it on their feeds before denying that it did. But it seems there has been an active choice by many to forget. I cannot seem to.

As someone who has spent a lot of time learning about genocide—what it is, its causes, and how certain genocides have been denied by either fringe groups (see the Holocaust and QAnon) or entire governments (see the Armenian genocide and Turkey)—Hamas’ actions on October 7th were nothing less than a genocidal attack. And that was their intent, as stated in their charter (Hamas 1988). In the wake of a horrific tragedy such as this, a unified outcry of sadness would be expected. What I did not expect was the immediate legitimizing of Hamas’s irredeemable actions by claims of freedom and resistance, the use of buzzwords like “settler colonialism” and “apartheid” to explain that while what happened was terrible, Israelis had no one to blame but themselves. This was before Israel began any military response—Israel was actively grieving an attack with proportionally thirteen times more deaths than Americans in 9/11 (Satloff 2023)—and the world, or more specifically, the Left, was justifying the atrocities and already moving past it to what it signified as a thought experiment for deconstructing colonialism. 

I’ve encountered people who say they condemn Hamas and in the same breath say violent oppression must be met with violent resistance. While not only contradictory, there is a massive difference between violent resistance and what Hamas did on October 7th. It’s one thing to attack police or destroy property—it’s another thing entirely to rape civilian women and children so forcefully that their pelvises break (Rubin 2023), or to shoot a child’s father dead, leaving the child covered with her father’s blood before taking her hostage (Tarvernise 2023). This is the nuance lacking in so many conversations around the current crisis in Israel and Gaza that I witness everyday, whether through factually inaccurate Instagram story posts or statements by organizations conflating Zionism with racism, as if wanting a homeland for the Jewish people—a people who have been historically persecuted and pushed out of a long list of countries (WJC 2021)—is the same as holding prejudice against another group. Additionally, there is no acknowledgement that over half of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi, or Jews of Color (Unpacked Staff). American-constructed ideas of colonialism and racism do not map neatly onto this conflict, nor should we try to make them.

I do not unconditionally support Israel or its government’s actions. I do not turn a blind eye to the devastation that has occurred and continues to occur in Gaza, the innocent civilians killed and forced to flee their homes. And there is a difference between condemning Netanyahu’s actions and condemning Israel’s right to exist—the former is completely fair, the latter an act of war upon all in Israel (and Jews everywhere). And at the same time, I do not understand why I need to put this disclaimer on any comment I make about my sadness for the terror that unfolded on October 7th. And I am not going to claim any sort of victimhood here; I recognize that I am writing this from the safety of my room on my university campus. I have food, I am warm, and I am safe. I know that my family is safe. But I also know that people were waving Nazi flags outside my family’s synagogue this past weekend. And I know that since October 7th, antisemitic hate crimes in America have increased by over 388 percent as of November 5th (Howard 2023). And I know that on this campus, I’ve been too scared to say any of this above more than whispers with friends for fear of ostracization. So safety is relative. And I will not wait until something happens to me or someone I know before I stand up for what I believe is right. 

Before Israel began their military incursion upon Gaza, people were already saying that October 7th was Israel’s fault. Once Israel attacked Gaza in response to being attacked themselves, people demanded a ceasefire (I do not discount the thousands of innocent lives lost in Gaza before this ceasefire). Once Israel agreed to a ceasefire, with Hamas breaking that ceasefire by firing rockets at Israel only 15 minutes into it (Brennan 2023), people are demanding Israel release all its Palestinian prisoners.

I’ve always said I support a two-state solution—both Palestinians and Israelis have indigenous claims to the land—but it is hard to imagine a world in which such a solution is possible after witnessing the last two months. Work by organizations such as Standing Together—an Israeli-Palestinian coalition working to create a one-state solution under which everyone can live in peace and dignity—gives me hope that there is a future in which peace is possible and this land is no longer soiled with the blood of innocents, on all sides. But I find myself cynical. What would Israel have to do to be accepted by the world, to have its civilians live peacefully? Short of wiping itself off the map, I’m not sure at this point, and that thought alone is deeply troubling. Equally troubling is that no one seems to care about any of this besides Jewish people. People who have no stake in what happens in Israel or Palestine have been all too quick to jump in and side with Palestine, simply from seeing an infographic espousing disinformation. Use critical thinking skills to acknowledge and better understand the complexity that is so lacking in this discourse. In all that has happened, the lack of basic humanity is what has destroyed me the most. Friends put up dozens of “KIDNAPPED” posters of Israeli hostages in Usdan—by the next day they had all been ripped down, the gaps on the bulletin boards glaring at me. Why is the reminder that innocent civilians are being held hostage by Hamas so offensive that the posters were taken down? So often the voices of those directly affected by a conflict are muffled by those seeking an opportunity to further a larger goal. I urge everyone to try and hold a little extra compassion when learning about and discussing this conflict. Reach out to your friends—Jewish or Muslim or Christian, Palestinian or Israeli—and tell them you are there for them. 

References

Boxerman, Aaron. 2023. “What We Know About the Death Toll in Israel From the Hamas-Led Attacks.” The New York Times, November 12, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/12/world/middleeast/israel-death-toll-hamas-attack.html.

Brennan, David. 2023. “Israel Says Hamas Ceasefire Violated After 15 Minutes.” Newsweek, November 24, 2023. https://www.newsweek.com/israel-hamas-ceasefire-violated-15-minutes-rocket-gaza-strip-1846564#:~:text=The%20Israel%20Defense%20Forces%20(IDF,rocket%20fired%20towards%20southern%20Israel.

Hamas. 1988. Hamas Covenant 1988: The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement. August 18, 1988. Published by Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Law Library. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp.

Howard, Andrew. 2023. “Anti-Defamation League director: 388 percent increase in antisemitism.” Politico, November 5, 2023.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/05/anti-defamation-league-antisemitism-00125438.

Impelli, Matthew. 2023. “Israeli Woman Finds Out About Grandma’s Death From Hamas Video on Facebook.” Newsweek, October 9, 2023. https://www.newsweek.com/israeli-woman-finds-out-about-grandmas-death-hamas-video-facebook-1833153. 

Lee, Joyce Sohyun and Imogen Piper. 2023. “Videos show captives in Gaza and Israel.” The Washington Post, October 7, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/07/videos-show-captives-gaza-israel/.

Rubin, Shira. 2023. “Israel investigates an elusive, horrific enemy: Rape as a weapon of war.” The Washington Post, November 25, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/25/israel-hamas-rape-sexual-violence/

Standing Together. 2023. “About Us.” Standing Together, accessed November 27, 2023. https://www.standing-together.org/about-us.

Satloff, Robert. 2023. “Why 10/7 Was Worse for Israel Than 9/11 Was for America.” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 15, 2023. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/why-107-was-worse-israel-911-was-america.

Tavernise, Sabrina. 2023. “Israel and Hamas’s Fragile Cease-Fire.” Produced by The New York Times. The Daily. November 28, 2023. Podcast, Spotify, 31:26. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/28/podcasts/the-daily/israel-hamas-ceasefire.html.

Unpacked Staff. n.d. “Who are the Mizrahi Jews?” Unpacked. Accessed November 27, 2023. https://jewishunpacked.com/who-are-the-mizrahi-jews/.

WJC. 2021. “The expulsion of Jews from Arab countries and Iran -- an untold story.” World Jewish Congress, February 2, 2021. https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/the-expulsion-of-jews-from-arab-countries-and-iran--an-untold-history.
Ott, Haley and Emily Mae Czachor. 2023. “Fifth group of hostages released after Israel and Hamas agree to extend cease-fire.” CBS News, November 28, 2023. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-hamas-war-cease-fire-fifth-group-hostages-released-two-day-extension-gaza/.