Diverse Jewish Voices React To Developments In Gaza

The Hamas terrorist assault upon Israel on Oct. 7, which took the lives of more than 1,000 civilians, and Israel’s response in Gaza, which has taken the lives of thousands of men, women and children, has stirred much discussion within the Jewish community.

Sara Roy, senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, whose parents survived the Holocaust while 100 members of her family were killed in Poland, wrote an open letter to President Biden (London Review of Books, November 2023).

She writes: “When does the death of a Palestinian child become unacceptable? Or perhaps I should ask the question this way: when will you assign a Palestinian life the same sanctity you assign an Israeli one? Yesterday, Israel bombarded the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza. Part of the camp was destroyed and at least 100 people were killed or injured. My friend the poet Mosab Abu Toha, his wife and children moved to Jabaliya recently after Israel warned them to leave their home in Beit Lahiya, a city north of the camp, because Beit Lehiya would be shelled. It was and Mosab’s house was destroyed. I have just heard from him after two days of frantic worry. ‘The bombing in Jabilya Camp was just 70 metres away from us,’ he said. ‘a whole neighborhood was wiped out.”

Dr. Roy notes that, “Jabilya is a familiar place to me…It is the largest of Gaza’s eight refugee camps, with 26 schools, two health centers and a public library. More than 116,000 are in an area of 1.4 square kilometers. Do you have any idea what it means to crowd over 100,000 into half a square mile? I must also tell you that as a Jew and child of Holocaust survivors, I was welcomed into every home I visited in the camp. In fact, I was embraced…I don’t know if my friends are among those murdered or injured by Israel. But I do know that this is not the first atrocity, and it won’t be the last if the barbarity continues to be justified by you and the others with the power to stop it. You call for a ‘humanitarian pause,’ which I do not understand. What does a pause mean in the middle of such carnage? Does it mean feeding people so they can survive to be killed the next day? How is that humanitarian? How is that humane?”

Professor Emeritus Yakov M. Rabkin of the University of Montreal, author of the book “What Is Modern Israel?” provides this assessment (Pressenza, Nov. 1, 8, 2023): “The new state of Israel placed Palestinian Arabs under military rule, which lasted nearly two decades. Refugees and exiles who tried to return to their homes were killed, expelled, or arrested…The murderous attack of Oct.7,2023 obviously enraged most Israelis. But instead of taking pause, military and political leaders immediately subjected Gaza to massive bombardment followed by a ground invasion…This caused a humanitarian crisis.”

In Rabkin’s view, “Vengeful demonization of the Palestinians has become common. Even the soft-spoken president of Israel claimed that there were no ‘innocent civilians’ in Gaza. Meirev Ben-Ari, a parliamentarian from Yesh Atid, which in Israel passes for a liberal centrist party, said in reference to thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israeli bombardment, ‘The children of Gaza have brought this upon themselves! We are a peace-seeking nation, a life-loving nation.’…Many Jews…have been trying to come to terms with the contradictions between the Judaism they profess to adhere to and the Zionist ideology that has taken hold of them. A new variety of Judaism has taken root in Israel: National Judaism…Among its most fervent followers one finds the assassin of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who had attempted to find an accommodation with the Palestinians, and prominent members of today’s Israeli government.”

Prof. Wendy Pearlman, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Studies Program at Northwestern University, wrote an article, “Collective Punishment in Gaza will Not Bring Israel Security” (New Lines Magazine, 0ct. 30, 2023). She writes, “The current siege of Gaza has shifted…to uprooting it entirely. Indeed, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s declaration that Israel is fighting ‘human animals’ points to an even more startling biological metaphor. It not only casts all of Gaza as a fair target, but also deploys dehumanizing rhetoric of the kind that scholars have long recognized as genocidal.”

Dr. Pearlman concludes: “Bombardment, siege, forced displacement and the denial of humanitarian access might satisfy the desire for revenge, but these actions cannot bring Israelis security. As long as self-determination is denied, Palestinian resistance will continue. There is no military solution to the… political problem of two peoples seeking to live with freedom and dignity on the same small piece of land. Security requires peace, which can only be obtained through a negotiations process grounded in respect for international law and the human rights of all people.”

Rabbi Alissa Wise of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council states: “History will ask: what did you do to stop the Israeli genocide of Palestinian people? Have an answer…Zionism is incompatible with Judaism. The point of fasting today because of destruction and losses and trauma our ancestors suffered is to prevent us from doing the same to others. Instead, the ‘Jewish’ state uses the state to destroy…and traumatize Palestinians. By design, under Israeli law, Palestinians have an inferior status to Jews legally, judicially, politically. This is apartheid.”

Rabbi Brant Rosen of Congregation Tzedek Chicago states that, “After the horrific massacre of Israelis by Hamas on Oct. 7, the collective Jewish world entered into an acute and unprecedented period of mourning. Our hearts then cracked open again—-and continue to crack open—-as thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are being killed by Israeli bombs and an Israeli ground invasion, and Israelis continue to die…. This latest violence did not occur in a vacuum. It is but the latest manifestation of an injustice that Israel has been perpetrating against Palestinian people for decades. We must shine an unflinching light on the roots of this violence…. For the past 75 years, Israel has been violently dispossessing Palestinians in order to make way for a majority Jewish state. And for just as long, the Palestinian people have been resisting their dispossession…” *