"Given what Hamas did on October 7, Israel is completely justified in its actions, and the harm to those human shields is Hamas’ responsibility."
Yesterday's post described a dilemma facing Israel. Cameras are watching Gaza be destroyed.
In today's post Michael Trigoboff offers a solution to Israel's dilemma: Start with the premise that you shouldn't let your enemies kill you.
Is Israel's current policy good for Israel and Jews worldwide? Trigoboff argues that the policy is thought so by the people with the most at stake, the Jews in Israel. Michael Trigoboff is a retired professor of computer science at Portland Community College. He has posted here in the past, arguing for rigor and accountability in teaching and grading his students. He lives in the Portland, Oregon area.
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Guest Post by Michael Trigoboff
I grew up in Brooklyn in the 1950s, in the same kind of argumentative Jewish family that Jane Collins describes.
Writing from the relative safety of America, Ms. Collins expressed yesterday what one might think of as a set of “luxury beliefs.” Her life is not on the line if it turns out she’s wrong. Jews living in Israel had no such luxury. They were wrong about Hamas/Gaza, and over 1,000 of them died in the most hideous way possible.
Ms. Collins represents attitudes that were held by many Israelis on the left in the 1990s. Under the Oslo Accords, it looked like a two-state solution was possible and was going to happen. Israel offered a plan to implement a two-state solution in 2000. The Palestinians under Yasser Arafat rejected that plan. In a normal negotiation, if a proposal from the other side displeases you, you respond with a counteroffer. The Palestinian “counteroffer" was a wave of 140 suicide bombings targeting passenger buses, cafés, and pizza places called the Second Intifada.
This proved to most Israelis, and to many of us Jews in the diaspora, that the only peace the Palestinians were interested in was the “peace” that would come with the eradication of Jews from the Middle East. This Palestinian terrorist response killed the peace movement in Israel. It also killed the political left. The Labor Party used to be a strong force in Israeli politics and was often in charge of the country; it currently has no members of Parliament.
The current wave of antisemitism on college campuses and in cities across this country started on October 8, three weeks before Israel started its military campaign in Gaza. Within days, 30 student organizations at Harvard signed a letter stating that Israel was solely to blame for the October 7 atrocities committed by Hamas. The Black Lives Matter chapter in Chicago tweeted “We stand with Palestine” under the image of a Hamas paraglider trailing a Palestinian flag. Jewish students were mobbed and attacked on many college campuses.
And all of this occurred before a single Israeli soldier had entered Gaza.
Ms. Collins mentions “75 years.” Let’s remember what happened 75 years ago: Israel was established by a UN resolution and was immediately attacked by armies from the surrounding Arab states. Is Ms. Collins implying that Israel should not have been established at all?
As a result of that war in 1948, around 700,000 Arabs became refugees from the new Israeli state. Some were expelled; some were told by the Arab armies to get out of the way so that they wouldn’t be hurt while those armies killed the Jews. This was obviously a catastrophe for those Arab refugees. But never mentioned in this context is what happened afterwards: A wave of antisemitism rose up in the Arab countries so severe that every Jew in those countries was forced to flee. There were more than 700,000 of those Jewish refugees, many of whom came to Israel and are now called the Mizrahi Jews.
The Israelis took in their Jewish refugees and made them part of Israeli society. The Arabs kept their refugees in horrible concentration camps for generations and transformed them into a weapon against Israel.
The Mizrahi now make up more than half of the Jewish population of Israel. They are the backbone of the political right in Israel. Their ancestors knew the Arabs up close and personal, and they are under no illusions about the extent and severity of Arab antisemitism.
Ms. Collins quotes statistics from Hamas (not exactly a disinterested source) about the number of civilian casualties in Gaza, and how they are “mostly women and children.” She neglects to mention how many of them are Hamas fighters. Can a woman be a Hamas fighter? Is a 15-year-old Hamas fighter carrying a Kalashnikov a “child?"
Hamas has chosen to hide behind human shields in its tunnels. Given what Hamas did on October 7, Israel is completely justified in its actions, and the harm to those human shields is Hamas’ responsibility.
October 7 demonstrated to Israelis that it is no longer possible to live next door to Hamas. Since Israelis are determined to live, Hamas must be eradicated, and Israel is in the process of doing so. Every poll taken in Israel since October 7 demonstrates overwhelming support for this war and the way it is being conducted.
Ms. Collins and I are both Jewish, and we both grew up in the aftermath of The Holocaust. But we take different lessons from that heritage. I take mine from the Babylonian Talmud, which tells us, “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.”
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37 comments:
Not exactly an Easy Sunday piece. Required reading nonetheless.
In trying to understand what is right and wrong on all this, I have concluded I have no idea. Both posts make cogent points that I agree with, but they are opposite. Talk about experiencing cognitive dissonance. Passions are strong on both sides so it makes this dangerous.
My conclusion is to sit on the sidelines and not take a side which is pretty easy to do since I live in the United States.
To help us all think about this, I recommend a book by Columbia historian Rashid Khalini, "The Hundred-Years War On Palestine," which is a great history of Zionism and the establishment of Israel. Most of us know nothing of this history; this very balanced and well-written book is enlightening.
I also just recently read a "Personal History of Modern Ireland," and gaining that peace between North and South was a miraculous achievement; seemingly impossible with the tribal decades of savage atrocities and merciless revenge. Peace was achieved. I think current events in Gaza will help, finally, to achieve peace for the Israelis and Palestinians as well.
But make no mistake, the Israeli Defense Forces are murdering innocents; shirtless men waiving white flags gunned down by snipers? Too bad they were Israeli hostages who, unfortunately, were "of military age." This is age-old tribal savagery.
Yes, Hamas has been using civilians as human shields. In other words, it isn’t just a few Israelis they’re holding hostage, but the civilian population of Gaza. If the Israeli Defense Forces were interested in liberating the Israeli and Palestinian hostages from Hamas, they wouldn’t be bombing and killing so indiscriminately. If a SWAT team responded to a hostage situation by bombing the bank, would you shrug it off as the bank robbers’ fault?
As Michael Trigoboff said, on Oct. 7 over a thousand Israelis died in the most hideous way possible. In return, Israel has killed over 25,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and forced millions more into the most hideous living conditions possible. In Leviticus the Torah states: ““Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death…If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him.” Israel’s response is so far beyond that, it’s out of all proportion or control.
We can’t change what’s happened in the past, but what we do now creates our future. We reap what we sow. Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are going away, so if they don't want their future to just be more of the same, they both need to change their behavior.
Michael, thank you for posting this very clear account. . The actual history gets distorted when people try to fit in what is happening and has happened to align with their own “beliefs” and political affiliation. I, too, was raised in the same 1950’s, liberal, reform, post-holocaust family as you both, and as much as an anti- Vietnam war, and more recent issues, protester as I have been,, October 7 completely shook me to my peace-nick core. Not to mention the hostages still being brutalized, which makes me ask (scream, actually) where are the voices demanding their release! And to those who align with the left, and feminism, where are your voices not screaming about the sexual brutality on women and children (and probably still on the hostages!).There is much about current Israel I disagree with, especially the far-right orthodox control, and the Likud party vehemently opposing a 2-state solution (which is just as vehemently opposed by Hamas, by the way). But none of that justifies October 7, and to misinterpret history to claim it does may further one’s self-righteousness, but is wrong and dangerous. And it furthers antisemitism everywhere. I highly recommend reading Thomas Friedman’s opinion columns in the NYTimesas well as his book “From Beruit to Jerusalem” for some historical perspective.
It is time to bring (voluntarily) all Jews to the USA and/or Canada. Then the US will have no further obligations toward the doomed "state" of Israel. If some people choose to stay behind that is their problem.
As Prof. Trigoboff states, there were two possible lessons for Jews to draw from the Holocaust: Never again for the Jews; or never again for anybody. Those who learned the first, as did Prof. Trigoboff, most Israelis, and many Diaspora Jews, have decided that Israel must survive as a Jewish state no matter the cost. Speaking only for myself, and not for other Jews striving for peace, I do not believe that any state has the right to exist. Only people should have that right. We all need a safe place to live, and the way Britain and the other Great Powers set up both Jews and Palestinians 75 years ago, neither people has such a place. So long as violence is seen as the only option by both sides, the killing will continue. The history of bad-faith negotiations is too long to go into here; for example, Prof. Trigoboff states that the Second Intifada was the Palestinian response to Israeli peace offers, and ignores the fact that it was triggered by Israeli (soon to be) Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's deliberately provocative visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque, surrounded by armed soldiers. Now both Palestinians and Israelis have leaders who seem willing to kill (and sacrifice their people) indefinitely. American Jews might have the "luxury" of being out of the direct line of fire (unless our synagogue happens to be a target) but we have made sure that the US gives Israel nearly $4 billion every year in military aid. Pressure from our lobbying organizations and major donors gets the US to look the other way while Israel kills 10 Palestinians for every dead Israeli. So we have a special responsibility for Israel's actions. More of us would be speaking out now but we are afraid of being called traitors to our people
I agree totally that nothing justified the October 7 attacks by Hamas. But the sheer brutality and enormity of the Netanyahu/ Likud response is not justified either. That response is not going to destroy Hamas, any more than the al Quaeda destruction of the World Trade Center destroyed the U.S.
I will probably be pilloried, again, for stating, as did former President Obama, there are no clean hands in this tragedy.the
Kill my relatives. Kill my children. Young men out of work. Hamas will live forever. Or take up another name.
To Jane Collins:
A Jew visits the Temple Mount, walks around for a while and then leaves, and this justifies the Palestinians’ rejection of a peace proposal and 140 terrorist suicide bombings? A group which can be “triggered“ into a wave of suicidal terrorist violence by Ariel Sharon’s brief visit is not looking for peace; it is looking for an excuse to go to war.
The only response Israel ever received to its two-state solution offer in 2000 was that wave of suicide bombings. That response spoke volumes to me and to most Jews in Israel and in the diaspora.
Hamas purposely built its tunnels under densely populated areas, under hospitals and schools and residential neighborhoods. They intentionally created a situation in which any attack on them would cause massive civilian casualties. They diverted most of the aid for Gaza into the construction of this underground fortress; they viewed the civilian population of Gaza as nothing more than human shields.
Hamas then demonstrated on October 7 that they were and would always be an existential threat to Israel. And the only way to eliminate that threat was to go through those human shields, which is what Israel is currently doing.
Unfortunately, there is no other way for Israel to eliminate the threat posed by Hamas. Israel has answered the question of how to balance “world public opinion“ versus survival in the only way possible.
To the suggestion that we bring all the Jewish Israelis to the United States, I would suggest looking at how safe and assimilated Jews felt in Germany before World War I.
How far will the current wave of antisemitism go in this country?
Israel is a lifeboat for the Jews of the world. We are not going to give it up in return for ephemeral promises of safety. We have thousands of years of experience in how that worked out for us.
This Country is incapable of learning that violence in response to violence does nothing to eliminate "Ideas, or Ideology". You're absolutely correct, Ralph Bowman. If the IDF levels every building in the Gaza Strip, kills every man woman and child in that Concentration Camp, then plows the ground and sows it with salt, Palestinians around the Globe will remember their friends and family whose remains lie in salted ground, and renew the vows to destroy Israel, and increase their hatred for the Countries who abetted Israel.
Ed,
The problem is, the Palestinian hatred is already there. If nothing else demonstrated that, the atrocities of October 7 certainly did.
There may not be a solution, just a constant ongoing effort at self-defense for the foreseeable future. That’s not a great situation for the Jews and Israel, but it’s better than getting wiped out.
Michael, I received a credible (according to the FBI) death threat at the college here in southern Oregon (where I was faculty) simply for being Jewish. My (very left leaning) department head told me “well, you people bring it on yourselves”. Sure, bring ‘em all here…then round us all up…we all know how that turns out.
In one of his responses regarding the civilian death toll, Michael said: “Unfortunately, there is no other way for Israel to eliminate the threat posed by Hamas.” In fact, U.S. intelligence agencies estimate that up to 45% of the bombs Israel has dropped in Gaza were unguided, a tactic that is shocking in its disregard for civilian casualties.
He also asks, “How far will the current wave of antisemitism go in this country?” There’s no question this country has more than its share, but just to clarify: There’s a big difference between opposition to Netanyahu’s misguided policies and antisemitism.
And what the hell, the dead Innocents on the other side are only Palestinians, right ? No big thing, like the Nazis thought of the Jews, Gypsies, mentally deficient and others. Or yhe Turks though of the Armenians about a 100 years ago.
Thank you, Mike Steely. That fact seems to go right over the heads of too many people.
There is a big difference between antisemitism and criticizing the actions of the Israeli government. But when you look at how many UN resolutions there are against Israel vs against any other country, the disproportion of condemnation against the world’s only Jewish state points clearly to antisemitism.
Look at the level of condemnation wielded by ‘world public opinion” against Israel vs against China for its actions in Xinxiang and Tibet; against Azerbaijan for its actions against Armenians; against Myanmar for its actions against Rohyngas. Funny how the world’s only Jewish state catches all the flack.
Anonymous,
Go back with a voice recorder app on your phone and see what you can get your antisemitic department head to say. Then make him famous.
The United States under President Truman led the way in 1948 by being first to recognize Israel. Jane notes that the United States gives Israel military aid. Without this support from the United States, Israel's circumstances would be much more dire than at present. The United States must lead the world in getting through the current middle east crisis. We must, in our leadership role, continue to support Israel; sitting on the sidelines, quoting the Bible, and arguing that the situation is intractable due to history will hurt, not help, the United States; and it will not help the Israelis and Palestinians either. The crisis in Gaza is a part of a bigger set of risks for the United States; the risk is that we will be in a regional or world war if things keep going in the direction they seem to be. But let's, for the purposes of discussion, look away from Iran (including the current Iran versus Pakistan conflict), Hezbollah, Lebanon, the Houthis, Iraq, Syria, and Jordan. The United States needs to focus on achieving a two-state solution with the same intensity as it applied in negotiations between Israel and Egypt at Camp David. The Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations lacked that intensity, and we are reaping the consequences. President Carter recognized that there had not been a major war against Israel without Egypt leading the way from 1948 on; so we subsidize Egypt to the tune of $1.3 billion per year, which is the price of peace between Egypt and Israel. Addressing the Palestinians' concerns is the unfinished business of Camp David. The Abraham Accords and such sound good, but these types of measures avoid the dirty work that it will take to protect Israel and, at the same time, respect the Palestinians. The United States is the only country that can take the lead to do this dirty work, but peace is the prize for the effort.
"The United States is the only country that can take the lead to do this dirty work, but peace is the prize for the effort."
The U.S. has been intervening in the Middle East pretty much ever since they discovered oil there, and it looks to me like all we've done is make things worse.
Hello, Go live in Israel if you think that you would be safer there. Try living there without military assistance from the US. Most Jews already live in the US or Israel. This comment is ridiculous. That being said, that department head was way out of line. He or she should have been reported, although sometimes people prefer not to report for valid reasons.
Michael -
I don't understand how you can look at the death toll, the remains of Gaza and the conditions that millions of survivors are forced to endure and still talk about "the exquisite care the Israeli Defense Force takes to avoid civilian casualties."
Are readers familiar with Edward Said (1935-2003)? He wrote the book, "The Question of Palestine." He has an extensive Wikipedia page.
For those who actually want to understand, Hamas set it up this way:
The only way to get to Hamas is through large numbers of their own civilians. Given what Hamas did on October 7, Israel has correctly decided that they have to eliminate Hamas because they can no longer live next door to a regime of genocidal religious zealots.
Not to do this would be to value the lives of Palestinian civilians more highly than their own Israeli citizens.
The harm to Hamas’ human shields is the responsibility of Hamas. They set up this situation and forced this horrible choice on the Israeli.
There is a clear path to a cease fire. Hamas releases all of its hostages, lays down its arms, and leaves for whatever country is willing to tolerate their evil presence.
If readers are interested in history, the New Historians are Israeli historians who have challenged the official Zionist-Israeli version of events, based on documents released decades after the fact. You can read about the New Historians on Wikipedia also.
Michael -
Regarding Israel's use of dumb bombs, we're talking here about 10,000 to 15,000 unguided bombs being dropped in one of the most densely populated parts of the Earth. The results speak for themselves.
Yes, we all know Hamas started it, but as Jane pointed out so well, Israel's response isn't doing it any favors. The general consensus seems to be that every Israeli life is not worth over 20 Palestinians.
Mike; I believe this syndrome is " My Country, Right or Wrong". Just as believing violence as an answer to violence, for whatever the reason, will not result in perpetuating violence, and can result in the external M nation of ideologies or ideas.
Precisely because Gaza is so densely populated, even the reported casualty numbers--assuming for the sake of argument that the Hamas-controlled "health officials" can be credited--would be substantially higher if the bombing was not in fact highly discriminate.
Given the plain language of the Hamas charter, and the familiar "Death to Israel" from Iran and its fellow-travelers, the crucial ration is not twenty to one. It is the entire population of Israel versus whatever numbers of her neighbors will gladly sacrifice themselves.
The Wall Street Journal reports that almost half of Gaza's buildings have been damaged or destroyed in the war there, including almost 70 percent of its 439,000 homes. If that's the result of "highly discriminate" bombing, maybe there's some basis for the allegations of genocide.
Each of those “dumb bombs“ was dropped on a carefully chosen target by a high precision Israeli warplane. Like the US Air Force general said, a high precision warplane can drop a dumb bomb with great accuracy.
The point isn’t how many lives some other life is or isn’t worth; the point is to do whatever it takes to eradicate Hamas. It was Hamas’ choice to use the entire population of Gaza as human shields and hide like cowards under them. Hamas bears the responsibility for its use of human shields and the harm to them.
If half of the buildings in Gaza were damaged, that just demonstrates the extent of Hamas’s tunnel network.
South Africa’s ridiculous charge of genocide against Israel is nothing more than a blood libel, something we have often seen from antisemites.
Just keep believing the eradication of the Palestinian population of Gaza, then the West Bank will eradicate Hamas, or are you going to encourage the highly accurate Israeli Bombers to start dropping them on all the dislocated relatives of the Palestinians blown into chopped meat during the current attacks, and currently resident in other Countries, like this one, around the Globe.
You think ? That this Country is aiding Israel in this effort is almost enough to make me think about not voting. Almost.
"It was Hamas’ choice to use the entire population of Gaza as human shields and hide like cowards under them. Hamas bears the responsibility for its use of human shields and the harm to them."
It was Israels choice to bomb the shit out of Gaza, slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent civilians, in the hope of killing a few Hamas. Israel bears the responsibility for not launching more surgical, precision attacks. The U.S. finally told them to. Hopefully they'll listen if they want they're billions in U.S. aid.
25,000 out of 2 million is highly discriminate, especially amid human-shield wearers.
I just checked again and noticed an error in my essay. The Labor Party actually has 4 seats in the current Knesset. I failed to notice “Expand statistic” on this web page:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1278850/number-of-seats-in-the-24th-knesset-in-israel-by-political-party/
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