Some thoughts on my 25th birthday
Dear world,
November 7th marked one month since the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. November 7th was also my 25th birthday. For many Jews and Palestinians and people around the world who care, this past month has been both exhausting and excruciating. But for those of us within the anti-occupation movement and the Israeli left, it’s been a deeply isolating time as well.
When I needed community most, I felt abandoned by both sides of the debate. I’ve been deeply disturbed, frightened, and discouraged by what I’ve seen on social media from both my friends and colleagues of all religions and backgrounds. I’ve felt dehumanized by those whom I’ve viewed as allies in their support of Hamas’ actions and refusal to acknowledge the pain, suffering, and trauma that Israeli and diaspora Jews have endured over the past month. I’ve also felt ostracised by my Jewish and Israeli peers who take my capacity for empathy as a personal attack on their Jewishness or Zionism. How am I supposed to defend the fact that watching the country I love take the lives of thousands of innocent civilians fills me with a level of despair I struggle to articulate? I’ve even been judged by my own friends and family who think my work makes me a traitor to Israel, despite the fact that I’ve made enormous sacrifices in my family, quality of life, and well-being to live here and work towards a better Israel as an Israeli.
It’s been infuriating watching people become sudden “experts” on the subject and offer their ill-informed perspectives as fact. There is a difference between being Jewish or Arab and speaking from your lived experience and asserting that identity as expertise. But I also recognize that tens of thousands of people across the globe are grieving and I don’t want to judge how people process that grief. That is until they start calling for violence against others as a means of retribution or revenge. This includes the Jews advocating for increased violence to avenge the 1,300+ Israelis who were killed or those calling to “free Palestine from the river to the sea,” to avenge the approximately 10,000+ Gazans who have been killed over the past month.
The bulk of the content I’ve consumed over the past three years, in my academic, professional, and personal life has been centered on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I have an MA in political science where I focused exclusively on democracy in Israel and the policies upholding the occupation. I live in Tel Aviv, work for a human rights organization in Jerusalem, and through my work, have visited the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and refugee camps in the occupied territories. I’ve dedicated my (very short) career to fighting for human rights in Israel and ending the occupation in my lifetime and wouldn’t dream of calling myself an expert. So I’m hesitant to heed the calls of those who have even less experience on the subject than I do.
The Jewish people have spent the past month watching as mobs of people we’ve never met cheer for our eradication, as people tear down hostage posters of innocent civilians kidnapped from their beds, and as our homes and businesses have been brandished with the Star of David as if it indicates something barbaric. We are terrified, vulnerable, and perhaps justifiably, more inclined to see the worse in others now than ever before. But too many people in positions of authority are exploiting our fear to feed us the lie that violence will bring us solace, security, and our loved ones home.
Israelis and Palestinians have experienced enough violence over the past 75 years to last several lifetimes; if violence were the answer the conflict would have been resolved by now. Take the Gaza Strip as an example— when we were told that the siege on its borders was essential to prevent the development of militarized terror cells, at the bare minimum I expected it to prevent the development of militarized terror cells. Time and time again we’ve been told that militant subjugation is the only way to achieve security, yet all I can see is decades of oppression and the greatest insecurity Israel has ever faced.
Indiscriminate violence begets just that, more indiscriminate violence. There is no security in occupation and there is no security in war.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir once said that the Jews “have a secret weapon– we have nowhere else to go.” And this is true, particularly in the face of the astounding rise in antisemitism all across the globe. However, we aren’t the only ones. Where are the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank supposed to go? Even if it were legally justifiable to forcibly displace an entire population, no other state has ever been willing to accept the entire Palestinian refugee population. Neither of us has anywhere else to go; both Jews and Palestinians share the inalienable right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. And if the past 75 years have taught us anything, it’s that no one is going anywhere. So no matter how long it takes us to get there, peaceful, mediated coexistence is our only viable option. Yet this belief has brought me nothing but terrifying isolation.
This isn’t the Superbowl; you shouldn’t decide if you’re “pro-Israel” or “pro-Palestine” with the callousness of becoming a bandwagon sports fan. And you certainly shouldn’t be touting a certain policy perspective or belief without fully understanding the implications of what you’re advocating for. Because if you really cared about humanity or the innocent people whose lives have been destroyed over the past month, you’d choose both. You’d choose coexistence because, at the end of the day, it’s our only option.
In celebrating a quarter of a century, I’ve made a few birthday wishes. I wish for the safe return of the 239 hostages still being held in Gaza, I wish for the end of mass civilian death in Gaza, and I wish that others will find the strength to make the incredibly difficult decision and allow the quest for coexistence to guide their beliefs. It’s all we have left.
With love,
A lonely American-Israeli leftist holding onto her last remaining shred of hope
