A TRIP TO ISRAEL
Last month I took a trip to Israel. What follows is a summary of what I experienced. It is the first of several articles I intend to write on the current war, the politics, and what lies ahead.
Personal conflict emergent out of personal identity
As with many people I know, I have been walking around with a sense of dread while contemplating this November's presidential election. Compounding gnawing feelings of discomfort is the war raging between Israel and Hamas. It pulls at me greatly and I have taken a deep dive into the relevant news. I also stay informed by friends who are closer to the conflict than I am.
A summary of where my identity rests frames the background to my views and my distress. I am Jewish, and Jewishly knowledgeable and concerned, but I am not Judaic. I grew up in the afterglow of the immigrant experience, with parents and their siblings whose own identities were informed by a propensity to assimilate to the New World.
My Jewish education was orthodox, but my home wasn't. It was what is sometimes referred to as “traditional” as it pertained to religious practice. At the same time, I attended public schools in New York City. I was a bookish kid who engaged an encyclopedic fascination with geography and astronomy, and a world-view in which religion was out of the picture. Hence, coming into my teenage years, and after my orthodox bar-mitzvah, I was faced with a stark choice. I either accepted religious orthodoxy, inclusive of a belief in miracles and a supernatural God, or I embraced the world of science and the metaphysical foundations that support a secular worldview.
Shortly after entering my teenage years, I became an atheist. As I moved through my twenties, my non-belief softened and broadened into a humanistic philosophy of life, which for me placed ethics and a respectful and compassionate commitment to others at its center. Indeed, I saw this move as a development of what I thought was most important about being a Jew.
I should also mention that I do not come from a Zionist home. Yet in my ensuing years, out of an intensifying interest in Jewish culture and history, I have developed a parallel and growing interest in Israel. I have visited Israel four times since 1986.
It was my humanism that reinforced a commitment to universalism; all people everywhere are worthy, and it is our obligation to work for justice wherever they are oppressed. It is this deep-rooted belief that has inspired my activism since the 1960s.
But here my views have undergone further evolution. Influenced by thinkers such as Isaiah Berlin, I have adopted an appreciation for the importance of the cultural milieu into which one is born and socialized in framing one's identity and loyalties. Universalism is essential, but it is an abstraction. There is no “person-in-general” just as there is no “flower-in-general." Hence, my current social philosophy is a pluralistic and cosmopolitan one. I can sustain a concern for the well-being of all children everywhere. But this universal commitment does not negate my loving my own children more than others. There is tension in this, but no contradiction. Indeed, I believe our lives are lived between the universal and the particular. It is an existential tension that we may not be able to totally resolve. As it pertains to Israel and its security and well-being, I need to confess, therefore, that I care about it more than I do, for example, Paraguay, though I have advocated for the rights of Paraguayans when they have been violated.
It is these two-fold loyalties that generate my current distress. It is my identity as a Jew and my concern for Israel that renders the Hamas massacre on October 7th a source of great anguish. It feels close and personal. The Hamas assault that killed 1,200 Israelis was an orgy of sadistic bloodletting. The event has sent traumatizing ripples through Israeli society. At the same time, the Israeli response, which has now killed approaching 30,000 Gazans, the vast majority innocent civilians, also greatly pulls at me. Behind statistics are human beings who are suffering and dying. Moreover, the fact that the razing of Gaza is perpetrated by “my people” cannot be a matter of ethical indifference. The conflict leaves me apprehensive, profoundly disturbed, and with churning conundrums that need to be sorted out. I am emotionally torn in two directions.
The trip
Recently, an opportunity opened up for me to take a trip to Israel. It was conducted by the Reform Temple of which my partner is a member. It included only twelve participants. Its purpose was expressly to provide support to Israelis in the aftermath of October 7th, and while I would have preferred an experience that provided an explicit opportunity for discussion of the political complexities of the war, and despite my conflicted feelings, I concluded that if I did not avail myself of the opportunity I would retrospectively regret my decision. This being Israel, political discourse was irrepressible, and my objectives were met.
In the broader scheme, journalism from afar can only provide a distillation of complex realities,winnowed through the lens of the reporter. To truly grasp those realities, one needs to be on the ground, up close, to feel the environment, confer with people living through those realities, and hear directly from them. The excursion provided those possibilities in a concentrated way. Needless to say, by necessity it exposed me to one side of the conflict. There was no side trip to Gaza, and I needed to keep that fact in mind. To be unmindful of the agony Gazans are enduring is to forfeit one's humanity.
The opportunities were well organized by the temple's rabbi. It included talks by a political scientist from Hebrew University (like myself a Columbia PhD), a visit to the headquarters of Magen David Adom, the Israeli Red Cross, a meeting with a representative from the Israel Trauma Coalition, a listening session with a man whose brother is held hostage by Hamas, a discussion with a noted journalist, a walk around Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, and a visit to Ofakim,a desert town 15 miles from Gaza, and a community which was at the furthest extent of the Hamas assault of October 7. There were other activities, but the aforementioned were the ones that provided the most revealing insights into the thoughts and dispositions of Israelis in response to the massacre and its aftermath.
The takeaways
I have been to Israel four times. With the exception of a very brief visit at the end of 2022, the last time I had been there for an extended stay was in 1991. My first impression is that the nation had immensely changed. The economy is thriving, and though Israel experiences a large wealth gap, its economy has achieved first-world standards. Tel Aviv, which faces toward the Mediterranean, presents the ambiance of a European city undergoing rapid growth. Broad boulevards and gleaming glass skyscrapers topped with building cranes were ubiquitous. Jerusalem, where we were based, is uniquely vibrant, and to my eyes an exotically beautiful city. It has grown to a city of a million and a half inhabitants, with incomparable history and an overflowing diversity of people and sacred places.
The diversity of the people is the second prominent feature that immediately captured my notice. While 75 percent of the population is Jewish, 20 percent is Arab, and there's a multitude of different Christian denominations. While Americans may identify Jews with their associates and friends who appear distinctively white, a majority of Israeli Jews come from North Africa and Arab lands and are noticeably dark-skinned. Many appear indistinguishable from Arabs. I was also surprised by the number of Black Jews, no doubt those rescued from Ethiopia, and their children. Its profile gives Israel a distinctive character; economically Western, but demographically Middle Eastern, which assuredly it is. For those who, for ideological reasons, may conclude that Israel is an artificial contrivance or a Western imposition, the sense that one comes away with is that there is an abiding authenticity to the nation, with a population whose commitment to it reaches deeply and is integrated into its biblical past.
Bringing the discussion to the present moment, the visitor is immediately confronted with the reality of the hostage situation. Posters of the hostages are ubiquitous across Israel and the pain of a hundred people still held by Hamas is very palpable. The posters are present in the airport when you walk into its corridors, and appear on the facades of buildings. Hostage Square is set up in front of the Tel Aviv Art Museum in a manner that reminded me of New York's Union Square after 9/11. Thousands gather there on Saturday nights with the mantra “Bring Them Home Now.” The movement to free the hostage is a major political faction making incessant demands of the government, which they feel has been greatly ignoring what is an agonizing reality for families and society at large. The government proclaims that it can rescue the hostages by prosecuting the war. This stance may be a contradiction and an illusion.
This segues into a second ubiquitous reality I encountered. With no exceptions, every Israeli I met, or heard speak, was contemptuous of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the current government. In times of war, especially when one's country has been under assault, the populace rallies around their leader. After the attack on the World Trade Center, George W. Bush's rating went up. After the October 7th massacre perpetrated by Hamas, Netanyahu's ratings have gone down. Before October 7th, Israel experienced 40 weeks of demonstrations protesting Netanyahu's ambitions to neuter the Supreme Court and the judiciary, motivated by his yen to retain power. With some 300,000 Israelis mobilized, when corrected for the size of the population these were the largest demonstrations ever deployed by any democracy. Our political scientist predicted that after the war is over, these protests will resume, but will be more widespread than before. Indeed, before I departed Israel, the anti-government demonstrations had started up again. This may be one of the few sources of optimism in a political reality that feels almost pervasively hopeless. More on this below.
Most significant and pervasive were the felt reactions to the October 7th massacres. They have penetrated very deeply into the collective Israeli psyche. While I believe the word “trauma” is overused and misapplied, it is not inappropriate to conclude that Israeli society as a whole has been traumatized by the events of October 7th. Israel is not the same after as before.
The prevailing political, indeed existential, issue for Israel is security. While the Holocaust is 80 years in the past, and despite the manifest bravado of the Israeli persona, the Holocaust still resonates in the present. More immediate are the realities Israel has confronted since its founding 75 years ago. Even though Israel's relations with neighboring governments have become stable and relatively benign, the threat from non-state actors is continuous, looming close by. Israel sustains a long-lasting, though cold, peace with Egypt, as it does with Jordan. Given the destruction of its lengthy civil war, Syria, at the moment, is not a threat. Most promising is the Saudi interest in developing diplomatic relations with Israel, based on certain conditions, even in the face of Israel's devastation of Gaza. At peace with its neighbors, it is terrorist groups and proxies of Iran that pose the greatest threat. Hamas firing missiles at Israel has made retreating to bomb shelters a frequent occurrence. Far more threatening are the approximately 150,000 missiles just across the Lebanese border and capable of reaching every corner of the Jewish state. Unlike the Hamas rockets constructed by spare parts in tunnels, the Hezbollah missiles are guided and sophisticated, with many supplied by Iran. While I was there, the volley of attacks across the northern border was heating up. It has not already crossed the threshold of intense assault. If it does, as our guide noticed on several occasions, the conflict with Hezbollah will make Gaza look like “child's play.” Israel is a small place, and a comparison in both size and population with New Jersey is accurate. As Israelis often note, they live in a “bad neighborhood” and the reality of existential danger is never far from the forefront of their consciousness. The feeling was palpable.
This need for security means that the army is the people's most valued and vaunted institution. Israelis have placed confidence in their military to both deter external threats as well as suppress the restiveness in the West Bank and Gaza, which periodically flares up in opposition to the occupation in the former and confinement in the latter. It's my view that with military power has come an element of complacency that added to the shock of the Hamas assault. Though next door, the Palestinians, for the most part, are placed out of sight and out of mind.
The message that pervaded was that on October 7th, both the government and the military had failed the Israeli people. The famed intelligence services also failed. Subsequent information revealed that Israel's intelligence had knowledge of the Hamas' plans before the attack occurred, but did not take them seriously. The effect of that conclusion has induced a unique sense of vulnerability that is new to Israeli society. It supersedes even the shock of the Yom Kippur War of 1973, which found Israel unprepared for the Egyptian invasion. The distances in Israel are small, what we would construe as county proportions. Yet when the kibbutzim and small towns around Gaza were invaded, along with a music festival in the area near Gaza in which more than 300 young people were slaughtered, it took the army hours to arrive. Given Israel's tragic and misplaced policy of occupation, the army was preoccupied with guarding settlements on the West Bank, leaving its citizens totally unprotected. Since then, the Netanyahu administration has been insufficiently responsive to the people, and there is anger that not enough effort is spent in working to free the remaining hostages.
With the failures of both the military and the government, Israel's civil society emerged to provide support for a population in need and in shock from the unprecedented attack. The grassroots rose to supply needed services in the absence of government intervention. Speaking personally, I found this collective resilience to be extremely inspiring and moving. It is often mentioned that Israel's small size ensures that people know each other. This has included people who were murdered or injured on October 7th or were taken hostage. It also includes the hundreds of thousands of citizens relocated from the area in the vicinity of Gaza and in the north. This reality is among the factors that enabled the bonds of support to be very thick, even though Israeli society is fractious and, in significant ways, very divided. Yet beneath the divisions, there is a sense of social solidarity that is very admirable. Such support manifested itself in an environment in which danger is not far off, and, I felt, renders a feeling of authenticity to life that is noticeably absent in the American context. American civil society is thin by comparison.
There were several venues in which this was evident. The visit to Magen David Adom was inspiring. It houses Israel's major blood bank. It is a gleaming, state-of-the-art facility. Its building houses many of Israel's ambulances that were called into duty in response to the assault. Hamas was able to draw up meticulous maps of its targets in towns it ravaged. Foremost of those targets were ambulances to help ensure as many fatalities as possible.
The administrator of the nation's major trauma center discussed national efforts to provide and organize therapeutic services to all who need them, victims of the massacre, their families and the children, people who have been caught up in the violence, displaced from the borders, and more generally traumatized by events.
One could not help but be moved by the narrative of a man whose brother is being held captive – if he is still alive. His sister-in-law was also held hostage, but released during the cease-fire and ensuing hostage exchange. After he spoke with our circle of guests, I approached him to express my compassion for his unique form of anguish. I also asked how long it had been since the army had detected signs of life that his brother still survived. He responded “70 days.” I may be wrong, but this did not sound hopeful.
My most moving experience was the visit to Ofakim. It is a small desert city only 15 miles from Gaza. It represents the furthest penetration of the Hamas terrorists into Israeli territory. Hamas planned to penetrate further into the northeast to the West Bank to rally Palestinians to join the insurgency. Fortunately, those ambitions were foiled.
We were guided around the city by a woman whose brother and an uncle were slain in the massacre. Again, it is one thing to read about the massacre and another to witness the very place it occurred. She pointed to the spot on a street where the 18 Hamas terrorists parked their two pickup trucks early in the morning and began their killing rampage in homes and on the street. Forty-seven villagers were slain. We witnessed homes pocked-marked with bullet holes. At each spot at which an Israeli fell, there was a large poster with a photo and a description, in Hebrew, of the life lost, together with a small memorial.
Again, there was no military presence. The only defense the residents had was the presence of several police officers armed with handguns. There was street fighting and the cops were able, in time, to overcome the 18 terrorists. It was a story of tragedy and heroism.
Despite the encouragement I felt in learning firsthand of the realities of Israel at war, I was also dismayed at the absence of compassion expressed for the extraordinary suffering foisted on Gaza and its people. What I heard sounded like rationalizations. Some reiterated that we live in a "bad neighborhood." Others noted, in a more political vein, that the Israeli response is needed as a preemptive message to Hezbollah that if you use this moment to attack us, this will be the result. I concluded that the Israeli people had turned inward to cope with their injuries and trauma, a turn which at the current time has blinded them to the extraordinary suffering of the Gazans, The only exception expressing the reality of Gaza were commentators writing in Haaretz, Israel's left of center paper. Unless we sustain that appreciation, we forfeit our humanity. This is part of the ethical calculus that lies at the heart of the Palestinian conflict.
The road ahead
The war goes on. At this writing, over a million Gazans are clustered at the southern end of the Strip in the city of Rafah near the gate separating them from Egypt. The Israeli army is poised to enter Rafah to deliver what they believe will be a final blow to Hamas forces. It is estimated that about 10,000 Hamas fighters out of 35,000 remain.
Gaza is devastated, and the humanitarian disaster – buildings turned to rubble, hunger, thirst, lack of sanitation, disease, children killed and orphaned – pervades a land of misery that has become a focus of global attention.
President Joseph Biden has been condemned for his initial unbridled support of Israel, including military aid. As the humanitarian realities have framed global condemnation of Israel, Biden and his administration are working overtime to pressure Israel to mitigate the assault. Europe and surrounding Arab states are invested and involved in the process. Biden, in my view, needs to be credited with putting the two-state solution back into the conversation when most have concluded that it is moribund or dead. Israel, which has long been the object of international opprobrium (and in my view often unfairly) has long sustained the posture of ignoring external criticism, including that coming from the United States, by far its greatest sponsor. Netanyahu has his vested interests and is a master of manipulating others to sustain his power. There is broad criticism that the Netanyahu government is perpetuating the war with no stated objective or end in view, except to proclaim that Israel will maintain military dominance in a post-Hamas Gaza. There is no stated “day after.”
There appears little room for hope, and reality sustains such pessimism. Yet, I believe that the future is open, and sometimes the worst of circumstances can open up new, favorable possibilities. The international concern and pressure on the current war may generate a resolution or at least a new pathway to it that holds promise.
In my next essays, I will propose ways forward.
Hamas is an ideology which came into existence and took control of Gaza because of its siege and occupation of the West Bank by Israel. We need to implement the 2-state solution. See my email with 2 attachments.
Thanks, Joe. I hope your readers will also read Nicholas Kristof in today’s Times. He, too, is thoughtful and compassionate as always.