I had intended to write something about the situation in Gaza with regard to food shortages and the suffering of civilians; especially the children. Last week I posted a short video (below) focusing on the now infamous New York Times article that included a front page picture of a malnourished Gazan child. Controversy erupted when it was revealed that the child was also suffering from a muscular disorder. (This just published article in The Times of Israel sheds light on the seriousness of the pictured child’s malnourishment despite his comorbidity.)
Then, also last week, Hamas released a video of Evyatar David, one the few remaining living hostages held by Hamas. In the video it’s clear that Evyatar is extremely malnourished to the point of starvation. I posted the following on Facebook in response:
The pain I feel at seeing this image is acute and should be felt to some extent by any decent human. Empathy can and must have degrees. One feels more for the suffering of their own family than members of someone else's and it moves it outward to neighbors, tribes, countrymen, etc. We would cease to function if we felt the same about the suffering of a child halfway across the world as about our own. But empathy is not a zero sum game. My greater empathy for the suffering one of "mine" should not negate any empathy for the suffering of the "other".
Locally, I'd like to see an end to the current wave of suffering, ours and theirs. Most of Israel's living former security chiefs put out a video message urging a complete end to the war and a return of all the hostages. Enough suffering.
I received push back on both the Facebook post and the video pretty much along the lines of minimizing or even denying the suffering of Gazans relative to the that of the hostages. As I said, empathy need not be zero sum. I can feel mortified both by the suffering of Evyatar and also the children of Gaza without even getting into the various causes for their suffering and without creating a moral equivalency. The lack of empathy I see and hear among so many of my fellow Jewish Israelis is causing me great pain.
I was going to write much more, but then this excellent post by Paul Mirbach popped up in my Facebook feed. I’ve found Paul to be an incredibly informed, insightful and skilled writer. What he wrote captured so much of what I was wanted to say yet with life experiences here in Israel that give his thoughts more gravitas and depth than I posses. Paul’s words have become even more urgent and poignant with the announcement last night (August 7th) that Israel will now conquer Gaza City which is currently inhabited by 1 million people.
Below, with Paul’s permission, is the entire post.
61% of Israelis refuse to believe that there is starvation in Gaza, and part of that is because of censorship; we have not been exposed to what is going on there.
Regardless of whether the subject they chose for sensationalism was a cynical and malicious manipulation of the world's public emotions with photographs of a child suffering from a congenital illness, it is now coming to light that there is widespread severe hunger in Gaza. It is now undeniable. The fact is, that the tragic and terrible deaths of Palestinians as a result of the chaos of people desperately scrambling for food at aid stations is a result of the acute hunger crisis. The fact is, that from the first day of the war, retired IDF General Giora Eiland already advocated stopping humanitarian aid entering Gaza, thereby using the deprivation of food (read "starvation") as a weapon of war, and Cabinet Ministers Ben Gvir, and Smotrich (who sit in the security Cabinet), Minister Eliyahu and others, have all advocated blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. The sad fact is, that the Israeli government has repeatedly decided to prevent aid from entering Gaza at critical times, during the last 22 months. There are incidents on record of hundreds of Ben Gvir's activists physically preventing aid trucks entering Gaza from way back in early 2024, and the IDF did not step in to stop them. (They are all on record). So, it is hard to deny that Israel is using hunger as a pressure tool on and off, to try to force Hamas to surrender.
We can deflect the blame all we want, but our occupation of 70% of Gaza, having razed entire cities to rubble, the mass migration of refugees southwards at our behest, and then more south, then eastwards, and then into "humanitarian cities" have caused - or at the very least contributed - to the lack of food reaching the Palestinian population. And the fact that we do control 70% of Gaza, makes us ultimately responsible for the welfare of the inhabitants in that area, both under international law, and morally. Therefore, we cannot deny our part in the responsibility for this tragedy.
Yet, by actually saying this, I am accused of undermining the “war effort”, aiding Israel’s international isolation by “giving the anti-Israel lobby ammunition”, and “encouraging Hamas’s intransigence”. The twisted demagoguery, that it is not Israel’s actions that are doing harm to Israel’s status, but my vocalizing it that is doing the harm, is absurd. It is the same kind of thinking, as being told that you should keep quiet when you know about an abusive father beating his wife, or raping his children, because it would harm the family’s reputation.
Let me state clearly: My love for Israel is unconditional. It is deep and visceral. It is beyond the ideological belief in Zionism as the right for us Jews to have a homeland of our own. It is in the way I always need to catch my breath when I look down upon the Beit HaKerem valley, with its beautiful colors of green and rich brown, with the stark, granite mountains enveloping it - as if cushioning it against the elements, and knowing that I belong to this land, with emotional roots as deep as those of the olive trees below. It is in the way that my heart skips a beat whenever I hear about another fallen soldier or a terrorist attack, and the sadness that suffocates me for the new grieving family, as if it was my own. It is in the way we raised our children to give the maximum and do meaningful combat service. It is in the happiness I feel on Yom Ha’atzmaut, and in the pride and elation I feel after a stunning achievement like the beeper attack or the strikes on Iran. And it is in the deep concern, and distress I feel when Israel loses its way, when it betrays its basic values as a Jewish state - and the resolute determination I feel to not give up and to fight for its soul, so that it can be a country of which I am proud to be a citizen.
This is why I feel obligated to speak out against the actions of this government. This is why I feel the need to give voice to the dissonance; that while I am a proud Israeli, I am not my government and I cannot defend it or what it is doing in this war.
So, I would like to address those who do not live in Israel and presume to lecture me about “Zionism” and “loyalty” and “defending Israel”, and “what Israel needs to do". (And maybe also people in Israel who think that their truth is the only truth).
There is a song by an iconic Israeli musician, Yehudit Ravitz which is called "The things you see from there, you don't see from here". I want to turn that around; the things we see from here, you don't see (or hear about) from "over there". And it makes all the difference. We do not have the luxury to zoom out and "wax philosophical" about the war and fighting for as long as it takes to dismantle Hamas to prevent a repeat of October 7. My son returned last night from his fourth stint of reserve duty. Out of the 665 days of this war, he has spent about 360 doing reserve duty. What you don't see is the toll it has taken on him, mentally and emotionally; how exhausted he and all his comrades are, not only physically, but also in terms of morale, their motivation, and it affects them in being able to perform their duties. This is the state of our soldiers - our sons and daughters. You don't see how unmoored they feel as a result of the disruption to their lives. He got married in February. Since then he has barely spent a month of normal life. And what I am describing is indicative of what all the reservists are going through.
Last night, yet another reservist took his own life after he returned from duty. That brings the number of suicides since October 7 2023 to 31. At the end of 2023, a suicide helpline was set up, specifically for soldiers. To date, they have had 3900 calls from soldiers needing help, and contemplating suicide. 3900. Let that sink in.
How is it possible to continue this war ad infinitum, when this is the state of our combat reservists? Is it not better to end the war while we can still have control in making that decision, rather than being forced to end it as a result of mass refusal to report for reserve duty or having units in the field with their morale so exhausted that they are unable to function and fight? Because that is what happens when the record flips and soldiers are more concerned about just getting out alive than they are in completing the operation they set out to perform. I have seen it.
The toll of this overlong war is eroding our soldiers' moral boundaries and not only are we witnessing this more frequently, but it is overflowing into Israeli society; the intolerance and impatience, the racism towards Israeli Arabs, the resorting to violence over innocuous altercations, road rage and general aggressiveness. You probably don't hear about our soldiers defiling holy places, and defecating in mosques and in cooking utensils, pots and pans found in abandoned Palestinian homes. Our soldiers - our children whom we raise to be decent human beings are doing this! You probably also don't hear or see video clips of Israeli soldiers elatedly boasting about their "kills", as if they were culling dogs. And they make no distinction between Palestinians and Hamas. To them every Palestinian, even a toddler is either a terrorist or a terrorist in the making. We do see it, and it is very disturbing. Think about what we are becoming here in Israel, because of the war, and how it is affecting our society and our societal values, or if you prefer, our moral compass.
The transition from the mindset I have described to being callously apathetic regarding the starvation and hunger of Palestinians has been made.
And the basic truth is, that the only way to bring an end to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, for which we are co-responsible, simply by our overlong presence and the manner that *this government* has chosen to wage this war (influenced by Ben Gvir and Smotrich, who sit on the security cabinet), is to end the war. This, but also, because the damage it is causing us, as I have described, is greater now than the potential damage of Hamas remaining in power in Gaza.
There comes a time when we reach the point of overkill. When the duration of the war turns it from what was the most justified war of existential survival, into an overlong war with no exit strategy, a war which has outlived its justification, and when we become the cruel aggressor. When we are stuck in the quicksand, incapable of achieving our overambitious war goals and incapable of ending the war for fear of the humiliation that Hamas claims victory and remains standing. I've been there during the first war in Lebanon.
And therefore, for Israel's survival as a country and a society of which we can be proud, which is moral, tolerant and decent, we need to get the f&^k out of Gaza, get our hostages back, and bring our soldier sons home, now. While we can still salvage something of the most amazing country that it was before January 2023, and before October 2023.
