Anger is a bitter lock. But you can turn it.
Who knows what will happen now, where the violence will spread and increase, what will happen to those who have been displaced, how the humanitarian situation in Gaza will continue to deteriorate, how much civilian life will be damaged and destroyed. But it will not work without recognising the Jewish experience of defencelessness - and the historical causes of it. Especially when you were born and raised in Germany, where the Holocaust is our never ending stain.Five things happened on 7 October.
First, the Islamist terrorist organisation Hamas murdered 1400 people, the vast majority of them civilians, with a brutality that one does not even have to imagine. The murderers filmed themselves doing it, posted their deeds on the internet, leaving no doubt that the children they were torturing to death, the old and the weak, were not collateral damage of a military manoeuvre, but that there was no other goal to achieve than to murder as many civilians as possible as cruelly as possible.
Second, Hamas sealed the suffering and death of countless Palestinians, because even if Israel were just an average country with average security needs, there is simply no country in the world that would not react massively after such a brutal massacre. None of what happens in the following weeks, no suffering, no hardship, not a single dead Palestinian child, was not clear to Hamas beforehand. Even if you condemn every act of Israel, even especially if you condemn every act of Israel, you cannot claim that Hamas did not know what they were doing, that they did not willingly sacrifice their proteges if it only meant murdering as many Jews as possible (Jews, not Israelis, because that is the word they use).
Third, Israelis and Jews around the world lost their basic insurance on 7 October. The conviction that a history of pogroms spanning more than a thousand years had finally come to an end with the founding of this state 75 years ago. The knowledge that - unlike generations before - you have a place that protects you when everyone else no longer does. As Hamas announces a "Day of Rage" and calls for violence against Jews worldwide, we hide in our homes and are closer to our ancestors than ever before. For the first time we understand why they did not leave then. Not because they did not recognise the danger, but because they did not know where they could be safe.
Fourth, the problem, by the way, is not that Jews are afraid - some are, some are not, people, including Jewish people, are different - but that they are in danger. Fear is a subjective feeling that should often not be taken into account. When synagogues are attacked, female rabbis stabbed and airports stormed, it is an objective threat situation.
Fifth, left-wing Jews all over the world realised on 7 October that they had made a colossal mistake. It is not always easy to condemn atrocities because those who commit them usually try to hide them. But it's really not hard to condemn people who broadcast live on social media how they torture and murder civilians. It's really not hard to condemn people who murder not as collateral damage of a military manoeuvre, but for the sheer pleasure of it.
In the days following 7 October, the international left could have demonstrated quite naturally that they are as interested in protecting Jews as in protecting any other minority under threat. Remember: 0.2 per cent of the world's population are Jews. They could have, just for a few hours, once clearly condemned Hamas.
They could have shown solidarity with Israel, just once, to prove that criticism of Israel feeds on a commitment to universal human rights and not on anti-Semitism. It could have assuaged the age-old Jewish fear that being murdered bothers a few and delights many.Those who just shouted "Woman, Life, Freedom" should have consistently supplemented the "Free Palestine" with a "Free Palestine from Hamas". They could have helped - they preferred to escalate. They would rather make fun of dead Jews, they would rather heroise dead Palestinians than seriously try to save their lives.
Nele Pollatschek, born 1988, writer, author and lecturer (Germany)
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5 comments:
It's all so much.
Really important writing -- thank you for posting. There's no point in agreeing or disagreeing, and I believe (at least here in Los Angeles, with the third biggest population of Jewish people after NYC and Jerusalem) that most of us who decry the violence have included the initial violence enacted by Hamas -- the historical violence and manipulation of innocents. The voices raised loudest otherwise are bullshit -- I agree with that, especially the decolonization crap. Israel, if not protected in word by all of the "international left" is certainly protected by the military might of the United States, as evidenced by the ferocious response on Gaza. I can't imagine that any good will come out of it at all, though, at this point, other than some kind of satisfaction with revenge. There's a whole new Palestinian/Arab/Gazan (Christians, Jews, Muslims) generation that will despise Israel, Jews and the West. Something's got to give before we all go down.
All of it and innocents die again. When will human beings learn, myself included, that violence is never the answer.
I am utterly heartbroken by all of this. I just wish we could see that we're just one species on this beautiful planet earth. All the stories we made up about religion shouldn't be what compels us to kill. It's an insanity without end.
I've had to stop blogging because an old email account associated with the blog was hacked by the fighters in this war. The header was changed, and I am afraid to blog anymore. The war came much too close to home for me. (NewRobin13)
It's a horrible situation and as I said on my blog, I'm reluctant to say anything about it. But I basically agree with you.
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