Jonathan P. Baird

For those committed to a two state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, events since October 7 have been a worst case scenario. I begin from the premise that the fates of both people are inextricably intertwined. An ultimately just settlement can only come from recognizing common humanity and from insuring civil rights for both. No side has clean hands.

The Hamas attack on October 7 was absolutely sickening. Attacking and shooting young people at a rock concert is the definition of evil. Going from home to home massacring families is not the action of any liberation movement. In the New Yorker, David Remnick wrote that Hamas fighters methodically planned the Kibbutz attacks for two years with the intent to kill as many as possible and to take hostages. The killing was not spontaneous improvisation.

Hamas is a theocratic terrorist organization which has constantly called for Israel’s annihilation. That goal is in their charter. Hamas aims for a single caliphate throughout the Middle East. A senior Hamas official, former Foreign Minister Ghazi Hamad, has vowed to repeat the horrific attacks of October 7 ‘again and again’.

Hamas poses an existential threat to Israel’s survival. I would not fault the Israelis for finding a continuing threat to southern Israel border communities unacceptable. No Israeli government could survive in the future if it doesn’t take that threat seriously. How many Israelis living on a kibbutz in southern Israel would feel safe returning to live there?

From a Jewish perspective, the killing of 1400 Israelis evoked Holocaust trauma. It is the worst massacre of Jews since 1945. I don’t think most non-Jews get how deep in Jewish historical experience and memory these events penetrate.

Jew-hating has a history that embraces crusades, inquisitions, blood libels and conspiracy theories, pogroms and a Holocaust. The Hamas slaughter of innocent civilians should be seen in that context and anyone who brushes off these murders has a shallow understanding of antisemitism.

That said, Israel’s response, its assault on Gaza, also must be forcefully condemned. The Israelis are not pinpointing their October 7 attackers for retribution. They are collectively punishing all Gazans.

Indiscriminately bombing a trapped population is a war crime. Since October 7, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, over 11,000 Palestinians have been killed, including 4000 children. That number of deaths is unspeakable. Much of the population of Gaza have been forced from their homes raising fears of a second Nakba. Israel has cut off food, water, fuel and electricity.

This behavior violates international law and it is appalling. There is a principle of proportionality in the law of war that holds reasonable care must be taken in attacking military objectives so that civilians are not needlessly injured. In their rage, the Israelis have tossed that principle aside. They are not distinguishing between Hamas and the broader community of Palestinians.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant described Palestinians as “human animals”. That type of dehumanization opens the door to barbarism and he is hardly alone in voicing that type of sentiment. It is common on the Israeli far right. Leaders like Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Rabbi Dov Lior and anti-gay religious extremist Avi Maoz routinely get away with making disgusting and hateful racist, misogynistic and homophobic remarks.

There must be an immediate ceasefire. Negotiations for return of the hostages should be a top priority. A prisoner swap is needed to save as many lives as possible. Beyond that, every effort must be expended to prevent a wider war which could run the risk of engaging greater powers. The U.S. has mistakenly allowed Israel to act with impunity. U.S. policy has been anything but even-handed.

The ground invasion of Gaza is a trap for Israel as is the idea of Israel occupying and politically controlling Gaza indefinitely. It will backfire on the occupiers and will only increase antisemitism world-wide. Also, as has been pointed out, Hamas will be recruiting its next generation of fighters from the families of the bereaved. Hamas wants to lure Israel into bloodier engagements.

The goal of completely destroying Hamas is an impossible fantasy. Even if the Israelis kill off much of the Hamas leadership, there will be a new incarnation of something even worse, akin to the birth of ISIS in Iraq. This is a road that will never lead to any just peace.

So much responsibility falls on the Netanyahu government. To maintain his personal power, his ultimate goal, Netanyahu made a deal with the devil, allying with the most extreme Jewish fanatics, fascists, and messianic settlers. Netanyahu sold himself as the protector of Israel. Preoccupied with his own criminal trials, Netanyahu utterly failed. He will always be remembered in Israel for the security failure of October 7.

It is not remembered that Netanyahu supported and propped up Hamas as a way to sabotage the possibility of a two state solution. In an effort to strengthen Hamas relative to the Palestinian Authority, Netanyahu facilitated the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars from Qatar into Gaza. It is an open question whether some of that money financed October 7 and other Hamas terrorism.

By boosting a partner Netanyahu knew Israelis would not, for good reason, accept, Netanyahu aimed to kill off the peace process. Instead his conniving blew up in his face.

Netanyahu’s administration degraded Israel’s military readiness in south Israel because their higher priority was supporting West Bank settlers, his political allies.That failure needs its own commission to explore how that could have happened.

Meanwhile settlers have escalated assaults and murders of West Bank Palestinians. Many of the settlers are religious extremists who believe the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea has been biblically granted to Israel. Netanyahu has let the fanatics run wild. The Israeli military has not reined them in.

The American response to Israel/Gaza as exemplified in the House’s wrong-headed censure of Rashida Tlaib must instead be focused on stopping the war and returning hostages. Tlaib is being scapegoated. Israel’s military actions are only creating more misery and hate across the region. The situation demands a political, not a military solution.