Heartbreak in Israel
Along with most Jews around the world this week, I’m still in a state of shock about what happened in Israel last weekend.
Along with most Jews around the world this week, I’m still in a state of shock about what happened in Israel last weekend.
There are so many elements to this shock of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians: the brutality of the attacks, the horror that Hamas kidnapped nearly 150 Israeli and foreign hostages (including children and elderly individuals) and the heartbreak that families are going through at the loss of their loved ones. As of Friday morning, Oct. 13, the Israeli death toll is more than 1,300 and at least 3,000 wounded.
Since Israel is about the same size as the state of New Jersey, it obviously affected everyone throughout the country. There were also at least 5,000 rockets fired into southern and central Israel, which meant a great deal of the country spent the day in bomb shelters.
Some call this Israel’s 9/11. Using this comparison of a surprise terrorist attack on a country on a single day and adjusting for the population difference between Israel and the U.S., it’s said that it would be as if 20,000 Americans had been killed on 9/11. More Jews were killed on Oct. 7, 2023, than on any day since the Holocaust.
The number of people who were massacred at the Nova Sukkot musical festival massacre in the Negev desert near the Re’im kibbutz was more than any mass shooting in American history. At least 260 bodies were found at the site. Many more are missing and feared kidnapped and taken into Gaza. In communities near the Gaza border, entire families were found massacred in their homes, including decapitated babies. Pure evil. When people refused to come out of their locked bomb shelters, the terrorists burned their houses down. Many videos of these atrocities were posted online.
These attacks started on Saturday morning and it was both Shabbat and the holiday Simchat Torah, a festive holiday that celebrates the Torah. (A portion of the Torah is read each week throughout the year, in a specific order, and Simchat Torah marks the time after the Jewish New Year when you finish the end of the Torah and start back at the beginning for the upcoming year.) The name of the holiday is Hebrew for “the joy of the Torah” so basically the holiday celebrates the core of Judaism.
A surprise attack on a holiday was reminiscent of the Yom Kippur War, which happened 50 years and one day earlier - on Oct. 6, 1973 - when Arab countries attacked Israel on the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.
(Ironically, 22 years before this year’s attacks, on Oct. 7, 2001, the U.S. launched Operation Enduring Freedom with an objective to destroy al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan and around the world and remove Saddam Hussein from power.)
What should a country do when attacked by terrorists? Should they fight back?
It seems like an obvious answer, right? However, in the past when the Israeli military fought back against Hamas, which is the government ruling the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, they were condemned by a number of entities.
And this brings another element of shock and horror to the week.
Rather than an immense collective worldwide response of shock and horror to this past week’s list of atrocities, similar to what happened after 9/11, Israel is being criticized for its response, which is to target Hamas operations in Gaza.
(It is interesting to note that after 9/11, there were reports on American news stations of Palestinians celebrating the attacks - and this was before they were under the authority of Hamas.)
Sadly, Hamas is not a government that protects its people like Israel does. Instead of trying to keep the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip safe, Hamas has a history of using civilians as human shields. For instance, Hamas will store its weapons in residential areas or under facilities like schools and hospitals. So when Israel attacks the facilities that house the weapons used to attack Israelis, these actions are demonized in the media because it’s horrible to bomb schools and hospitals and Hamas knows this.
To try to minimize the number of civilians affected, the Israeli military drops leaflets before the attack to warn residents to evacuate the area, which was the case today according to an article on CBS News. According to the article, “In response, Hamas called on Palestinians to stay put in their homes.”
Israeli law requires that all homes, residential buildings and industrial buildings have bomb shelters because the country is so often attacked by its neighbors and Israel wants to keep its people safe.
Are there bomb shelters in Gaza? After Hamas gained control of Gaza, they built an underground network of tunnels and bunkers, but they didn’t appear to build anything to protect their civilians from air raids.
There is a long and complicated history of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip so let’s stop for a moment for some background.
I’m not a historian so this explanation is from my perspective. I advise you to do your own research because there seems to be different versions of history out there. What I’ve learned about the region actually clashes with the narrative I’m hearing about on social media so I have more questions than answers.
When there are posts about the recent horrific attacks in Israel, several comments express solidarity for the Palestinian people while beratingt Israel, as in this example:
“Israel is an oppressive military regime. They have kept the 2 million people of Gaza in a cage for 17 years inflicting daily violence and denying them basic human rights like clean water and medical supplies. To expect non-violent resistance in response to those atrocities is unrealistic. In addition, any non-violent Palestinian resistance has been met with extreme violence by Israel. To equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is an insult to the Jewish faith. Innocent civilians don’t deserve to pay the price but under international law the Palestinian people have a right to armed resistance.”
Question: Egypt also borders Gaza. Are Palestinians free to go in and out of Egypt? Does Egypt provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians?
Question: When you say that Israel kept the 2 million people in Gaza in a cage for 17 years, are you referring to when Israel evicted over 9,000 Israeli citizens who lived in 25 settlements in the Gaza Strip and withdrew from the area in 2005 so it could be ruled by the Palestinian Authority? The attempt at peace negotiations because of the belief that if Israel gives up land, THEN there will be peace?
Question: How does Israel deny the Palestinians in Gaza clean water and medical supplies? When Israel withdrew from the region and handed control to the PA, didn’t that mean that the PA took over those responsibilities? And when the Palestinians voted Hamas to be their rulers, wouldn’t that responsibility then be handed over to Hamas? What about the millions of dollars given to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near West. (UNRWA)? According to the UNRWA website, in 2022, the United States was the largest donor to the UNRWA, with an overall contribution of $344 million in support of Palestinian refugees. Where did that money go?
Question: When you say “To equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is an insult to the Jewish faith. Innocent civilians don’t deserve to pay the price but under international law the Palestinian people have a right to armed resistance,” why does the number of anti-Semitic attacks increase around the world when there are conflicts in Israel? Do you think it’s reasonable that a Hamas leader called for Muslims worldwide to engage in a global “Day of Rage” today?
There are so many more questions. Like why don’t other Arab/Muslim countries help the Palestinians by offering to take them in and give them a better life? Israel is a little sliver of country you can barely see on the map surrounded by Arab countries. Israel is the only Jewish country in the world and has taken in Jewish refugees from all the other countries who persecuted or expelled Jews. (Comparatively, there are 22 Arab countries.) There used to be Jews in Iran, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, etc. and they were forced out of those countries and had to start a new life in Israel because they didn’t have any other choice, similar to those who came from Europe after the Holocaust.
The Palestinians do live in horrible conditions, there’s no denying that, and it is awful that for many of its residents that is the only reality they’ve known for their entire life. But is it Israel’s fault? If Hamas truly cared for the people they were elected to represent they wouldn’t have kept attacking Israel since they took over in 2007 and then Israel wouldn’t have to retaliate to protect their people. If Hamas didn’t send rockets over the border and build tunnels to attempt to go under the border wall and have a charter that calls for the destruction of Israel, maybe there would be a chance at peace in the region.
Also, there seems to be an alternate history narrative out there regarding who was in the land first.
For instance, the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, which is the third holiest place in the world for Muslims and the namesake and the said impetus of the Al Aqsa Flood, which is what Hamas called this week’s operation to attack Israel.
The compound where the mosque is houses two holy places for Muslims - the mosque and the Dome of the Rock, which is where the Prophet Muhammed is believed to have ascended to heaven. This compound was built on the grounds where the two biblical Jewish temples stood so it sits atop the number one holiest spot for Jews.
In case you aren’t aware, Jews around the world traditionally face Jerusalem when they pray so they are facing the location where the Beit Hamikdash once stood. All that’s left of the Temple is the Western Wall, or Kotel in Hebrew, which is the most important site of modern Israeli history, as it’s the only remaining outer wall of the ancient Jewish temple after the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.
From 1948-1967, the Old City of Jerusalem, where the Western Wall is located, was under Jordanian control and Jews didn’t have access to pray there. It wasn’t until the Yom Kippur War in 1973 that Israel gained control of East Jerusalem. Today, Jerusalem, under Israeli rule, is a top holy spot for multiple religions and there are four quarters: The Armenian Quarter, the Christian Quarter, the Jewish Quarter and the Muslim Quarter.
All this is to say that the region has a deep religious history for Jews, Christians and Muslims and all three faiths are welcome to live and pray there in Israel, which wasn’t the case under Muslim rule.
I won’t even try to attempt a full history of the region - that’s enough to fill a book. (Noa Tishby does a great job of it in her book “Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth.”)
I know I probably won’t change anybody’s mind with this, but I hope people who are justifying the brutal acts by Hamas will do more research on the hatred they are spewing online.
This past week was heartbreaking and if any other country experienced these brutal acts of terrorism that Israelis (and others who were in Israel this past week) experienced, I can’t help but think that most Americans would not be holding rallies against the victims.
Praying for a peaceful weekend for all.