Category Archives: Palestine

A Promised Land, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Palestine, Stephen Golub

Stephen Golub: Despite the Hamas Horrors, Glimmers of Light Beyond the Unbearable Darkness

Hamas must go. So must Netanyahu.

Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub, A Promised Land.

By Stephen Golub, October 15, 2023

Amidst all the thoughts and feelings I had as 9/11 unfolded, the one that hit hardest was utter dismay at how incredibly cruel and savage people can be to each other.

That’s how I feel this week. Over 1,300 Israelis slaughtered – most of them civilians, many of them babies, children or elderly – with over 150 more taken hostage. Given America’s much larger population, this would be the equivalent of 50,000 people murdered here in a single terrorist attack, or seventeen 9/11s.

In the Hours and Days Ahead…

I won’t deeply delve right now into what’s going on and what’s to come as Israel takes the fight to Hamas in Gaza. There will be time enough for reasoned, complex or bitter debates about who’s to blame for that humanitarian calamity.

And, before seeking to see some light in this situation, I won’t deny that matters will most likely get much worse before they even have a chance of getting better.

More specifically: Within hours of my publishing this post, Israeli tanks and troops may be surging through Gaza. Or Lebanon-based Hezbollah, “the world’s most heavily armed non-state actor,” may open up a second front, raining many of its estimated 130,000 rockets down on Israel. Or the mounting violence and Palestinian deaths on the West Bank – 53 since October 7 – could explode into a full-fledged conflict there. Or some Palestinian citizens of Israel proper could rise up. Or the United States, or Iran, or both, could be drawn into the conflict.

Or all of the above.

Hamas Unveiled

Against this backdrop, why in the world speculate about something positive possibly springing from this horrific situation?

Because, despite the intense despair we all feel, we need to think about what happens to Gaza after the havoc ends.

So, even though it’s massively, monstrously outweighed by the October 7 massacre, what good could conceivably come of this? Two things.

First, Hamas has discredited and disgraced itself as a savage terrorist organization that cannot be trusted and must be crippled to the extent possible.

This seems painfully clear today. But up until October 7, and despite its many bouts of combat with and rocket attacks against Israel, certain experts and Israeli officials entertained the notion of a “pragmatic Hamas” that had evolved past its genocidal 1988 Covenant, a document that channels the notoriously fake Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other antisemitic attacks. These officials included the former national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Will Hamas necessarily vanish from the scene in the wake of Israel’s likely onslaught? We’ll see. Its ideology will live on after many of its leaders and members are killed. What’s more, the New York Times’ Thomas Friedmanand other observers wonder whether Israel will walk into a trap if it launches a full-fledged invasion of Gaza. Hamas and its ally Iran may well welcome such an attack, valuing the propaganda victories that could flow from the potentially massive Palestinian and Israeli deaths to which they’re indifferent.

Regardless, it’s crucial to at least and at last clearly see Hamas for what it is. In the words of one Palestinian human rights activist: “The world knows Hamas now as terrorists who have committed depraved atrocities that would even make ISIS blush. But the people of Gaza already knew them…[as] monsters for years.”

Netanyahu’s Demise

Second, the atrocious intelligence, preparedness and response failures by the Netanyahu government – which, to be clear, I’m in no way equating with the Hamas butchery – could well result in his political demise after this war’s deadly dust has settled. As an Israeli former deputy national security adviser puts it, “The only good news is that the magnitude of the debacle will likely hasten the downfall of the criminally negligent and fundamentally illegitimate government in office in Israel today.”

Over the course of his many years dominating the country’s political landscape, starting long before he launched his current assault on Israeli democracy, Netanyahu has inundated the West Bank with settlements that undercut the relatively moderate Palestinian Authority there and sabotage the possibility of Palestinian statehood. He has explicitly vowed to block such statehood; he tolerated and even propped up Hamas in certain respects in pursuit of that goal.

In the interest of his evading justice and jail, last year Netanyahu brought into his government far-right religious zealots who prioritize West Bank domination over human rights, national security and national unity. They include his national security minister, previously convicted of supporting a terrorist organization, incitement to racism and many other charges.

Given that so much blood was spilled barely a week ago, is it too soon to point a finger at Netanyahu and his ilk? The brother of an Israeli soldier killed battling the Hamas invasion does not think so: “The bunch of imbeciles leading the country we live in, the country where my beloved little brother was killed protecting the homeland that forgot us — not because it was inevitable but because this disgraceful government is involved in everything it should not be involved in. My beloved brother was murdered by hate-filled terrorists, but those who disgracefully opened the door for them are the Israeli government, from the minister of national security and his messianic friends — clowns who busy themselves creating violent, idiotic slogans — to the prime minister, who is doing everything in his power to disintegrate the State of Israel.”

Could a peaceful two-state solution emerge in partnership with the Palestinian Authority, which recognizes Israel but is corrupt and ineffective? Quite possibly, though not inevitably. And for at least the near future, that possibility weakens in the wake of massive Israeli and Palestinian trauma. But until Netanyahu and his messianic allies lose control of the government, we may never know.

No Equivalence. But Both Must Go.

Let me again be clear: Like that slain soldier’s brother, I’m not equating the Hamas mass murder with the Netanyahu government’s conduct and policies, as execrable as they are. Hamas shows how horrifically low humanity can go.

Moreover, I’ll readily admit that in these unbearably dark days, the possible glimmers of light I’m pointing to lie way beyond the horizon, if they’re there at all.

But after the death and destruction are done or at least diminish, we must seek whatever good, whatever solutions, can emerge from the ashes.

We don’t have any alternative.

. . .

In the name of love, I’ll share a couple of post-October 7 U2 concert videos honoring the October 7 victims. If you’re able to access the first, you may need to go to your downloads to actually view the clip, along with the tear-inducing message and photos associated with it. The second lacks that additional information. But it is easier to access, and the band’s moving words and music are still worth viewing.

This post was produced by Benicia resident Stephen Golub. Steve blogs about domestic and international politics and policy, including lessons that the United States can learn from other nations, at A Promised Land: America as a Developing Country. If interested, you may sign up for future posts by subscribing to the blog.

Read more from Steve by visiting his blog or clicking any of the links below.

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Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Palestine

Israel’s Revenge Would Be Better Served Cold

Hamas is going nowhere…

[Note from BenIndy contributor Roger Straw: After the heartbreaking and unforgiveable slaughter of Israeli innocents, now there is heartbreak and unimaginable devastation in Gaza.  This Washington Post analysis is spot on….]

GAZA CITY, GAZA – OCTOBER 13: Palestinians displaced from their homes as a result of Israeli raids on October 13, 2023 in Gaza City, Gaza. Israel has sealed off Gaza and launched sustained retaliatory air strikes, which have killed at least 1,400 people with more than 300,000 displaced, after a large-scale attack by Hamas. On October 7, the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel from Gaza by land, sea, and air, killing over 1,300 people and wounding around 2,800. Israeli soldiers and civilians have also been taken hostage by Hamas and moved into Gaza. (Photo by Ahmad Hasaballah / Getty Images)

Analysis by Marc Champion | Bloomberg, October 13, 2023

Israel’s 24-hour notice for more than 1 million civilians to evacuate Gaza City by midnight, dubbed impossible by the United Nations, suggests a ground invasion is imminent. Why the rush?

Hamas is going nowhere. It is by now clear that the purpose of Saturday’s attack and its haul of at least 97 hostages was designed precisely to draw Israel into a massive response on Gaza’s densely populated urban battlefield. There’s time to prepare Hamas’s destruction, rather than dance to its tune. The terror group has had years to prepare its defenses, so let it wait a little longer; they won’t improve. The pressure to move in quickly is political.

The slaughter of Israeli civilians last weekend ensured that Hamas lost, as my colleague Bobby Ghosh has written, the war of images. The group has forever been consigned to the same murderous category as Islamic State. But as in all other aspects of warfare, such early losses and victories can be overturned and the risk for Israel is that its ground invasion succumbs to exactly that.

Supplies of water, power and food to the territory’s 2 million-plus inhabitants have been cut, a crime against humanity, according to Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories. As of Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces said it had dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza. Human Rights Watch says it has confirmed the use of white phosphorous, an imprecise weapon that can cause horrific burn injuries. Already, more than 1,500 people have been killed and over 6,000 injured in Gaza since the air strikes began, according to the local health authority. The toll from a ground invasion with the city’s population still in place would be much, much higher.

This is what Hamas wants and planned for. The consequences of Israel losing the information war would be huge, perhaps as significant as anything it can achieve on the battlefield. It would enrage popular opinion in the so-called Arab Street, pressuring otherwise friendly governments to break ties with Israel and take sides against it. It would, equally, ignite Palestinian feeling on the West Bank, Jerusalem and even within Israel, potentially opening a second, internal front. It would increase pressure, too, on Hezbollah — which objectively can’t afford a war right now — to open a third front from Lebanon. That, in turn, would increase the risk of a regional war that includes Iran, something that its foreign minister threatened on Friday, while on a tour of allies in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.

There are no winners in this scenario, other than the Iranian regime, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (he’d enjoy the distraction of Western attention from Ukraine) and Islamist terror organizations across the Middle East. Nor can it leave other parts of the world untouched. Already, France has announced a ban on protests involving Palestinian flags, for fear they lead to pitched battles with police. In the UK, a charity said anti-Semitic incidents quadrupled in the four days after Saturday’s attack, compared with the same period a year ago.

Israel has no good choices. The border crossing from Gaza to Egypt remains closed, with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi saying Palestinians should “stay steadfast and remain on their land.” Hamas also has told Gaza City residents to stay put, fully aware that “victory’’ in this conflict depends on expanding it beyond Gaza, which in turn requires a blunt Israeli invasion to deliver large-scale civilian casualties and the images that go with them.

The cynicism of Hamas is breathtaking. These are fanatics. The Israeli government can’t afford to give its enemies what they need in order to portray it as equivalent. It will count for nothing to say an invasion’s civilian casualties are collateral damage — as opposed to the deliberate murder of more than 1,000 Israeli civilians by Hamas — if the time and preparations needed for a credible attempt to reduce them aren’t taken.

Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Palestine

Gaza, My Lost Home

There are no sides in this war. There is only mourning.

[Note from BenIndy contributor Roger Straw: The article by Yasmine Mohammed below is moving, sad, and most likely prophetic – a must read. As of this writing, the New York Times reports that residents in the north of Gaza are abandoning their homes and fleeing south under threat of an Israeli ground invasion. “The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said on Friday that airstrikes had killed at least 70 Palestinians and wounded 200 others who were attempting to flee northern Gaza by car on a main highway. And an ongoing siege pushed Gaza’s medical system to the brink of collapse.” The article below was distributed by a Benicia friend who is Jewish. Another friend read it and commented, “Innocent people are innocent, regardless of their nationality or religion. Terrorists and war criminals should be held accountable, regardless of what flag they commit their crimes under. I’m terrified that we are witnessing the beginning of genocide against Palestinians. I so hope that is not the case.” Do read on….]

Gaza, My Lost Home – There are no sides in this war. There is only mourning.

Tablet, by Yasmine Mohammed, October 11, 2023

Palestinian women harvest olives in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, two days before Hamas’ attack on Israel | YOUSEF MASOUD/SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES

My father lived his whole life with the hope that there might be a peaceful two-state solution. He spent his last years making YouTube videos on the topic and telling anyone who would listen about his family’s olive groves in Gaza. I am actually kind of relieved that he left this earth before he had to watch Hamas slaughter his dream on video, for all the world to see. Hamas has ensured that there will be no more Palestine, and no more hope for an independent state.

People send flippant messages to me asking “are you pro-Israel or pro-Palestine,” as if we are all watching a football match. Are you wearing a blue jersey or red? I am wearing neither. I am in black. I am in mourning for the lost Israeli and Palestinian lives. I am in mourning for the Palestine that could have been. With a gorgeous waterfront overlooking the Mediterranean Sea that was recently made safe to swim in, with fertile soil that once sustained ancient olive groves. With land rich with resources for success.

It also had the funding. Generous governments, corporations, nonprofits, and individuals have been flooding the area with billions of dollars for decades. But instead of focusing on a potential tourist industry or building hospitals and schools and helping the Gazan people thrive on the land, the area was overrun by terrorists.

The world knows Hamas now as terrorists who have committed depraved atrocities that would even make ISIS blush. But the people of Gaza already knew them. They have been suffering in relative silence under these monsters for years. Anytime a Gazan dares to raise their voice in criticism, their throat is slit immediately, making it brutally obvious that it’s best to keep quiet. Even those who hated Hamas chanted their allegiance to them loudly, in fear of their lives and their family’s lives.

Fellow Islamic regimes like Iran and Afghanistan are reveling in the rivers of Israeli blood. They do not see Jewish people as humans. They see them as things that need to be eradicated, as per the Hadith by their Prophet Muhammad which instructs them that Muslims must kill Jews until not one Jew is standing. Even the rocks and the trees will work with the Muslims against Jews, Muhammad teaches, calling out, “Oh Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me! Come kill him!”

Even in Egypt, a supposedly more progressive Muslim majority country, a police officer took it upon himself to murder two Israeli tourists who were visiting ancient ruins in Alexandria. He killed their guide too, who was probably trying to protect them. The tourist industry has been relatively nonexistent in Egypt due first to the revolution and then the pandemic. Now the country is suffering greatly under soaring inflation that is threatening lives daily. And yet, killing Jews was more important.

I never shared my father’s optimism. I never could imagine the two states living side by side. The past 75 years have been delaying the inevitable. These two Abrahamic faiths hate each other, and the only way there could have ever been hope is if both groups progressed beyond their ancient books. But both sides did the opposite. Israel has been pulled further and further into the Orthodox right wing and Gaza has become more and more extremist, electing terrorists who follow a literal interpretation of the ancient scriptures. There could have been hope 70 years ago, when Israel was being founded by secular hippies and terrorists had not yet overrun Gaza, but the writing has been on the wall for a long time now, and the mercury has been rising for decades.

Almost all of my father’s family is scattered across the globe, like most Palestinians. There are second and third generations being born in the diaspora with no connection to the land anymore. This is not new for the Middle East: Jewish people with roots in every country from Algeria to Yemen have been all but eradicated from their homelands; Egypt has very few people remaining from the hundreds of thousands who once thrived there. Hopefully a few Gazans will remain in Gaza. Maybe someday they’ll be able to live on their homeland without fear.

I have never been to Gaza, and my children have never been to Gaza. Maybe my grandchildren might go one day and read a plaque on some ancient monument that describes how this used to be the land of a people who called themselves Palestinians. They had a rich culture. Delicious food. Beautiful, bright clothing. Now they do not have a homeland anymore because they chose violence over peace. Despite the abundance of olive branches in Gaza, they chose to extend a knife instead.

A human rights campaigner, Yasmine Mohammed advocates for the rights of women living within Muslim majority countries, as well as those who struggle under religious fundamentalism anywhere. She is the author of Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam and the President of the nonprofit organization Free Hearts Free Minds.

Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Palestine

Among American Jews, ‘You See a Lot of Broken Spirits’ After Attacks

A community with diverse views and opinions on Israel appeared to be largely united in shock and anger at the violence by Hamas.

Some Jewish leaders in the United States said the attack on Israel by Hamas had brought a sense, at least for now, of unity. Credit…Irynka Hromotska for The New York Times

 

New York Times, by Jenna Russell, Eliza Fawcett, Vik Jolly and Robert Chiarito, October 9, 2023

The deadly attacks and kidnappings in Israel this weekend shocked Jews across the United States, leading to tightened security at American synagogues, the cancellation of some holiday celebrations and a sense of horror and helplessness amid concern for relatives and fears of more violence to come.

The brutal assault by Hamas, which killed more than 900 Israelis and prompted retaliatory strikes that have killed nearly 700 Palestinians, comes amid a disturbing stream of antisemitic speech and attacks in the United States and globally, which have put synagogues and Jewish institutions on edge.

“You see a lot of broken spirits wandering around right now,” said Jonathan Celestino, 26, an employee of the Bernard Horwich Jewish Community Center in Chicago, “because so many people are hurt, scared and concerned.”

The small but diverse Jewish community in America — numbering about 7.5 million in 2020, or 2.4 percent of the U.S. population — has long been polarized over how to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In more recent months, American Jews have also been split over the far-right Israeli government’s push to limit judicial authority.

But many Jewish leaders said the targeted killing of hundreds of civilians by Hamas and the threats to kill kidnapped hostages had brought a sense, at least for now, of unity.

At Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope, Brooklyn, a Reform synagogue, Rabbi Rachel Timoner has long criticized the Israeli government and its occupation of Palestinian territories. Just weeks ago, she recalled in an interview on Monday, she delivered a Rosh Hashana sermon that described loyalty to Israel as “standing with Israelis against this government.” It drew a standing ovation, she said.

But an hour before she was set to deliver another sermon on Saturday morning, reports emerged of the attack by Hamas, the Palestinian faction that controls Gaza. She quickly understood, in the midst of her horror, what her message must be.

“Now is a time to stand unequivocally with Israel and Israelis,” she recalled telling her congregants, “and to say to our Israeli family that we are grieving with them, and we are praying now that Israel will defeat Hamas.”

Rabbi Motti Seligson, a spokesman for Chabad, a global network of strictly observant Jewish congregations, said he was celebrating the Jewish holiday of Simhat Torah in Brooklyn on Saturday with visitors from Israel — some of whom had to travel home and report for military duty after the attacks.

He said it was a time for Jews to “double down on being Jewish,” and pray and light candles for Israel.

Prayer was a response across the country, including at a vigil on Monday evening in Providence, R.I., where Stephanie Hague, chief policy officer at the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island, said it felt like one small way to show support for Israel.

For many Jews, the distress of the attacks was heightened by connections to friends, relatives or colleagues in Israel, some still missing or unaccounted for on Monday. Credit…Irynka Hromotska for The New York Times

“It feels like one of the only things we can do,” she said. “It feels like we’re so far away.”

In Los Angeles on Sunday night, a vigil drew some 2,000 people to the Stephen Wise Temple, where attendees gripped each other’s shoulders, hugged and swayed to music in the cavernous worship hall. There was applause when speakers reminded them to stay strong and support Israel, including monetarily.

A handful of attendees cloaked themselves in the Israeli flag as the evening drew to a close.

“The people here, they want to help,” said Miriam Zlotolow, 78, a retiree who immigrated to the United States from Israel when she was 21. “They want to draw strength from each other.”

For many Jews, the distress was heightened by connections to friends, relatives or colleagues in Israel, some still missing or unaccounted for on Monday.

Rabbi David Wolpe, a visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School, described obsessively watching the news in recent days while keeping in constant contact with friends in Israel. “I know any number of people whose kids have been mobilized and who spent nights in safe houses, who’ve lost friends or have had friends kidnapped,” he said.

Like others, he said he feared what lay ahead, and the likelihood that the toll would grow. “As a human being, and as a rabbi, the last thing I want to see is innocents dying for the decisions of their leaders,” he said.

At Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., a school founded by American Jews, the mood was solemn on Monday, said Ronald Liebowitz, the university’s president, who spent part of the day roaming the campus and talking to students. Many were grieving on behalf of a well-known emeritus professor, Ilan Troen, whose daughter and son-in-law were killed in the attack while protecting their 16-year-old son, who survived.

While he is preparing for the possibility of growing tension between campus groups that hold opposing views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Mr. Liebowitz said he sensed the usual campus debates had been placed on hold.

“Politics, at least here, seem to be set aside for now,” he said, adding: “No one I know is looking at those issues of politics now. They’re looking at the savagery of these attacks.”

Anna Betts contributed reporting.

Jenna Russell is The Times’s New England bureau chief, based in Boston.

Eliza Fawcett is a reporter for the National desk and a member of the 2022-2023 New York Times fellowship class.