Oct 7
Was October 7 a tragic and sickening crime against humanity that would have caused a dramatic response from any country? Yes. Has the Netanyahu government gone too far in its response? Yes. Did the widespread, pressurized antisemitism that was uncapped after October 7 begin before Israel even responded at all? Yes. Did campus and other protesters who tore down hostage posters betray their serious naivety about the threat of terror groups like Hamas as they betrayed the victims of the October 7 attacks who came from an area filled with liberals, desirous of peace with their neighbors in Gaza and across the broader Middle East? Yes. Did the unequal and often heinous treatment of Palestinians create an environment in which terror groups like Hamas could thrive? Yes. Is Israel held to a different standard than other democracies? Yes. Has the Iranian regime been a consistent threat to Israel, America, and its own citizens? Yes. Is keeping that regime from having nuclear weapons and further spreading terror a worthy goal? Yes. Has the war in Iran been mismanaged and potentially counterproductive? Yes. Are these issues much too complicated to be debated in a newsletter blurb, let alone via dueling T-shirts on a concert stage? Yes. Could I go on and on? Yes. Will readers be enraged by these simple, obvious statements? Yes. Is there something that still unifies people on all sides of this issue? Yes. Today is a day to mourn. “Israelis mourned at the site of the Nova Music Festival, as well as at bomb shelters, intersections and in communities targeted on Oct. 7, 2023. On that day — the deadliest in the country’s history — militants killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage. Israel’s retaliatory offensive killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, destroyed much of Gaza and drove most of its 2 million residents from their homes.” Israelis mourn Oct. 7 attack as Palestinians in Gaza languish in ruins of the war it sparked.
+ Are the contradictions created by one of history’s longest festering wounds felt by Jews in synagogues and sitting at dinner tables across the world? Yes. Are those contradictions also felt by families who survived the Oct 7 attack and are only now moving back? Yes. “For a family moving back to a kibbutz on the border, in what many would consider a bold act of Zionist commitment, to simultaneously plan a possible future outside Israel might seem like an enormous contradiction. But it’s no more of a contradiction than that embodied by our many friends who have served hundreds of days in the reserves since October 7, fighting in Israel’s longest war, losing friends and risking their own lives, only to reach the same conclusion we have: If this government stays, they’re out.” Amir Tibon in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Three Years After October 7, I Moved Back to Nahal Oz.
+ Have the children of Gaza been the victims of both Hamas and Israel? Yes. Pulitzer Prize winner Mosab Abu Toha in The New Yorker: Back to School, in Gaza. (Alt link.) “My nephews study in a big tent surrounded by bombed-out houses. They have no access to chairs or desks, so they sit on the dirt.”
+ Could Bibi, who built his entire brand on being strong on security, possibly survive the first election following the worst security failure in Israel’s history? Yes. David Remnick in The New Yorker: Will Netanyahu Escape His Reckoning? (Alt link.) “What is astonishing—politically, morally, strategically—is that Netanyahu has any chance at all. Within days of the Hamas attack on Israel, the worst disaster in the history of the state, it was all but a given that he would soon be out of power.” (Does the story of a candidate who should have no chance of winning again—politically, morally, strategically—but who still does have a chance to win sound familiar? Yes.)
+ Ronald Brownstein in Bloomberg (Gift Article): Netanyahu’s Oct. 7 Legacy Is Isolation. “The Hamas terror attack on Israel, three years ago today, horrified the world. But the indiscriminate ferocity of the Israeli response under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has almost completely eclipsed the initial atrocity in shaping global attitudes toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Regardless of who wins this month’s Israeli election, will we be done discussing this painful issue? Sadly, no.
