Breaking Silence
At the time, October 7 felt to me like just another annoyance in the Middle East. Little did I know it would negatively impact my professional and personal relationships. I was not shocked by Hamas’ stupidity and Iran’s complicity. Gazans have long been used and coerced by Hamas and the Iranian government. But I never imagined Israel would use this event as an opportunity to decimate Gaza rather than focus on securing hostage releases.
Since the late 1970’s when I lived in Safed, I have longed for peaceful co-existence and a two-state solution. Since then, my role in intra-Jewish debates about Israel’s policies often included critiquing its occupation of the Palestinian territories and illegal settlement building in the West Bank.
That stance has conflicted with some family and dear friends who hold a view of a never-erring Israel. In their eyes, the decades-long punitive daily existence of Palestinians—occupation, lack of water, housing, power, and resources—is necessary for the existential survival of Israel and Jews worldwide. Their voiced empathic concerns are directed only at Israel and Jews.
These were tough, though doable conversations. After October 7, I was harshly judged by friends and family and accused of being “a bad Jew”. Such posturing made dialogue very hard. So I embraced a listen-only strategy. When asked, I reiterate Buddhist principles of non-harming, non-hatred, and compassionate regard for all forms of human suffering and a dedication to its alleviation.
And seven months later my heart is completely broken. Israel has become its own worst enemy. Its use of massive indiscriminate violence in Gaza disgusts and horrifies me. Many tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians are dead, while a few hundred Israeli hostages remain with Hamas. And no ceasefire is in sight. Yesterday Israel began its attack on Rafah, a city full of Gazan war refugees. Today Biden stalled military aid to Israel because of its incursion into Rafah. Despite all of this, many American Jews remain blindly supportive of Israel.
Silence, for me, is absolutely unjustifiable. Fearlessness and wise speech are needed. Netanyahu and Hamas are a plague for Israelis and Palestinians alike. As long as they remain in power, peaceful co-existence will remain unattainable.
Humans tend toward tunnel-visioned tribalism; often forgetting we must cultivate a view of equality for all, not merely demand others show equality toward us. And humans have a penchant for picking their battles with narrow-minded indiscriminate biases.
While I have marveled at the recent protests by American college students, their expressions of outrage at the Israeli government’s othering and violence, have been marred by protestors shameful acts of othering, hatred, and unfairness toward fellow Jewish students on campus. Russia mercilessly invaded Ukraine two years ago and continues its violent rampage, yet American college students do not include Putin’s regime in their protests. That narrow-mindedness fuels cries of antisemitism as the main driver of these protests, which denigrates the complex causes of suffering of the Palestinian people.
During my years as a trauma therapist in Silicon Valley I had the distinct pleasure of working with engineers, scientists, and doctors from many parts of the Middle East. These individuals showed me how war-traumatized Israelis, Palestinians, Iraqis, and Iranians, cling to a distorted trauma narrative that insists, “I am the victim, not the perpetrator.” In the Middle East perpetration and victimization live side-by-side. But few will admit shared culpability.
Additionally, Israelis and Palestinians also share a definitive lack of regard from their Arab and Iranian neighbors who don’t want either group in the Middle East. If Israelis and Palestinians could go beyond their hatred and separateness, they might realize how much working together could secure mutual safety, prosperity, and well-being as legitimate citizens of the Middle East.
But that radical stance requires full embrace by all sides of equalness: an other-centeredness fully committed to non-violence and suffused with mutual respect and regard. This is a container of healing and wise action where no one resides outside the circle of mutual care. That possibility, born from an inter-generational charnel ground of Middle East trauma, is the light that could spark sustainable peace in the Middle East.