History is complicated. Israel was a settler colony established as a homeland for European Ashkenazi Jews who survived the Holocaust because after World War II European countries did not want the Jewish refugees to remain there, and the United States would not change its discriminatory quotas to admit them. Israel’s population swelled when newly independent Arab nations in North Africa and the Middle East expelled Sephardic Jews after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and when Jews were finally able to leave the Soviet Union in the 1980s and after its collapse in the 1990s. Seventy-seven years after the partition of the British Mandate in Palestine by the United Nations and seventy-six years after Israeli independence, an independence partially secured by Jewish terrorist attacks on British offices and Arab villages, Israel as a nation and as a Jewish homeland has the right to exist and defend itself.
Migration and settlement have been a part of human existence since the first bands migrated out of the African Rift Valley to populate the world. Migration populated the Americas as people crossed the Bering land bridge. Migration transformed Africa as the Bantu moved south and repeatedly altered the demographics of the Eurasian continent. British North America including the United States was established as a European settler colony, as was Australia and New Zealand. Afro-Latino people were forceable transport to the Americas where their ancestors were enslaved. Are all the countries in the Americas illegitimate because they started as settler colonies? Should billions of people be forced to return to a location their ancestors either voluntarily or involuntarily 50, 100, or 1,000 years ago? Recognizing history does not mean reversing history and Israel has established it has the right to continue to exist.
October 7th happened the way that it happened because Hamas, the military group that controls Gaza and sees Israel as its enemy, took advantage of internal turmoil in Israel and the predominant deployment of Israeli military forces to maintain its occupation of the West Bank, protect illegal settlements, and suppress Palestinian dissent. Israeli missteps do not justify terrorist attacks on civilians by Hamas. Neither does actions by Hamas justify Israel’s destruction of the Gaza Strip and the murder of over thirty thousand Palestinian civilians.
Supporters of Israel frequently charge that the world has a double-standard when it comes to Israel, and that Israel is criticized for actions tolerated when they are committed by other countries or groups. While there may be an element of truth here, it is also true that the governments of Russia, China, Serbia, Sudan, Iran, and Liberia, and groups like the Taliban and the Islamic State have all been accused of war crimes and faced economic sanctions from the United States and other countries, sanctions that Israel has avoided.
Part of my extended family lives in Israel and in 1967 I volunteered with the Jewish Agency to help defend Israel during the Six-Day War, however the war ended before American volunteers were dispatched. Since 1973 I have opposed the continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and because of that I have never visited Israel. I strongly object to the 2018 Israeli law that reserves self-determination in Israel exclusively to its Jewish citizens, promotes the establishment of Jewish settlements on the West Bank, and declared Arabic was no longer an official language in the State of Israel. The law effectively made the 1.8 million Palestinian citizens of Israel, approximately 20% of the country, second-class citizens.
Just as Israelis do, Palestinians have the right to a national homeland, a right denied them after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and since 1967 by the Israeli military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and the construction of illegal settlements in occupied territory. For Israel to maintain its legitimacy as a nation and a Jewish homeland, it must recognize the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people. Israel needs to end the war on Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank, it needs to respect the rights of its Palestinian citizens, it needs to remove its settlements from territory seized in the 1967 war, and it needs to work with the United States, Europe, and its neighbors in the Middle East to quickly establish an independent Palestinian state. The best way to delegitimize Hamas is to show that Israel is willing to cooperate with the formation of a Palestinian nation, something it has used negotiations to delay and obstruct since the 1970s. Israel also has the obligation to rebuild what it has destroyed in Gaza.
The United States has been the main ally and funder of Israel since the 1970s providing billions of dollars in armaments including bombs Israel is using to decimate the Gaza Strip. There is a mounting protest in the United States against our government’s position as photographs, videos, and news reports show the suffering of people in Gaza who are repeatedly forced to relocate and are denied medical aid and adequate food. With Israel, the United States shares responsibility to rebuild Gaza.
The United States is in a position to tell the Israeli government that the attacks on Gaza and its people must stop now and there must be immediate steps to establish a Palestinian state, whatever the response is from Hamas. Continued bombardment and the invasion have not returned the Israeli hostages that are held by Hamas. Only negotiations can achieve their release. If Israel refuses to suspend hostilities, it should no longer be able to depend on the United States for military and financial assistance. The United States should no longer be a party to war crimes committed against the Palestinian people.
Antisemitism is the stereotyping of Jews as a religious, racial, or ethnic group and denial of fundamental human rights. There is a long history of antisemitism in Europe and in the United States, however, in the past it was not feature of Islamic societies.
Recognizing that the 20th Jewish settlements in Palestine were a European settler project because neither Western Europe or the United States wanted a large Jewish resettlement after World War I and World War II does not make you an antisemite. Disagreeing with the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the destruction of Gaza does not make you an antisemite. Accusing Israel of being an apartheid state because it denies equal rights to Palestinian citizens is not antisemitism. Supporting a boycott of Israel because of disagreements with its government is not antisemitism. Arguing for the formation of a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution does not make you an antisemite. Opposition to Zionism can be, but is not inherently, antisemitic. Unfortunately, Israeli military action in Gaza and its disregard for civilian casualties have feed a new wave of antisemitism that denies the right of Israel to exist.