Israel - Palestine: Who's right? Who's wrong?

Last few days, my brain has been completely taken over by history of Israel- Palestine, and my sleeps are broken by nightmares of their radicals. The more I read about it, the harder it gets for me to comment, because there are million opinions. To comment on Israel – Palestine/ Hamas, I had to dive deep into the history of Israel (which by the way, a lot of Arab countries still don’t recognize), and Palestine 

And unfortunately, I still don’t know who’s right and who’s wrong. 🙈

While in southern Israel, Hamas’s terrorists broke into a room where a family of five was hiding and slaughtered every one of them. In Gaza, a father wrapped in gauze held his child, butchered in an Israeli strike, for the last time. 😢

So, here’s a moral test: Do you believe that it is wrong for innocent people to suffer this way? That mass death should be criticized, not defended, regardless of who its victims are? If the answer to either of those questions is no, then you are a morally broken person. 👈

👉 We’re asking Israel to cease fire; but why aren’t we asking Hamas to return those 230 hostages? 

👉 Media is covering stomach wrenching stories from Gaza hospitals displaying unimaginable conditions of children; but why isn’t it showing how are the Israeli hostages being treated (many of whom are children)? 

👉 If we’re asking US to defund Israel; in retrospect, we’re empowering Hamas (which is a terrorist (Oops, the governing authority) organization of Palestine) to keep on with its atrocities towards Israel.

To take one side or another would need deep dive into the history; and truly being aware of both sides and not just being fed one narrative. 

Currently, the Israeli government is rounding up on a ground invasion of Gaza that threatens to come with unimaginable human loss. The callousness with which they are talking about civilian deaths as “collateral damage” Gaza is appalling.

When the defense minister talks about cutting off electricity and water to Gaza, he speaks only of fighting Hamas “animals” — not of the hospital patients and formula-fed babies likely to die as a consequence.

Evil 

On the other side, Hamas does not gleefully post pictures of Israeli children executed in their beds. Instead, they cheer for pictures of Hamas breaking down the border fence with Gaza, calling it “decolonization” — ignoring that Hamas fighters broke down those fences to commit intolerable acts of mass slaughter.

This. Is. Evil. Too

I do not pretend to know exactly what the right choice is for Israel going forward. But I know that if someone would attack my homeland, kill 1400 innocent people, rape women, slaughter kids, and take 230 hostages; I would be raging too. 

I also know that justice for Israelis and Palestinians cannot be found through a mode of thinking that says only one kind of life is holy.

There are good people, kind people, in both Israel and the Palestinian territories — brave souls looking to help those on the other side, amid unspeakable tragedy, and together make the land they share safe for everyone. Some of those people have already been killed by the other side; more will likely die in the coming days.

Some of us see a power imbalance that makes it impossible for Palestinians to triumph in anything like a conventional war. So, we’re asking: How do you want Palestine to resist? What can they do when they’re are so weak?

Others are essentially asking the same question. Israel is facing remorseless murderers who once used a hospital as their headquarters. They’re using humans as shields. They have a right to defend themselves and get their hostages back. And if they don’t, Hamas will keep terrorizing them. What can they do?

You can see where both of these perspectives are coming from. It’s true that Israel has overwhelming power and is using it to collateralize Palestinians on a daily basis. It’s also true that Hamas is a vicious group dedicated to a violently antisemitic worldview, one that has no qualms about brutalizing Israelis.

But by taking one set of facts in isolation of the other, we are displacing our own moral obligations. 

If your brain is not broken by now, then read on as I think there is only one way this decades-old conflict can end: with Israelis and Palestinians, including their leadership, finding a way to live in peace. A two-state solution. The most obvious one! 

Our role, as outsiders, should be to help foster this belief. 

More broadly, we need as outside observers to maintain basic human values in ourselves: to see the victims on both sides as humans, to care about suffering, and to attune our statements and activities toward finding ways forward that can improve the situation. If we allow ourselves to slide into moral supporting only one side, we won’t merely justify atrocities; we will blind ourselves to the steps that can be taken to actually make life better.

We can and should extend sympathy to Israeli victims, but we should not let that shade into justification for retaliatory atrocities. We should condemn Hamas terrorism, but we should also condemn Israeli abuses against Gazans.

Criticize Israel when it slaughters Palestinians and criticize Palestinians when they slaughter Israelis. 

This is not just how we say the right things about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: It’s how we, in the end, will figure out how best to contribute to peace down the line. 

To think otherwise, and find fault only with one side, leads to the moral oblivion of cheering the slaughter of children.