Over the last days, I’ve been having sad and hard conversations with friends who believe the protest movement for Ceasefire in Gaza is lionising the massacre of civilians in Israel.
What I hear amongst people I have met in protest is sincere care about suffering and pain across divides. People who are turning up to protests are begging governments to understand that war crimes can not possibly justify more war crimes, just as many of us did in the early 2000s. The call for ceasefire is squarely against the brutalisation of bodies, and to stop ongoing violation and the horrific collective punishment that is now being enacted upon Palestinian civilians. That’s what I hear people speaking in person, yet sadly it is not a communication that is getting through to many of my Jewish friends. There is a palpable sense of abandonment. I hope we are able as communities to be there for each other, and that friends can acknowledge the genuine pain of friends, as silence can be excruciatingly lonely and alienating. Speaking undoubtedly brings up grief that has no easy answers, but not speaking reads as a lack of care.
It does not help to ignore that there are voices in the public sphere who are taking up hateful and irresponsible positions. And, there are a few commentators on the left – who claim to be anti-racists and anti-fascists – who do diminish, and in some cases even celebrate the murder of Israeli Jews in their homes and at the music festival. Who can read the descriptions of what happened on the 7th October against Israeli citizens and make a ‘hot take’ that it’s a good thing for resistance in general? Clearly, pundits celebrating massacre partake in a cruelty that is at the root of so much of the current horror by ignoring real people’s suffering to advance a political point. Rashid Khalidi speaks to this: pointing out that the left needs to communicate well and work together toward a clear political end, not generalise and neglect vital distinctions and historical perspectives. “Israel being the result of a settler colonial process does not mean every Israeli grandmother and every Israeli baby is a settler and therefore not a civilian,’ he says in an interview full of hard insight: A Desperate Situation Getting More Desperate.
If the overwhelming majority of protestors care about the rights of human beings across communities, and call for the end to violence and wrongful imprisonment for all, what can actually help communicate this reality to communities who feel genuinely forsaken?
Naomi Klein words it well –
“What could lessen its power, drain it of some of that fuel? True solidarity. Humanism that unites people across ethnic and religious lines. Fierce opposition to all forms of identity-based hatred, including antisemitism. An international left rooted in values that side with the child over the gun every single time, no matter whose gun and no matter whose child. A left that is unshakably morally consistent, and does not mistake that consistency with moral equivalency between occupier and occupied. Love.
It’s certainly worth a try. In these difficult times, I’d like to be part of a left like that.”
In Gaza and Israel, side with the child over the gun — Naomi Klein
The newspapers – as ever – seem determined to blur the lines between the ideologies of groups and governments and the feelings of living people—presenting Hamas as the voice of all Palestinians, Netanyahu as representing every Israeli, mischaracterising protests demanding an end to grotesque violation as support for terrorism. Truly, press and news media need to start representing the hundreds of thousands of protesters who are sincerely trying to come together against brutality, and stop fuelling division by focussing on extreme hot takes. The media has an actual responsibility to tend understanding across communities in society, not turn friend against friend in a time of enormous trauma when people need real support.
ᨒᨒᨒ
A postscript to this note to reflect that meeting pain is no clear process. When pain is too close, sometimes the only understanding possible is the recognition that we do not, and will not agree. I hope—if we are steadfast—that we may be able to move through extreme polarisation in time.
Birds know steadiness, attentive to the shifting water. Listen. I’ve lost track of whether the moon is waxing or waning. Praying tonight for ears that hear beneath the words. And for the wisdom to speak words warmer.
“People say walking on water is a miracle, but to me walking peacefully on earth is the real miracle.”
Thich Nhat Hanh
River walks in London listening to Vega Trails, Love Your Grace
