Are Our Hearts Big Enough?

By Diane Miessler, As published in The Union

Are our hearts big enough to hold the pain of two tragedies?

Can we grieve for the thousands of Israelis killed or terrorized by Hamas’s violence, while we grieve for the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed, and many more wounded and left homeless (estimated now at half the population), by Israel’s scorched-earth response? Can we be outraged by both?

Ehud Gat says a ceasefire between Israel and Palestine would be pointless, because “ceasefires have always been violated by Hamas.” This may be true, but there is middle ground between allowing Hamas to run roughshod over Israel and bombing Gaza into the stone age. I recognize that Hamas presents a danger to Israel and that Israel has to protect itself. Killing 20,000 Palestinians is not self-protection; it’s annihilation. It’s mass murder.

I’m also somewhat uncomfortable with the left’s emphasis on support for Palestine. I’ve watched videos made by Hamas during the attack, and it’s hard to fathom the glee and cruelty of the terrorists. Hamas and whatever proportion of Palestinians support it is a real danger to Israel. Israel briefly garnered sympathy from much of the world after the October 7 attacks. Had it used a more measured response in defending itself, I think that sympathy would remain.

Instead, the actions of Netanyahu (who is deeply unpopular in Israel) are alienating the world, endangering Jews everywhere, and creating blind support for Hamas by mostly young leftists who now seem to think its members are noble insurrectionists. Some call for a free Palestine “from the river to the sea”, which would mean the end of Israel (something Hamas has repeatedly espoused). And some express their support of Palestine in the form of anti-Semitism. I wonder if these people have watched the Hamas attacks.

It’s true that Israel created this monster, initially by supporting Hamas as an alternative to the Palestinian Liberation Organization. And by decades of oppression of Palestine and, most recently, by defending illegal right-wing Jewish settlements in the West Bank, land that belongs to Palestine.

It’s also true that, since Israel was created for Jews in the ancestral homeland they had shared uneasily with Arabs, it has been under near-constant attack by surrounding Arab countries. England planted the seeds of this mess in 1917 by “giving” part of the land to Israel, so that Jews would have a safe haven from persecution; this stunned the Arab and Christian population of Palestine, by far the majority. Ninety percent of Palestinians were expelled from or killed in what is now Israel.

The Middle East is a tragedy with many victims and not enough heroes. And looking for villains won’t move the situation toward dialogue about peace.

Israel can’t afford to ignore the danger of Hamas and whatever number of Palestinians support it. Nor can it afford, morally or politically, to continue visiting this level of mayhem on Palestine. Defense is necessary, but defense doesn’t equal annihilation.