Opinion pieces do not represent the opinions of the Herald and were not edited or fact checked.
Hamas’s October 7th attack and the overwhelming IDF response exist within a 4,000 year context. Any claim that either side of this incomparably complex conflict is absolved of guilt is uninformed and misguided. I condemn the death of innocent civilians, whether it be in Palestine or in Ethiopia, Myanmar, China, Kenya, Yemen or Ukraine. I would not ask anyone to put down their signs or stop their protest. The civilian casualties of Palestinians, and the videos and interviews flooding the internet are heartbreaking. I do not know the Palestinian experience, nor would I try to speak for it; that should be reserved for Palestinian voices. Contrary to HWS students’ impression that these voices have been silenced, I have heard them clearly. Calls for “starting a dialogue” have been brought by many who sympathize with Hamas’s attack, dubbed the “Irritable Operation,” by Professor Dean. Throughout this conflict, the feelings of Jews have been discounted; I have been told countless times that chants like “From the river to the sea,” “Globalize the intifada,” and “Palestine speaks for everyone” are not anti-semitic. I have been told that my feelings of fear upon hearing what amounts to Nazi rhetoric (intentional or otherwise) are a form of self-victimization. I have been told that Jews tend to self-victimize, glossing over 107 attempts at Jewish genocide in the last 4,000 years (averaging once every 37 years for 4000 years). If you do not understand how calls for the elimination of a Jewish State could be perceived as a call for Jewish genocide, look into the not-so-distant history for answers, including the post-Holocaust treatment of Jews in the MENA region.
Jewish education involves learning the history of a persecuted people: Passover; where the Egyptians enslaved and attempted to murder us; Purim, where King Ahashverosh and his advisor Haman plotted to massacre the Persian Jews; Channukah, where Judah and the Maccabees fought to liberate us from Greek-Assyrians who sought to rape, pillage and convert us; and Rosh Hashana/Yom Kippur; where we reflect on our year and pray that we make it through another – לְשָׁנָה הַבָּאָה בִּירוּשָלָיִם (next year in Jerusalem). We were warned that the Holocaust was not so very long ago. We were warned that the children of Nazis, and of those who gave us up to them were still out there. It is never a question of if with the Jews, it’s a question of when. On October 7th it felt like that “when” was now.
I was studying abroad in Tunisia at the time, having recently come from an internship in Tel Aviv. I immediately called my Israeli friends. Many knew someone who was killed, injured or kidnapped. The next day, my class was filled in on the attacks, and the friends I had made while in Tunisia were just short of “exhilarated.” I felt the anxiety that my parents, and their parents before them had felt. I began to feel the anxiety that my people have felt for millennia. Between October 7th and October 10th protests in support of Hamas sprung up across the world, cheering on their murderous rampage. On October 10th Netanyahu’s government began its disproportionate response. On October 11th I was attacked by two kids with machetes, after seeing my chain displaying the Star of David.
In April of 2024, we call Jews “Zionists” instead of pigs. (a Zionist is a person who believes in the protection of a Jewish nation in Israel) We call Israel a colonial power, one that cannot or will not be reasoned with because Jews control the media, banks and government. My people have been equated to the Nazis, and to the Apartheid Government, that is, to the basest of regimes. Once again, mischaracterization, disinformation and an apparent lack of self-education have led to recharacterization. Jews are once again the world’s largest problem. In the words of the people, we must “Smash the Settler Zionist State.”
The language of Jodi Dean’s article has been recognized to be extreme. Jodi Dean is a world-renowned scholar, and intends for her words to be taken literally. The title of her post, “Palestine Speaks for Everyone,” and her assertion that we should accept the rape and murder of civilians if we disagree with their government, is terrifying. “Palestine Speaks for Everyone” echoes Adolf Hitler’s “dangerous bacillus.” Tying Jews to the “capitalist road” echoes Mein Kampf’s assertion that Jews destroyed the German economy through control and corruption of capital. Her insistence on an indivisible conflation between Israel and the concept of imperialism forces us to pick a side: “Liberation or Zionism and imperialism? There are two sides and no alternative.” This echoes the centuries-old narrative conjoining the Jewish people with the world’s worst problems. In the early second century, the Crusaders saw Jews as enemies of Christ, and massacred them. In the 14th century, Jews were accused of spreading the Black Plague to usurp Christian civilization. (Washington Post) In the early 20th century, Jews were perceived to cause poverty and weaken culture in Germany, when poverty and morale were at their gravest. In 2024, the Jews are corrupt overlords, colonizers, and genociders. When you dehumanize the other side, when you taunt them with hyperbolic language, when you isolate them, threaten them, disregard them, you have lost any pretense of Justice.
Ms. Dean’s invocation of poetry and disfigured liberation theology cannot disguise its servitude to deep-rooted anti-Semitic tropes that have threatened Jewish identity for centuries. Her “exhilaration” at the slaughter of innocent Jews is breathtakingly cruel. Would she feel joy if I were among the victims? After all, I was just in Israel; I could have been at that music festival. Cruelty is not abstract; it’s real, personal, and horrible. All one can say is that if your ideology celebrates the taking of innocent life, it’s time to get a new ideology.
At this time of Passover, Jews read in the prayer book:
As the Egyptian armies were drowned in the sea, the Heavenly Hosts broke out in songs of jubilation. God silenced them and said, “My creatures are perishing, yet you sing praises?”
It’s understandable to feel passion for a cause you feel to be righteous. In this situation, there is more than one claim to righteousness. As a Jew, I support the State of Israel and I feel a nauseous anguish for the conditions of the Palestinians. Righteousness lies in both sides finding comfort, dignity, and peace. I feel as passionate a hope for a State of Palestine as I do for Israel. But neither one at the expense of the other.
I applaud the strength that the HWS administration and President Gearan have shown in supporting our Jewish students at this time.