Hamas

Naming the crimes and refusing the rhetorical category of ‘terrorist’.

Naming the Crimes

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It’s interesting what people assume.

For those few who regularly read what I write 🙂 you’ll have noticed that I’ve been very careful for years not to refer to members of Hamas, PLO, Hezbollah, etc, as terrorists, especially after Oct 7.

I prefer to name their crimes:
– murder
– kidnapping
– r*pe
– extortion
– theft

I don’t believe that committing these crimes supposedly in the name of some ideology makes the crimes any more significant than ones committed in the name of profit or pleasure. Giving them a special category seems like endowing them with a perverse nobility.

Having watched how people and politicians use the term “terrorist” for decades, it’s become apparent that it’s nothing more than a vague rhetorical device, now mobilized by all sides of many conflicts, and crucially it is utilized by the Israeli and American governments to justify placing someone accused of committing particular crimes, squarely outside of the justice system.

I firmly believe that no one should be outside the justice system, that everyone has the right to a fair trial, and that all criminals should be held accountable in courts of law.

(I derived little satisfaction from the extrajudicial killing of Sinwar, for example. I would much rather he had been tried and faced the law.)

Words matter.

They shape our perception of and relationship to reality.

I don’t think choosing better words replaces the need for further actions to build a better world, but those actions start with the words we choose.

Words Matter

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Words matter.

I try to choose my words carefully:

The IRGC – not Iran.
Hezbollah – not Lebanon.
Hamas – not Gaza.
Criminals – not terrorists.
Autonomy – not sovereignty.
Etcetera…

And because I choose my words carefully, I inhabit a very different world than most other people

Sedé Teiman and False Equivalence

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Whatever crimes were committed at Sedé Teiman and other bases/prisons need to be investigated and the perpetrators need to be tried and fully punished, not just for immediate justice but to reform the popular indifference in too many circles towards war crimes, crimes against Israeli law, and crimes against the human conscience. The accusations are horrific. Examples must be made.

However.

It’s possible to effectively critique the rhetorical mobilization of “terrorism” to selectively punish certain classes of actors and deny them due process, without making a false equivalence between Hamas and the IDF.

The fact that most Palestinians’ experience of the IDF is understandably (and inexcusably, from my religious Zionist perspective) one of occupation, siege, or bombing, does not make the IDF the same as the military wing of an organization chartered to genocide Israelis, or the crimes of IDF soldiers – who are investigated and punished for violating Israeli and international law, even under a political regime trying its damnedest to defend and excuse them – similar to the crimes of Hamas soldiers, who violate international law (and sharia) with impunity as a matter of strategy, tactics, and ideology.

I don’t think the IDF deserves to be put on a pedestal – it’s just an army and it’s susceptible to the same lapses and crimes as any army. And the blindness of many Israelis towards the crimes committed by some of their sons and daughters deserves outspoken criticism, *primarily* from other Israelis and Jewish people. But this equivocation with Hamas is part of a parallel blindness towards fascism (and an affliction of latent antisemitism, among other things) that infects the meritorious pro-Palestinian movement.

The Road Leads to Zion

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Yesterday I saw a video of an execution on Facebook.

A row of kneeling men, shot in the head from behind.

The person who shared the video asserted that the shooters were Hamas soldiers, the victims were men accused of “collaboration” with Israeli forces. From what little I could tell, this was the case.

This event happened after the ceasefire went into effect and while the kidnapped Israeli captives were being returned to Israel.

Like the war itself at the beginning, I accept this ceasefire now for its necessity while harboring many questions and doubts.

It is necessary to stop bombing Gazans without a strategy or endgame or even evaluation of our tactics. It is necessary to rescue our kidnapped citizens. It is necessary to chart a new course forward, that neither abdicates responsibility for the populations of Gaza and the West Bank nor supports fascist enemies as “assets” for political expediency.

But there are many points in Trump’s updated Biden Plan that raise eyebrows, if not red flags. And the key security assurances depend on Hamas disarming, accepting an international transitional force, and withdrawing from Gaza.

None of which they have agreed to do.

While they apparently reorganize as a “police force” and execute Gazan dissidents.

Look, I’m glad the kidnapped captives are reunited with their families. I’m glad the airstrikes have stopped. I have deep gratitude to the Creator for these undeniably good things, and I recognize that neither our relationship with divine justice nor the tools it utilizes to achieve its implacable ends, are uncomplicated or pure.

But this deal – Biden’s deal – is a bad deal.

As much as I detest Benjamin Netanyahu for being a generally incompetent and criminal prime minister, and for unnecessarily prolonging this war in particular, this deal was and is a bad deal.

And if Donald Juniper Trump contributed to this deal, what he contributed was political pressure and/or guarantees (the ol’ carrot and stick) to Benjamin Netanyahu in order to persuade him to accept a bad deal.

It’s unsurprising that POTUS would be so proud of a bad deal for Israel (and Gazans, if we’re being honest). The mess he’s proudly made of his own country suggests that he’s not the man to bring about peace in the Middle East.

(So, no Noble Prize for him.)

But it seems that Israelis and Palestinians will be footing the bill for this deal in years (if not months) to come. (More exemplary leadership from the worst prime minister in Israeli history.)

But where does that leave us?

We still have a democracy. As the war (or this round of it) officially draws to a close, we can turn our focus to next year’s elections and the long-overdue investigations of the politicians and bureaucrats responsible for October 7. There is no longer any political excuse for delaying action on these crucial matters. For two years we’ve held off on holding our leaders accountable. The bill has come due.

We still have joy. Communities across Israel had a dual celebration last night and today – the regular celebration of the Torah on the eight day after the joyous festival of Sukkoth, which was stolen from us for two years and only resumed today – and the unprecedented celebration of the release and reunification of kidnapped captives with their families and friends and people, after they were stolen from us two years ago. Across Israel, we sang “the children have returned to their land” like never before. That joy was palpable and is a source of great power, if we nurture and bring it with us into the days ahead.

We still have each other. Despite every effort by the Russo-Sino-Iranian Axis to isolate and turn the world against Israel; to coerce Gazans into embracing Hamas; to radicalize Israelis and Palestinians, and their respective supporters, against each other – despite the horrors and devastation and trauma of war and occupation and loss, the bridges burned and the alliances torched in the livestreamed shock of rubble and bodies, the skyrocketing mistrust of the other’s intentions and good faith – despite this dirty diaper of a deal that neither ensures Israelis’ security nor grants Palestinians autonomy – Israelis and Palestinians here in this land are still talking to each other, quietly, two here and three there, as neighbors and fellows bound to the same land with the same fate. So much went so wrong in the wake of Oct 7, and we’re slowly picking up the pieces – together.

I don’t know what bends, twists, and dangers the road ahead will bring.

But I know where the road leads.

Peace. Justice. Security.

For all.

Zion.

The Ceasefire Plan

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The Trump ceasefire plan does not seem substantially different from the Biden ceasefire plan.

The timetable for some things is a little faster, for other things a little slower. There is a stark cosmetic difference in the language.

But it seems to set out roughly the same basic points for both Israel and Hamas as the previous administration’s proposal.

🤷

There are definitely good, if vague, points set out in the plan.

But there are also some red flags:

I think setting up a Board of Peace headed by a corrupt authoritarian to rule Gaza via a puppet technocracy sounds shady.

I don’t trust the current US government.

And I’m left with a lot of questions about many of the points and how they will be implemented.

So I have my reservations about this ceasefire plan, like I did about the war itself; but if it brings about an end to the war, the elimination of Hamas, the return of the hostages, and the rebuilding of Gaza, then those will undeniably be good things.

30 Days

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30 days.

Either come up with a plan for defeating Hamas and rescuing the hostages, or end the war.

Either way, let in as much food, medicine, and baby supplies now, as the combined logistical might of the Israeli military can facilitate.

But it’s been almost two years.

So.

30 days.

One State, Equal Citizenship

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Fear and suspicion aside, I think it’s safe to say:
– the status quo is untenable
– two states are unimplementable
– an apartheid state is unlikely

Now some have mistakenly claimed I’m an idealist 🙂 but if I’m not mistaken, that leaves us with one state, equal citizenship.

Of course we’ll have to:
– ban fascist parties like Hamas, unequivocally and aggressively
– try and punish their remaining leaders and members who have participated in any crimes and plots
– replace UNRWA, their curricula, their teachers their textbooks
– and take other drastic but pragmatic steps to ensure social safety and security.

But when the smoke clears and the dust settles…. It’s one state, equal citizenship.

Hamas Is Not the Resistance

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Hamas is a fascist organization working with and for fascist states, that ruled Gazans with an iron fist for 17 years and has exploited them as human shields in their insane war against the (problematic, compromised, backsliding but nevertheless) democratic state of Israel.

There’s a reason many of their supporters around the world proudly sieg heil and wave swastika flags in their demonstrations – they’re inspired (!) not just by the Nazis’ antisemitism but by their totalitarian ideology.

“Resistance” my @$$.

Hamas is the enemy of Palestinians, Israelis, and everyone who wants to live a free life from the river to the sea.

They’re not the resistance against colonialism, they’re part of the fascist problem.

Collective Punishment Plays Into Hamas

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Why can’t we be targeted in Gaza like we are in Lebanon?

What is with the collective punishment as a negotiation tactic?

Since when did collective punishment not play into the hands of Hamas, a religious fascist organization that seeks the suffering of Gazans as a tool to manipulate public perception against Israel?

On the Bibas Family

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Since I first heard of the Bibas family’s capture, I thought the chances were remote that Shiri and the kids would survive captivity. It seemed unlikely to me that their captors would take the trouble to care for the children, and it seemed likely to me that their mother would either spend her last breath protecting her children or be unable to cope with the trauma of losing them. People are, after all, just people. רחמנא לצלן

Some may hear that belief and say I’m a pessimist.

Some may hear my belief in a stable and enduring solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict and say I’m an optimist.

The truth is I’m just a realist. I see what’s before my eyes and I extrapolate accordingly. Events tend to follow known patterns and can be anticipated.

Sometimes I’m wrong. Usually I’m right.

But my glasses are neither dark nor rose colored.

May we never lose another family the way we lost the Bibas family.

יי ינקום דמם

יי עוז לעמו יתן
יי יברך את עמו בשלום