A Little Sanity, Please

 A little sanity in the discussion of the war in Gaza would be useful. Shouting slogans with ambiguous meanings only muddies the water. We must strive for peace, and to do so, we must think and talk clearly and sensibly. So, here are a few ideas for talking about the war sensibly.

First, we can condemn the bombing of Gaza without denying Israel’s right to defend itself. There is no contradiction between saying that Israel has a right to defend itself and saying that Israel’s actions in the current invasion of Gaza are excessive, wrong-headed and inhumane. We can say that killing thousands of civilians by bombing is not a proper way for Israel to defend itself. In fact, it may in the long run be counterproductive.

Second, we can condemn Hamas’s raid of October 7 and also say that Israel should not be killing so many innocent civilians. We can say that Hamas’s raid that killed more than a thousand people was wrong and also that Israel’s response, which is killing thousands of people, is wrong. In addition, we can say that Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank have contributed to the violence without absolving Hamas of responsibility for the attack of October 7, which they planned and carried out. There is plenty of blame to go around. All parties must share the responsibility for what has occurred.

Third, we can understand that Israel’s excessive response it is exactly what Hamas's raid on October 7 was intended to produce. Hamas predicted Israel’s reaction correctly and brought suffering on the residents of Gaza in order to win a big propaganda victory. Israel fell into the trap that Hamas had laid. Again, there is plenty of blame to go around.

Fourth, we can avoid extremist slogans. The suffering of the people of Gaza is awful and completely unacceptable, but the bombing is not equivalent to genocide, and opposition to Israel’s bombing campaign is not the equivalent of antisemitism.

Fifth, looking beyond the current violence, we must recognize that politically, there is no single Israeli position and no single Palestinian position. There are extremists in Israel who believe that Israel should include all of the land that was supposedly included in the biblical kingdom of David and Solomon. People who hold this belief are a minority in Israel. There are also many Israelis who favor peace through the two-state solution or the one-state solution. Some are now proposing an extraordinarily creative third possibility.

There is also an extremist position among the Palestinians which says that Israel is nothing but a vestige of colonialism and that it has no right to exist at all. That is the official position of Hamas. On the other hand, many Palestinians favor a position that says only that Palestinians have a right to a national state of their own. They would accept a two-state solution, and some would accept a one-state solution. Some are now proposing the creative third possibility mentioned in the preceding paragraph. The two-state solution is the position of the PLO, which governs in the West Bank.

Finally, we must recognize that neither extreme position can ever lead to peace. The extreme positions can only lead to a fight to the death. Only a solution that gives political autonomy to the Palestinians while assuring the continued existence and security of the State of Israel can be a basis for peace. So, we should be careful what we wish for, and we should be careful about the slogans that we use. Let's try to contribute to peace and not to endless conflict.