Hostages, ceasefire, and a slow voice from the “middle ground”

One reason for starting this blog was to create a voice. I often FOLLOW others’ public statements on current issues but am too slow to formulate my own. I takes me time to come to a position, because I take in and ponder a lot of other positions first, agree, disagree, partially agree, and once I have come to my own assessment, it does not seem to matter anymore, in terms of a public contribution (which I would like to make! I have sometimes penned op-ed pieces, but with one exception back in Germany in 2001, news outlets were never interested). As an academic, I got used to “taking too long” – kudos to the academics out there who have the wits and energy to comment on current events – it takes bravery, as one exposes herself to criticism. I am for the most part not such a brave academic, and perhaps not for the worst reason: the practice of teaching taught me that time and space is needed to develop critical thinking, which in turn is necessary for a democratic society.

This blog has become a space in which I come to grips with things on my own pace, and I am grateful that you share this space with me. Thank you. I think of myself as a feminist voice that, as much as that is possible for a feminist, tries to connect to the middle of society rather than turn away from it. I think many feminists rather focus on solidarity with the marginalized. As important as that is, and as much as it implies a critical analysis of society’s evils (as in: exploitation, domination, violence), I think it is essential to bring this criticism to the social “middle ground”, because if we really want to change the world, we need many people buying in. However, mentally, “being in the middle” is not a comfortable, majoritarian, stable stance. It rather means to be pulled in many different directions, being confused, trying to figure out how much of a particular position I share, especially when I then think about an opposing position that I also find (partially) convincing. In short, my own commonsense formation contains a lot of tension, often remains vague and open, and feels insufficient. Like tug-of-war, with a network of ropes and many teams pulling, but none of them winning (why is this game connected to war in English? In German it is called “pulling ropes”/ Tauziehen).

The last weeks have hit us all with the Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s response to that. It feels wrong to describe this tragedy in one sentence without any qualifiers of destruction. I think and read about the situation constantly, and as described above, feel pulled in so many different directions that it is hard to know what to think, say, and do. I am also anticipating with fear that any statement might provoke the ire of someone, which makes speaking up uncomfortable, but that is perhaps a price that needs to be paid. I admire people who do know what to say and do, I am sure it comes at an emotional cost. And I am aware that me just being numb is an incredible privilege, as I do not have to mourn loved ones or be afraid they might be killed soon, and can pretty much continue living my life.

Much of all this time, I have tried to listen to voices of people who are directly affected and/or have pertinent knowledge to share. Then there are other voices that are more removed and rather focus on influencing public discourses and policies here in the United States or Germany or elsewhere. These voices are very important, and to create a broad followership they create simple and broad messages. With some of these messages I identify easily: Free the hostages. Ceasefire. Of course, the disagreement already starts here, as some would deem these two messages incompatible. And then, everything tumbles down … pro-Palestinian demonstrations/statements are framed as anti-Israel, even antisemitic. Some statements made may fit that description, in an unacceptable and shocking way for me, but others do not; they rather address the plight of living under occupation. On the other side, the position to stand with Israel, which feels right after an assault like this, often goes beyond retaliating against Hamas as a threat to the existence of the state. Depending on the speaker, it accepts the slaughter of so many Palestinian lives. We are back into the us vs. them narrative. Can one only be either pro-Israel or pro-Palestine? Is it not possible to be for both, for human life?     

Every human is a new beginning. As one of few philosophers, Hannah Arendt thought a lot about natality. For her, every newborn is a unique, unpredictable member of society, and collectively, this unpredictability of each of us means freedom. Arendt was one of my early inspirations, and I always found this notion to be a convincing appreciation of each single human life. Words fail when so many unique lives are erased.  

In the first days after October 7, I often heard from Israeli and Jewish voices elsewhere that they had not heard sufficient condemnation of the Hamas attacks. This accusation was directed against many different actors, including governments, social movements, academia. Two thoughts on this: first, I think there was a kind of speechlessness because of the scope of these attacks. To me at least, these deeds have severed Hamas’ ties to humanity, while the humanity of those killed is present and strong. Second, many statements that I heard condemned Hamas but also took note of decades of oppressive Israeli policies toward Palestinians. Can this fact be disputed? Perhaps one might deem it insensitive to be brought up directly after Hamas’ mass killings and hostage taking, but it is not a sign of support for Hamas. Contextualizing the situation became an antisemitic deed. Israeli peace activists, many of whom have dedicated their lives to creating a shared homeland with Palestinians, would disagree with this accusation. Some of them, like Vivian Silver, were killed by Hamas. 

I feared the retaliation of Israel. The strategy to eliminate Hamas by all means necessary has two problems, in my non-military and far-removed view (I might be wrong here and hope not to offend anyone more directly involved; would love to continue learning from you): First, Hamas can probably not be eliminated, but the attempt to make them as non-threatening as possible to the state of Israel is in order. Second, to use all means necessary means massive loss of Palestinian lives (and an increase in Hamas followers). At this point, the body count in Gaza is over 11,000 – old people, middle-aged, adolescents, children, babies; women, men, and other genders. All of them unique human beings that cannot anymore live their dreams and surprise the world.

From the Palestinian perspective, we often hear that what is happening in Gaza right now is a genocide. This term enrages the Israeli side, as they think of the state as a bulwark against genocide, which the Hamas attack has just shown to remain utterly necessary. As a colleague of mine said, that is the difference in perspective: one side sees this as connected to world war II and the Holocaust, the other sees colonialism and apartheid and with that, the systematic devaluation of Palestinian lives. Again, can both perspectives converge? Don’t they already, when Jewish peace activists refuse to have a genocide happen in their names?

I think there is no question that Palestinian lives are systematically devalued. By the government and defense forces of Israel, when they bomb indiscriminately and let people perish of hunger, thirst, and lack of medical care. But also by Hamas, as they must have known what the answer to their attack would look like. They also think these lives are expendable. Considering all of this, it seems a futile academic exercise to ponder if or not this is a genocide. Nonetheless, from far away and only based on information emanating from media reports, I would not call what is happening in Gaza is a genocide, even if the language used by the Israeli defense minister was out of the playbook of genocidal dehumanization: “We are fighting human animals”. For a genocide, there would have to be the intent to destroy the Palestinian people. As critical as one may be of the Israeli leadership – this is an act of retaliation. As far as I can tell, war crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed, because of the utter disregard of civilian lives. To me, this is not less disturbing. Both genocide and crimes against humanity are on the highest level of international crimes.        

And is the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” meant to deny the state of Israel the right to exist? I assume there are people using it this way. But others think differently. They want freedom for all in the territory of Palestine and they would also say that de facto, it is the state of Israel that denies Palestinians their state, with or without a slogan.

So again: is it possible to find a space “in the middle” that can lead to Israeli-Palestinian coexistence? An almost ludicrous question to ask right now, but it must be possible to at least think in that direction. In my view, the most important move is to support the democratic forces in Israel as much as possible. The peace movements, the women’s movements, and human rights organizations – they already have, in massive, months-long protests, tirelessly worked against the government’s dramatic de-democratization efforts. These civil society actors are heroes, but they feel disconnected from and even abandoned by Western progressive movements. It is harder to build civil society structures and organizations in the West Bank or Gaza but they have an equally important role to play. In the long run, I wish for a thriving, democratic state of Israel, and a thriving, democratic state of Palestine. In the short run, free the hostages and call a ceasefire.

It would be great to have broader, better ideas of what needs to happen, where the international community and where influential states should stand. I don’t have this right now, but if you are interested in supporting grassroots organizations that work for equality, democracy and justice in Israel and the Occupied Territories, often in mixed teams of Palestinians and Israelis, here are a few good ones: The New Israel Fund (as the name says, an organization funding others); Zazim Community Action; B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories; Women Wage Peace; Adalah – the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel; Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC); Al-Haq.

Thanks for staying with me and my slow thinking. I hope for your comments.