This was a read and response essay I wrote last month in school:

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

The first news I can remember hearing about as a child was about suicide bombers in Israel. I remember seeing news about suicide bombers on the evening news my mother watched and on the front page of the newspaper my grandfather read. Part of the reason the news was so widely publicized in the US, I know now, has to do with how deeply implicated the US is in the history of modern Israel. Perhaps part of why the news had my attention at the time was because I grew up in Christian household. My mother sometimes told me stories from the bible before bed. My grandfather quoted the bible all the time. We always went to church. We regularly watched Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, and other such films. I understood that this place that had always been in my imagination, Jerusalem and Israel, was now a place where someone never knew, when they got on a bus, whether or not another passenger had a bomb secretly strapped to their chest. I can remember at the time not only being awestruck by that fact, but also wondering: why would anyone blow themselves up in such a way?

It was only years later, when I read the Book of Joshua, the sixth book of the old testament, that I felt I finally understood the answer to that question. I could have known about the plight of the Jewish people in Egypt, their escape from slavery, and their final entry into their promised land even if I had never been introduced to the bible. Those stories are thoroughly a part of our culture. What is not talked about is what happens after the Jews reach their promised land. Because of course this beautiful land was not waiting there empty until their arrival. There were people there already: the ancient Palestinians. The Book of Joshua describes, in terrible detail, what happens next: a brutal attempt at genocide against the Palestinians, mandated by God. Every man, woman, child, and animal of every city the Israelis encounter is killed, by the order of God, except for a single group, whom the Jews enslave. The Jews have a superweapon: they march around the cities of their enemies with the ark of the covenant, and then shout, which somehow destroys the walls of the city under siege. These scenes were vividly brought back to me while watching current footage of the Israelis bombardment of Gaza.

Though these stories are myths, they are very real to the people of Palestine today. And to the highly conservative Israeli government who have encouraged their people for generations, now, to illegally settle in Palestinian territory and forcibly displaced Palestinians. President Biden has made a strong statement of support for Israel. The current conflict is already spreading throughout the region. There are multiple extremists groups throughout the Mideast that believe the state of Israel should be eradicated. More than 1,400 Isrealis have been killed since the beginning of the current conflict, most of them in the initial surprise attack by Hamas. At least 200 more Israelis have been captured and are being held captive in Gaza. 

But the basic tenet of every international regulation regarding war and genocide is that the people of a nation should not be made to suffer for the decisions of their government. As one Palestinian commenter said in the video, “We are not trying to throw (the Israelis) into the sea, but to make sure we are not thrown into the desert.” The current Israeli government, led by Netanyahu, is as extremist as any Islamic terrorist organization. It is the Isrealis who have the far superior weaponry. It is the Isrealis who have blockaded Gaza for 16-years. This article in the Global Conflict Tracker demonstrates that Israel's incursions and attacks on Palestinian’s has been constant since the current Israeli government came into power last year. The attack by Hamas may have been a surprise. But the attack itself should not have been surprising. Now the Israeli government has warned the occupants of Gaza—over a million people—to evacuate before an imminent ground strike. Where will they go? The attack by Hamas was absolutely without justification. The Jewish people have suffered atrocity after atrocity, not only during the Holocaust, but throughout their history. But whatever atrocities they have suffered are no excuse for them to impose such terrible suffering and devastation on generations of Palestinians. 

After watching the video I watched this one, which was also on the TODAY website: https://www.today.com/video/2-mothers-share-how-they-re-protecting-their-kids-in-israel-and-gaza-196047941880. It shows two mothers, one Israeli, the other Palestinian, with their children. Both mothers and their children have nearly died in the recent attacks. Both mothers lie to their children when their children ask about the sound of bombs, one saying it's a big storm outside, the other saying it's a big car going by. The Israeli mother and her children had to hide in their safe room for over 24 hours during the recent Hamas attacks before they were rescued by Israeli troops. When they left their safe room, they found the rest of their house had been burned down around them. The stories of both mothers are absolutely devastating to listen to. But it is difficult, watching the footage of the Israeli mother, and then the footage of the Palestinian mother, to not compare the two. The Israeli mother sits at a playground on a green lawn among trees with the interviewer. The footage of the Palestinian mother comes from the mother’s phone. It shows nothing but the rubble of buildings in the background. The Israeli family survived a terrorist attack. The Palestinian family, however, did not just survive a single attack: they are struggling to survive a constant bombardment. They are under siege, and the siege is only going to get worse. At one point in the video the Palestinian mother is weeping as she explains there is no electricity, no food, no water, and no medicine. Israel controls all of Gaza’s access to these needs, and is currently allowing none of them into Gaza. The Israeli defense minister recently said "The third phase (of the offensive in Gaza) will require the removal of Israel’s responsibility for life in the Gaza strip.”

I know a number of Jewish people that are my age and younger who support the people of Palestine in this conflict. There are pro-Palestinian protests being held throughout the world, even if they are being forcibly broken up by the police in places such as France and Germany. There have been calls in Israel for the removal of Netanyahu. My hope is that the ultra-conservative government of Israel will be ousted, and a two-state solution finally and officially enacted. Just as the Holocaust led to the formation of the state of Israel, perhaps the Israelis government's actions will lead to the acceptance by the people of Israel of an official state of Palestine. But given the history of the Isrealis-Palestinian conflict, I do not have much hope that such a solution will happen.