OPINION | POLITICS | HUMAN RIGHTS

Bombs Don’t Destroy Terrorism. They Create It.

Empathy, Love, and Justice Are the Cures

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I want to extend special thanks to several editors at Illumination. The thoughtful input they shared helped me to organize and refine this story. Their knowledge of the region and history was reassuring since I am a newcomer to this dialogue. I write as a mother hoping to raise conscientious children in a society whose leaders have lost their sense of right and wrong. My commentary and the linked sources include language, descriptions, and images that may be triggering to some readers.

Having brought three children into this world, I’m driven to do all I can to help protect their future. My work in the climate realm has helped me develop a sense of interconnectedness with all people and living beings. I know my children’s welfare is inherently connected to the fragile well-being of every child in Gaza.

This is an ‘all hands on deck’ moment for everyone concerned about our children’s shared future.

Building Bridges and Raising Awareness While Giving Thanks

If you live in the U.S. and will be celebrating Thanksgiving with family or friends this week, don’t be afraid to bring up what’s happening in Israel and Palestine. Many of us were taught that it’s impolite to discuss religion and politics. We must find the courage to overcome that misguided advice so that we can protect democracy and human rights in what may be increasingly dangerous days.

We all have roles to play at this pivotal juncture for humanity. Engaging in courageous conversations aimed at creating a healthier, safer world is a good place to start.

These times feel eerily similar to those that preceded Hitler’s rise to power. Fascism has been on the rise throughout the U.S. and the world. A flood of disinformation, much of it coming directly from the Israeli Government, is driving the conversation and further inflaming our already polarized world. Freedom of speech is under attack as governments block pro-Palestinian protests and assault protesters.

The story of what’s happening in Gaza is a thousand times more complex than simply standing with Israel or Palestine and — at the same time — as simple as believing we are all human.

Learn More and Collect Your Thoughts Before Thanksgiving Dinner

Here are some helpful resources:

• What’s the Israel-Palestine conflict about? A simple guide: “It’s killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions. And its future lies in its past. We break it down.” (Al Jazeera, October 9, 2023)
• This 35-minute YouTube live video by Daniel Maté is the most reasoned and compassionate personal analysis I’ve heard about the October 7th attacks and their aftermath. Daniel speaks as the son of a Holocaust survivor (Gabor Maté). His great-grandparents died at Auschwitz. Having spent time in Israel and Palestine, he expresses empathy with both Israelis and Palestinians. By describing why some on each side think the way they do, he gets to the heart of this complex story.
• Gaza Fights for Freedom (free on YouTube) documents the nonviolent Great March of Return. Every Friday from March 2018 until December 2019, unarmed protestors gathered at Gaza’s militarized border to draw attention to Israel’s unjust occupation. Israel Military responded by intentionally killing and maiming medics, journalists, children, and others. Nonviolent action is only effective if people see it and call for justice. Instead of calling for justice, the world ignored Gaza’s pain.
• Abby Martin, the independent journalist who directed Gaza Fights for Freedom, has many relevant videos on her YouTube channel, Empire Files. These 2017 interviews of passersby in “Tolerance Square” reveal the racist ideology many Israelis have been raised to believe. This 2017 interview with former Israeli Army combat soldier Eran Efrati explores why he became an outspoken critic of the occupation of Palestine and Israeli apartheid. Abby has also posted several recent interviews addressing the October 7 attacks and their aftermath.
• Amnesty International offers a FREE 90-minute course, “Deconstructing Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians.”

Do you know additional resources that might be helpful for those hoping to form a balanced understanding of the Israel/Palestine story? If so, please share them in the comments.

Silence is Violence. We Must All Speak Up to Protect Humanity.

I can’t fathom the fear and despair mothers in Israel, the West Bank, and especially Gaza are feeling. The October 7 attacks in Israel, which killed about 1,200 people, around 70 percent of them civilians, were horrific. The growing evidence that some of these people may have been killed by the Israeli Military does not lessen this pain.

As of November 21, Israeli troops have killed more than 14,000 people in the ongoing retaliatory attacks on Gaza. Two-thirds of the dead are women and children. Throughout the 46-day attack, one Palestinian child was killed every 10 minutes. That’s about one out of every 200 children in the Gaza Strip. Some 2,700 people have been reported missing. At least 53 journalists and media workers and more than 100 United Nations employees are among the dead.

Israeli Air Strikes have wounded more than 30,000 people since October 7. At least 9,000 of the wounded are children, many of whom have life-changing injuries.

Even before October 7th, most of Gaza’s children experienced some level of trauma. They’ve lived under the constant threat of violence throughout their lives. A November 10 NPR segment explored “How a history of trauma is affecting the children of Gaza”:

In a study in 2022, the nonprofit Save the Children interviewed nearly 500 children and 160 parents in Gaza. It found that 80% of children in the study showed symptoms of emotional distress. About half of them reported having contemplated suicide, and three out of five kids were self-harming. Four in five children reported they were living with depression, grief and fear.

Those children who manage to survive ongoing air strikes and infectious disease outbreaks, along with food and water shortages, will most likely suffer lifelong mental health problems.

Researchers say the cumulative trauma of chronic ethnic-political violence has a profound and lasting impact on children’s mental health and development, affecting their functioning and outlook on the world as young adults. Studies show that even youth who seem to become desensitized to the violence around them remain deeply scarred — unless, that is, they are given a chance to recover.

Children in Israel are also feeling unsafe and afraid. This November 17 ABC News video offers a glimpse of the “living nightmare” children in Israel and Gaza are experiencing.

Biased Media Coverage is Obscuring War Crimes

To help these children, we must seek understanding and empathy beyond what we find on news feeds and the nightly news.

Last night, the Associated Press reported that Israeli troops attacked yet another hospital. A medical worker inside the Indonesian Hospital said a shell struck the second floor, killing 12 people. Like most mainstream media stories, this piece is filled with unverified Israeli Military allegations intended to obscure the fact that attacking a hospital is always a war crime.

Yesterday, Democracy Now reported that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spent days searching Al-Shifa Hospital and Rantisi Hospital. They found no evidence of Hamas having used these spaces for cover.

The Associated Press story also repeats the Israel Military’s racist narrative that Hamas hides behind “human shields.” Na’amod (a movement of British Jews seeking to end their community’s support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine) includes the ‘human shield myth’ in their list of Anti-Palestinian Racism: Tropes and Mistruths.

A parent’s love for a child is universal. Until the occupation is over and a political solution is reached, families across Israel-Palestine will live in fear. — Na’amod

U.S. and Israeli officials seem unphased by countless accounts of children and families suffering in Northern and Southern Gaza.

I’m sickened that Biden and most Congress members see Gaza’s injured children and send more weapons rather than calling for a ceasefire.

Do they fail to see that the catastrophe they’re funding is Israeli-led terrorism? Or do they simply value the vast reservoirs of oil and natural gas beneath Gaza more than Gazans’ lives? Most U.S. officials and reporters fail to see the hypocrisy of siding with the oppressed people of Ukraine and against the oppressed people of Gaza.

I've known many journalists, having worked for the political cartoonist at The Washington Post, married a New York Times graphics editor, and participated as a spouse in Stanford’s Knight Journalism Fellowship program. All of them are kind-hearted, passionate people who strive to report unbiased truth. I’m sure that the racist coverage coming out of most mainstream media outlets is unintentional. It stems from unconscious bias and an overreliance on Israeli disinformation.

Regardless of intent, slanted coverage that justifies or whitewashes Israel’s targeting of homes, hospitals, schools, places of worship, and even refugee camps is far from harmless. Few outlets are shedding light on the reality that more than 1.7 million Palestinians (nearly 80% of Gaza’s residents) have been displaced.

This October 29 Al Jazeera report, “Western coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza — bias or unprofessionalism?” explains ways some media outlets are ‘legitimizing Israeli war crimes’ in Gaza, including:

• Bias and Unprofessionalism—Publishing unsubstantiated claims, telling one-sided stories, and portraying Palestinians as mere objects in Hamas’ hands
• Ignoring Historical and Recent Context—Little attention has been paid to the trauma Palestinians have faced over the past 75 years or recent atrocities such as the May 11, 2022 murder of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh or the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in early October.
• Coverage Imbalance—Compared to the mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza, few Israelis have been killed or injured since the October 7th attacks. The number of people killed in Gaza is already over ten times the number of people killed in Israel. Still, many media outlets focus more attention on the grief of Israeli families. International journalists are free to conduct interviews in Israel and have little access to Gaza. This means many stories offer only Israeli perspectives. Humanizing Israelis by cultivating empathy through stories while dehumanizing Palestinians into incomprehensible numbers is allowing many to be comfortable with genocide.
• Failing to Highlight Violations of International Law—Many outlets are failing to spotlight the fact that Israel’s actions, including blockades and military attacks, may constitute war crimes.
• Double Standards—Palestinian voices in Western media are often expected to condemn Hamas as a prerequisite to dialogue. Israeli guests are seldom asked to condemn illegal settlements, an unjust occupation, or the apartheid conditions their government imposes.

Most media outlets are also failing to highlight the imbalance of power between Israel and Palestine.

Israel has one of the world’s most modernized armies equipped with a nuclear arsenal. On the other hand, Palestinians, having no real state and regular army, don’t have much to defend themselves.—TRT World

Unlike Gaza, Israel is protected by an Iron Dome missile defense system. This multibillion-dollar system is “just one layer of Israel’s missile defense network, as it also has systems for low to mid-range, upper-atmospheric and exo-atmospheric projectiles.”

The U.S. has given Israel $158 billion (not adjusted for inflation) in bilateral assistance and missile defense funding since 1948.

Israel has complete control over what international journalists cover in Gaza. In the last few days, Israel Defense Forces brought BBC and CNN journalists to Al-Shifa Hospital to show them a hole they claimed was a Hamas tunnel. These reporters had to agree not to speak to Palestinians or report anything beyond what the Israel Defense Forces showed them.

Western Media’s biased coverage is blurring our collective sense of right and wrong. It’s also deepening polarization, fueling genocide, and downplaying what may be the start of World War III.

Yesterday, CBS News reported that “escalating violence in Gaza” has “increased threats of a possible terror attack in New York City.”

The terror the U.S. is funding today could haunt us tomorrow.

Finding New Ways, New Hope, and New Reasons to Give Thanks

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world are joining Palestinian rights marches. Progressive Jewish groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now are leading many of these protests. The call for justice and peace in Gaza is not antisemitic. It’s the only compassionate and conscientious way forward.

I hope this article has helped connect the dots about what’s happening in Israel and Palestine, why it feels confusing, and why it matters to all of us.

Unless they find safety and hope, Gaza’s terrorized children who manage to grow up will fear and hate the U.S. and Israel. A 2015 study found childhood trauma to be a precursor for violent extremism.

Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza are terrorism that will lead to more terrorism in the future. Violence is never a cure for violence. Revenge has never healed a heart. Empathy, love, and justice are the only remedies for our broken world.

The conversations we start around our dinner tables can help reset our collective moral compass.

To Offer All Palestinian and Israeli Children a Chance to Begin Healing, We Must:

1. Demand a ceasefire now.
2. Call for the release of all hostages on both sides. This must include the many Palestinians detained without charge before and since October 7
3. Advocate for a truth and reconciliation process modeled after the one Desmond Tutu led in South Africa.

No child should live in fear or suffer the consequences of violence. Let’s dream beyond the rage, fear, and sadness of this moment to imagine a better world centered on universal love.

Together we can transform tomorrow and create a just and joyful future for all.

Ways you can help

• Start and join courageous, thoughtful conversations
• Join a march to call for an immediate ceasefire and justice for Palestine
• If there’s no rally currently scheduled in your area, help plan one
• Contact Congressional Representatives and find other ways to help here

Learn more

I’m compiling a list of stories that illustrate what’s happening in Gaza and why we all need to care.

Thank you for reading my thoughts

You may connect with me on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Together, we can cultivate and grow a community of people pondering how our everyday experiences can help us envision and create a just and joyful future for all.

Do you write about similar topics? Please let me know. I’d love to read and share your work.