Marty Levine
October 15, 2024
“Security” and “self-defense” are not magic; they are not get-out-of-jail-free cards. And they do not excuse what is happening day after day in Gaza.
My weekend observing Yom Kippur (The Jewish Day of Atonement) left me wondering how so many of those sitting with me, people I care for, have allowed these excuses to blind them and allow them to turn off their humanity.
They see what occurred on October 7th as an abomination. But they see it as a unique event ripped out of any context. It has no “before.” They feel the pain of the remaining hostages as their pain and separate it from the pain of others because that pain is the result of Israel just defending itself and ensuring its people are secure in their homes.
Consider what can hide behind the veil of security and self-defense.
This map illustrates how a simple act like getting from one place to another can be so different for two peoples, neighbors, under the conditions that Israel has decided are necessary because of “security” considerations. An article that the New York Times published on Sunday, chronicles how different it is to travel as an Israeli citizen from taking the same trip if you are Palestinian. The yellow line traces the path taken by that Israeli traveler. The green line that which must be taken if you are Palestinian.
Security is the excuse to establish what might be viewed as another failed attempt to make “separate but equal” more than a sham. Security justifies building a separate road system for those with Israeli citizenship, one that can be used only by the 600,000 Jewish residents of settlements up down the land that was to be the Palestinian state (the “West Bank”). For them, a 25-mile trip between the Ramallah/Beit El neighborhood and the Hebron neighborhood is fast and comfortable. If you are Palestinian the trip becomes longer, it becomes almost 50 miles. The Israeli commuter travels on modern freeways while the Palestinian goes over roads that weave through crowded towns and up and down steep and treacherous hills.
Israel, the controlling power, decided that it is not safe to have everyone share the same roads and use the same road and transit system. It does not fit into their definition of security. Nor are they willing to pay the price for maintaining two separate but truly equal systems. While this would be a solution that I might still condemn. it would at least say something about the reality of Israel’s commitment to true equality. Here’s how the NY Times captured this reality:
Israel says it manages the roads to reduce friction and prevent militant attacks on Israelis. Rights groups say the movement restrictions on Palestinians create deep inequality.
“Palestinian free movement on main roads in the West Bank is viewed as something that Israel can give and take as it wishes based on its own interests,” said Sarit Michaeli, of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. “It is providing a swift and fast system of transport for Israeli settlers into Israel and between settlements. This has always been the guiding principle.”
Does the defense of “security considerations” really make this okay? Does this reality protect Israel from the next October 7th?
This story about a bus trip is just one of many over the decades-long reality of Palestinian life that Israeli and international human rights organizations have said meet the definition of apartheid. These are the conditions that October 7th cannot be disconnected from and yet for so many who have accepted Israel’s blanket statement that they must do this because of security considerations, this makes it possible to take a deep breath and move on.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov, Carmel Gat, Almog Sarusi are the six Israeli hostages who were murdered at the end of August. Their names are important to remember; their lives matter. As does the story of their death.
Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the six were “brutally murdered” by Hamas shortly before troops arrived — possibly only a day or two before they were found.
“According to an initial assessment… they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists a short while before we reached them. They were abducted alive on the morning of October 7 by the Hamas terror group,” Hagari said in a press conference.
This tragedy must be seen as it is in all of its horror.
But so must all of the men, women, and children who have died since then in the name of security and self-defense.
Daily I read of tragedies as the year-long relentless assault on Gaza continues. Food has not reached those living in the northern part of the strip for weeks. Israel explains this blockade to the world as necessary to protect their troops from Hamas while many Israeli leaders quietly talk about clearing the land and resettling it with Jewish residents.
Day after day we have heard stories of atrocities in Gaza; people being displaced, people being killed without any end in sight. All in the name of Israel’s security. Here’s how they reported what occurred just hours ago:
An Israeli airstrike on a hospital compound in central Gaza early Monday sent flames ripping through tents housing displaced people, killing at least four and injuring dozens. Videos from the scene appeared to show one man being burned alive as bystanders could do little but watch.
The Israeli military said the target of the strike was a Hamas command center on the premises of al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, in the Deir al-Balah area. The site was filled with tents erected by families who had fled fighting elsewhere in the enclave. The majority of those injured from the overnight strike and ensuing fire — many seriously — were women and children, according to Gaza health officials.
The health ministry said four people were killed, but Fahd Haddad, the head of al-Aqsa hospital’s emergency department, put the death toll at five.
By midday Monday, the tally of the injured had risen to 70, according to Ahmed Salman, director of the civil defense in Deir al-Balah.
The strike was yet another instance of Gaza’s hospitals, which are supposed to be afforded extra protection under international law, coming under Israeli attack. And for the displaced civilians, it underscored once again that no place in the Strip is safe.
If that picture is not clear what this act of “self-defense” means take a look at this picture from that refugee camp:
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It was posted by Saleh al-Jafarawi, a Gazan who has been regularly posting as these months have gone on.
Haaretz reported that:“
The clip he posted shows people being burned alive due to the bombing of an encampment for displaced people. The tents were set up in the courtyard of the Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah. “People are burning here, and there’s no water, no firefighting service, nothing,” he screamed at the camera.
According to reports from Gaza, dozens were wounded in these strikes, and residents weren’t able to extract them from the rubble. But even if they could be pulled out alive, they likely couldn’t have gotten essential medical care.
But for Israel, this seems to be just another act of self-defense, the rationale that has been put forward for every act that has resulted in over 40, 000 deaths, many of women and young children, and 100,000 others injured. As the Times of Israel reported
The IDF said that it struck terrorists operating from a command center inside the medical center’s compound and accused Hamas of hiding among civilians and using facilities such as hospitals for terror operations.
Where are the limits of what can be done in the name of security and self-defense? International Law seems to say there are limits. But Israel has wiped away these concerns with it’s constant claims that what it does, whatever it does in an act of self-defense is necessary for its security.
But Israel and its supporters seem to believe that anything done in the name of self-defense is okay. And it is a price its victims must pay.
By doing this we can ignore the reality of a decades-long occupation. We can accept that while that Palestinian traveler may be inconvenienced. It is a price that must be paid to protect the security for Israelis, even when they are living on land that is not theirs.
By doing this we were able to ignore the reality of Gaza before October 7th. We can see no problem in 2 million people living in a ghetto because security demanded we keep them behind walls and control their movements, their supplies and their lives.
By accepting these rationales, we can ignore the inhumanity of it all. We can see October 7th with horror and surprise.
I try to understand the power of words that Israel has used for decades to explain why they do the brutal things they do. As long as these words can be used to mask the truth on the ground, I will be sitting wondering about those I pray alongside and so many others in the American Jewish Community.
