As I exchange thoughts and feelings with friends and family about current events in the Middle-East, lately I end up posing one question to my interlocutor: If I gave you a button that would make the Palestinians disappear tomorrow would you press it. They don't all have to die, I say, which is obviously mass-murder, but they would be instantly transported to somewhere else, far far away from Israel. I arrived at this question because I think it's a moral litmus test. And the proof is that most of the people I ask, who staunchly support Israel as I do, avoid answering. They tell me that it's a ridiculous hypothetical. They answer that it could never happen (except in trump's warped mind perhaps).
The answer is easy: No, I wouldn't press the button.
It's true that it's a ridiculous hypothetical. In my mind that should make it easier to answer, not harder. And the reason it's hard to answer for some is because, in spite of saying that it's a ridiculous hypothetical, they actually don't think it's a ridiculous hypothetical. They think 'disappearing' the Palestinians - the way the Latin American dictators in Argentina and Chile 'disappeared' their opposition in the 1970s - is in the realm of possibility. The difference here, of course, is that we are not talking about dissidents of a country and the military juntas they oppose. We are talking about one country and another large group of people both making ancestral and historical claims to a certain territory.
So Dan Senor's most recent podcast - which of late has become a kind of voice for euphoric delusion since trump's ascension to the throne - is now making a case for the 'historic precedent' for trump's obscene non-plan in an interview with British author and historian Andrew Roberts. Roberts' argument (apparently made in writing in the pro-trump Republican rag Washington Free Beacon) is essentially that the ethnic cleansing of Gaza should be the spoil of war. Put simply, they attacked us, they lost the war, and that gives us the right to expel them. Yes, he is literally arguing for conquest and expulsion. Roberts is right that for most of human history that's the way it has been done. You can cite hundreds of examples. Does that make it right? I thought we had learned something from history. Apparently not. At least not in Roberts' mind. It was one of the most intellectually dishonest conversations I have heard in a while. Near the end, Roberts says something like (I paraphrase) the international community has been screaming for years that Gaza is an 'open-air prison' and 'concentration camp', and now that there is a 'proposal' to move them out, suddenly Gaza is their beloved homeland. Well, when the actual concentration camps were liberated nobody said they wanted to stay there. I honestly couldn't believe what I was hearing. He says, 'either Gaza is one thing or the other, but it can't be both'. I don't think I've actually ever heard Gaza described as a 'concentration camp' but yes the open-air prison analogy has been used frequently. Actually Gaza CAN be both a beloved homeland and a place that is, for all intents and purposes, been made unlivable. I'd argue that it's Hamas that has made it unlivable, and prison-like, and the UN has enabled that situation.
The problem is that a simple 'no' to my hypothetical means you have to entertain the notion that the Palestinians may have a legitimate claim to live in that part of the world, and that is increasingly difficult for a lot of people to do. Israelis are understandably worried. They can no longer accept Hamas living on their border, notwithstanding the fact that they accepted it for almost two decades, with regular periodic rocket attacks coming from Gaza into Israel. But October 7th changed that.
My argument is that wishful thinking is not the answer, and is symptomatic of a kind of moral rot that is setting in, one that leads to unconscionable positions like the one expressed by Roberts. The only way to combat the rot spreading deeper, is to start facing reality and taking responsibility. Of course Israel can in no way be said to be responsible for the October 7th attack. But Israelis should take some responsibility for their years of negligence, for complacency and losing their deterrence, for pursuing a misguided policy of promoting Hamas as a counter balance to the PA, and for the inadequacy of their security and their tragically failed response on the day of the attack. When you live in a sketchy neighbourhood known for home break-ins and robberies, you don't live with your doors unlocked. And you certainly don't put a sign on the door inviting thieves. That's a negligence borne of simply not facing reality. Another fantasy, stoked by Netanyahu since the beginning of the war, is that Hamas can be militarily defeated. If anything has been learned after more than a year of brutal fighting, mass destruction and heartbreak, it's that that's unlikely if not impossible. The Palestinians have been fantasizing for decades that Israel would disappear. Now many Israelis are fantasizing that the Palestinians will disappear. That's how far we are from reality.
Not facing reality, inevitably leads to (greater) tragedy. I'm not blaming Israelis for their fear and frustration. But at some point there also has to be acknowledgment that fear and frustration takes people to morally questionable places. It's not easy, by any stretch, to stay focused on what matters most. But we must summon all our courage to avoid sacrificing our morals on the altar of despondency and wishful thinking, because that would be the greatest sign that our enemies have won.
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