A Terrible Anniversary

It’s a horrible anniversary today, October 7^th.  A year ago, Israel suffered a horrific massacre, and over this past year, responded with a campaign of revenge inflicted on the people of Gaza, the West Bank, and now extending to Lebanon, that has destroyed Gaza’s infrastructure and taken the lives of over 40,000 people, more than half of them women and children.

We can hold pain for both sides—but that should not excuse us from looking for the root causes of the conflict.

October 7th did not come out of the blue period it did not drop out of a coconut tree with no context. I was in Gaza more than twenty years ago, with a team from the International Solidarity Movement that supports nonviolent resistance against the Occupation.  I was there to support the group of activists who were with Rachel Corey, when a bulldozer ran her down as she was attempting to stop a home demolition. At that time, Israeli snipers were regularly firing at groups of children who were playing in the rubble which even then filled the streets of Gaza. Mostly, they were firing above the children's heads, but nonetheless the kids were terrified. When Tom Hurndall, one of our volunteers, attempted to rescue a group of kids under fire, a sniper targeted him and shot him in the head. He was in a coma for nearly a year and then finally died.

I sat with a family on the border who proudly served me eggs from their chickens and oranges from their trees.  The kids were doing their homework inside the house, while outside tanks fired bullets at the walls and occasional shells.

Why would we be surprised that some of these children might grow up to be Hamas fighters Why would we think that more death, more killing, more harm and destruction, and a concerted attempt to empty the Gaza Strip of its inhabitants would create peace for Israel or anyone else? A year of the barrage in Gaza has not brought the hostages home, nor has it truly made Israel more secure,  Instead, it has fostered a whole new traumatized generation with nothing more to lose and no reason to trust Israelis.  It has made Israel an international pariah and alienated vast swathes of the global Jewish community.

Now Israel has expanded the war to Lebanon and potentially to Iran as well. But the more people Israel bombs and kills, the more resentment it ignites and the stronger the resistance it will generate.  This is not a situation that can be resolved by more death and more killing. To create peace, to give Israel the security it desires and the Palestinians the self determination that they deserve we need to address the root cause of this struggle, and that is the ongoing injustice of the Occupation.  Security for Israel can only come through justice for Palestine.  Then, someday, maybe both peoples can learn to live together and share the land in peace.