In Search of Understanding
I am writing in response to a letter at the Independent by Rand Clark on behalf of what I regard as a fringe organization, Jewish Voice for Peace-Santa Barbara. The letter uses my recent Voices piece (“Difficult Truths About the Israel-Hamas War”) as pretext for advancing a series of offensive half-truths and innuendos that demonize Israel and perpetuate anti-Semitic tropes, like the notion that “gatekeepers of the Jewish community” operate behind the scenes to mold the values and beliefs of all Jews. I really didn’t want to respond at all. But with anti-Semitism scarily on the rise in America — including here in Santa Barbara — the letter’s assertions are too dangerous to ignore.
There are no “gatekeepers” here. Most every Jewish person I know struggles in their own way to make sense of the events unfolding in Israel and Gaza. In my article, I identified myself as pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian and pro-peace. I wrote about the sufferings of both civilian populations in the wake of Hamas’s horrifying October 7th terrorist attack, and I was highly critical of the Israeli government. That’s difficult for Mr. Clark, whose own rhetoric leaves little room for nuanced distinctions. He defends Hamas, summing up the entire history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a few sentences that frame Israel as solely to blame for October 7th. In his view, it seems, none of the 1,250 people massacred by Hamas, or the 250 taken hostage, are victims. They are … Israelis.
In no way does Jewish Voice for Peace speak for the Santa Barbara Jewish community. It presents the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as unambiguous, and claims the solutions are equally clearcut. The opposite is in fact true. A stable peace will come only when the players involved (that’s all of us, in a way) are willing to make the monumental effort to understand the narratives of both peoples.