Babies are freezing to death in Gaza. That sentence sounds like the most grotesque hyperbole, but it is a plain statement of fact. How many? Different sources give different numbers, with a tendency upwards in more recent reports indicating a rapidly evolving situation. Yesterday, the Irish Independent said seven and the New York Times said five; two days ago, PBS said four; three days ago, Al Jazeera said six; five days ago, CNN said four.
Under international law, Israel is obligated to protect civilian populations from such things in territories under its military occupation. But this is occurring under circumstances that Israel has created: hundreds of thousands of people inhabiting tents, jammed together in makeshift camps, chronically malnourished or even starving, without heat or reliable water or proper sanitation, in the middle of winter, under constant threat, past destroyed and future uncertain. The passive voice of that sentence "babies are freezing to death in Gaza" may be misleading. These conditions continue to exist because of decisions made by Israeli officials, carried out and enforced by Israeli armed agents. "Israel allows babies to freeze to death in Gaza" would be equally accurate both morally and factually.
Typically, Israel blames atrocities on Hamas, saying in effect "they started it" or "they're using civilians as human shields" or "self defense! October 7!" But these deaths are not the result of a combat situation. Nobody was shooting around these children, their families, and the tarps and tents under which they huddled from the cold and rain. Yoav Gallant, Israel's former defense minister, ousted by Netanyahu in November due to "policy differences", publicly stated in his last days in office that Israel's military objectives all had been met even then. Two months before the babies began dying, there no longer remained any valid or achievable goals that might be accomplished by military means. Arguably, then, even to the extremely limited extent that the standard Israeli justifications for its conduct of the war formerly might have possessed any persuasive power, that weight is gone now. Indisputably, none of those rationales applies to the present situation. Israel created the deadly conditions in which Palestinians struggle to raise their babies, and allowed these conditions to continue despite Israel's moral and legal obligations to protect civilians in its custody from such harms.
Israel has turned Gaza into a death camp. Philosophers may quibble over whether Netanyahu's war against the Palestinians is morally equivalent to Hitler's war against the Jews, or perhaps a notch lower on the scale of monstrosity. I can think of about half a dozen worlds, at least, in which such questions no longer matter.
One of these children might have grown up to lead their people to peace and prosperity. All of them might have led full, peaceful, loving, productive lives. By creating the conditions which endangered them and then by allowing them to die, Israel has made it much more likely that someone related to one of the children, or someone acquainted with their family, will kill an Israeli; and Israel has made it almost certain that such a relative or acquaintance will want to do so. I know the murderous rage that would awaken in me, in those circumstances.
As David Shulman wrote in the most recent New York Review of Books, "For this we created a Jewish state?"
Tonight, the last night of Chanukah, I contemplate lighting the eighth candle on my menorah. I have been asking myself, why am I doing this? What am I commemorating, declaring allegiance to? Should I be doing this at all? Has Israel not brought such shame upon what it means to be Jewish, that for now at least a declaration of pride is wrong, perhaps even obscene?
The holiday recalls an episode from over two thousand years ago, when Jews, prompted to murderous rage by the Romans' disregard for their holy places and religion, rebelled against the Empire, chased the Romans out (temporarily), and rededicated the Temple in Jerusalem to traditional practices, including the perpetual flame of a sacred oil lamp. According to the legend, although there was only enough oil for one day, the lamp burnt for eight days, until more oil could be obtained.
Over the twenty-two or so centuries since then, as an act of survival through almost constant hostility and frequently murderous disapproval from the dominant societies in which Jews have found ourselves, the recalling of this miracle has been cast as a more or less defiant celebration of Jewish identity. "They tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat," as someone has characterized this and other Jewish holidays. Now Israel exercises murderous rage upon the Palestinians. If anybody should understand both murderous rage and resilience in the face of it, it should be the Jewish people. Is that theJewish identity I wish to declare to the world, placing my menorah in my kitchen window?
A song comes to mind. "This little light of mine" was written in the 1920s and adopted by the Civil Rights movement that so profoundly informed my youth, in which Jews and Blacks joined on behalf of racial and social justice, freedom from oppression, and nonviolence. Yes! The Judaism I learned from my thoroughly atheistic and profoundly Jewish parents was centered upon these values. It harkens back to the days long before the founding of Israel, when to be a Jew was to be a pacifist. Although that was a matter of necessity, since way back then the goys (pejoratively so called) had all the guns, now it can be a matter of choice.
A "Jewish State" was not central to theJudaism I was raised in, nor was G-d. Nor was Zionism central. The latter was a self-protective response to awful circumstances. Now the"Jewish State" has revealed itself to be just like all other States: violent, stupid, lying, oppressive. I eschew it. I owe it nothing. I shake myself free of its murderousness. The Jewish identity I proclaim dispenses with and extends beyond such vestigial, atavistic attachments. My Judaism, and that of my fathers and mothers, values human connection, caring for others, truthfulness to power, opposition to injustice, and love for our home planet. I'm going to let it shine.
