More History. More Ideas.
A bunch more resources about the war in Israel and Palestine
Dear ones,
It’s been twelve days since I sent my last round-up of materials about the disaster going on in Israel and Palestine. Looking now at what I wrote then, it seems insufficient. Although, to be honest, everything feels insufficient these days. All the words in the world can’t really explain the inexplicable. All the images in the world can’t really capture the wide-eyed horror at what is unfolding, the feeling of helplessness in the face of ruination.
Did I send that newsletter an eternity ago? So much has happened since then. The situation was already so bad as to be incomprehensible. From where I’m sitting now, things feel even worse.
To be fair, where I’m sitting now is at the foot of my child’s bed, where he’s sleeping off a fever. He murmurs gibberish in his sleep. Baby is coughing in her bedroom. We all have a preschool head-cold.
This room in suburban New Jersey feels about a million miles away from my family and friends, in Jerusalem, in Haifa, in the Jordan River valley. Somehow, though, I also feel pressed up against my homeland, so close to all the tiny details of its existence that I can hardly breathe.
Part of what I’m grappling with these days is the elasticity of space and time in my homeland. I grew up in Jerusalem, which felt aeons away from the big city of Tel Aviv, both physically and spiritually. My Jerusalem was also, however, a lifetime away from East Jerusalem, a place my friends and I never went or even really thought of — except in fear. My parents’ home is only a handful of kilometers from Ramallah, a city which might as well be on the moon. Close is not close; far is not far.
Meanwhile, 45 miles south of Tel Aviv is Gaza City. Or, I guess, it’s more accurate to say was Gaza City. All that’s left there now is devastation. A city obliterated, reduced to rubble and dust.
Now, when I talk to friends and family back home, they describe the sense of a country where space and time have collapsed in on themselves. Everything, everyone, is too near for comfort. Time, too, stretches and contracts. Freezes. Is it still October 7th? What does time mean, when your entire reality is crumbling like so much sand?
Ever since October the 7th, I’ve been reading and reading and reading, aghast and incredulous. At first, I read everything — even horrible comments posted by those who trade in outrage for online fame. Then, when my chest tightened for the third time in a single day, I began to curate my intake.
I still cannot fathom how people came to do such horrible things. I don’t understand those who decry certain atrocities while denying the existence of other atrocities. As my dear friend told me this week, in a group chat I’ve come to cherish, “It’s important to remember that Israeli and Palestinian civilians are in the same boat. We want to live our lives. We’re on the same side. And the horrors that have happened and are happening must stop at once. ”
As I wrote last time, I’m trying to be careful what I invest energy in. As I find useful pieces of media, I share them with you in the hopes that you, too, are seeking constructive anchors in these turbulent days.
By useful, I mean media that either (a) helps me understand how we got here, (b) helps me understand how other people are perceiving and feeling through the situation, or (c) helps me understand the details of the situations and the politics that underpin the decisions being made by various parties.
When I look at an image, or video, or text, I ask myself, “What is the goal of this?” If the goal is nuance and details, I read or listen. If the goal is outrage or proving someone wrong, I scroll on past.
I’ve been sharing some of these materials with you all on the last few newsletters. Below are some materials that take more space, and it’s important to me to lift those up and encourage you to give them a listen or a read.
More History.
As I wrote last time, I’ve been gravitating to historians and their work. Maybe it’s my naiveté that leads me to believe history has some answers. Maybe it’s because history has already happened, so it’s not as scary. Maybe it’s so I can recognize patterns as they re-emerge.
In any case, I have continued to listen to a great deal of historians speaking on their topics of expertise. As I do, it makes me want to share these insights with you all. Unfortunately, a lot of them are in Hebrew, but I’m doing what I can to translate as quickly as possible. To that end, I’ve continued translating this conversation between Professor Hillel Cohen and podcaster Ariel Klatchkin. In it, the two men speak about the philosophical differences between Palestinians and Israelis. There is no judgment here, no supremacy of opinion. There is only open curiosity and willingness to hear what other people are thinking.
“The first step towards talking about agreements and peacemaking is for people to understand how others experience their reality,” says Professor Cohen, who has been studying the conflict and its history for decades, “My attempt [when writing my book] was to make a kind of introduction, to get to know the other side's story. You don't have to accept it, you don't have to adopt it, but at least see how they see it and understand something very basic — what motivates the Zionists and what motivates the Palestinians is not evil. But what motivates them is their sense of justice and freedom, their desire to reach a state of living as liberated people.”
In the linked document, you’ll see two parts. I’ve added a few bullet points to the beginning of each with the main themes included in each section. I’ve also added footnotes and links to articles that explain people and events crucial to the information. This section talks about events that impacted my personal story, so I added some details about that in the footnotes as well.
Part 2 includes:
Thoughts about the difference between good intentions and concrete actions
An imagining of what could have been different had far-right factions on both sides not torpedoed the Oslo Accords
An exploration of what motivates different streams of opinion on both sides and how that influences the actions of others.
I’ve decided to release this transcript in four parts, because it is long. I’ve tried to organize it in an easily readable way, and have highlighted the bits I think are particularly potent. Feel free to share it, and to let me know if you have questions.
Learning About the Region
The Forum for Regional Thinking is doing some incredible work exploring what’s happening in the Middle East outside Israel and Palestine. Their podcast, כאן זה שאם, is a collection of conversations about other countries and how their respective narratives impact what’s happening within the whole region. In particular, the episodes about Lebanon as a home to many different populations, about the Gulf countries, and about the civil war in Yemen were all fascinating. All of these are in Hebrew, but here are some links to writings by the various speakers:
On Lebanon — Dr. Abed Kanaaneh and Dr. Oren Barak
On the Gulf — Katie Wachsberger
On Yemen — Dr. Shmuel Lederman
Glimpses of Humanity
There is so much hot hatred and terrifying screeching at one another out there right now. There is violence. There is blood. There is justification for the squander of human life.
Amidst it all, though, there are people who are trying to see one another as people, worthy of dignity. Here are a few that both made me cry and gave me hope, sometimes all at once.
“Make no mistake, we are probably one of the few who understand how a lot of Jewish people might feel right now, with their collective trauma resurfacing and nightmarish images of gas chambers and intentional annihilation for decades flashing before their eyes with rawness, as a confirmation that they will always be persecuted as a result of their religion and culture. But if you are perpetuating violence against Palestinians from your comfortable and safe homes in the West, you are personally participating in the continued unsafety and instability of your fellow Israeli Jews. It has become clear that Israelis will only live in peace when Palestinians are afforded the same luxury, and that the constant oppression of another people is not an appropriate or productive trauma response.”
Yasmin Rimer writes1 about the challenge of finding light amidst the pain of her friends on both sides of the conflict:
“It doesn't make sense that all men in Israel should walk around with weapons. It’s dangerous. Weapons are not a solution. War is not a solution. Death is not a solution. I light Hanukkah candles every night, but I really have a hard time seeing the light.”
A Standing Together Movement activist, whose parents were murdered on October 7th, speaks about the urgent need for peace and co-existence:
In English: “War is not the answer. War has never been the answer. War will never be the answer.” He talks about how peace and hope are not passive, one must work to create and maintain them all the time. He describes the importance of having an audacious vision for peace. In these ways, he echoes the Ethics of Our Fathers, “Be like the disciples of Aaron — a lover of peace, a pursuer of peace, one who loves the creatures and draws them close to Torah.”
, my new Substack friend who I’m so very glad to have met, wrote this very lovely and heartbreaking poem called “the prophet’s sujood.” An excerpt:“on our way home
my boys play makeshift soccer
with a chunk of ice pulled off the ploughed Ottawa sidewalks.
their voices ring out
impromptu groans and cheers
at goals that hit the garbage bins
nutmegs on the curb.
they remind me of the videos
of children
playing in the rubble
sliding down the sand
a lifetime and sixty days ago.”
Some English Listening
These recommendations come from my wife, who sent them to me. Alas, I have been listening to Hebrew language pods and need to catch up on these. But I trust her about a million percent on these:
Two Israel-Palestine Historians Explain: How Did We Get Here? And What Happens Next?
And from me:
How the Israel-Gaza Conversations Have Shaped My Thinking (The Ezra Klein Show)
Some Music
Sharon Tova-Levi is a wonderful musician and a great friend who went to music school outside Tel Aviv with my wife and I back in 2009-2010. She released this song last week and it cracked me open. The chorus:
“Even when the day is long / and nothing makes sense / and there is no one who understands / and your legs ache / remember everyone / returns home in the end.”
This was a Facebook post that I translated. Yasmin is a member of the kibbutz I volunteered on before my army service.
Mikhal, this so beautifully captures the dissonance and the confusion. I find myself constantly saying things like “what is time?” to my friends, these days. Thank you for the additional resources, and thank you for sharing my poem. I’m praying and trying so hard for the indignity to stop, whether it’s the bombing, or the starvation, or the destruction of homes and hospitals. I'm so glad to have met you here, too.