October 7
“The inscription is already on the wall, and it is written in three languages: Hebrew, Arabic, and death.”
Yehuda Amichai
I write these lines with pain, fear, and trembling. Pain at the acts of cruelty perpetrated by Hamas in southern Israel, where more than 1,300 people—men and women, the elderly, children, and infants—were murdered, and whose scenes of torture, rape, desecration, kidnapping, and beheading have spread across social media. I write with fear because the conflict has reached extremes of theological hatred that block almost any possible political solution. And I write with trembling because, given the current balance of opposing forces—actors such as Putin, the ayatollahs of Iran, and the perhaps inevitable Trump—this new chapter in a seemingly endless war could lead to World War III, which might be nuclear and could be the last.
This particular pain is new. I experienced it vicariously through my maternal grandfather, who as a child witnessed the Bialystok pogrom (1906)—one of many that, instigated by the Tsarist regime, erupted in Poland and Ukraine in the early 20th century against the defenseless Jewish population, serving as preludes to the ultimate pogrom, the Holocaust.
But the fear is not new. Ever since my days at Vuelta magazine, while continuing to express my unconditional solidarity with Israel, I have sought to understand the roots of the conflict, which meant listening to the Palestinians. I understood then that the founding of the State of Israel was a historical tragedy for that people and that acknowledging this did not imply endorsing anti-Semitic prejudice: in fact, Israeli historians were already documenting that history with exemplary honesty.
As for subsequent developments, one of the Israeli critics who warned of the looming dangers was the renowned historian Gershom Scholem. In “The Risks of Messianism” (Vuelta, November 1980), Scholem recalled that the days following the Six-Day War represented one of those rare “plastic moments” in which what seemed impossible could have been attempted:
David Ben-Gurion suggested at the time the unilateral return of all occupied territories, except for Jerusalem […] I believe that idea contained a great truth. In August 1967 […] I signed a letter […] opposing any territorial annexation. It took courage to do that back then. Who can say what might have happened? Now we have far less freedom of action.
Another key text was the open letter to Menachem Begin titled “The Homeland Is in Danger,” which another Israeli historian, Jacob Talmon, wrote weeks before his death (Vuelta, December 1981): “The desire to dominate and even rule over a hostile foreign population that differs from us in language, history, economy, culture, religion, consciousness, and national aspirations is an attempt to revive feudalism […] The combination of political subjugation and national and social oppression is a time bomb.” The fear was justified. The time bomb exploded during the first intifada and, strictly speaking, has never stopped ticking.
Since then, I have shaped my views on the Middle East by reading Haaretz, the historic newspaper of the Israeli liberal and democratic left. A staunch supporter of the Oslo Accords (which, unfortunately, are now defunct), Haaretz has been spot-on in its criticism of Netanyahu’s disastrous government: by encouraging the messianic and theocratic impulses of the right, Netanyahu has undermined the very foundations of Israeli society. The newspaper has maintained its ethos of reason, truth, and balance. And it does not confuse Hamas with the Palestinian people, whose tragedy—which has intensified in recent days—it reports objectively, respecting what Hamas—which seeks Israel’s annihilation—does not respect in Israelis: their humanity.
Nevertheless, the massacre of October 7 has challenged even the most measured voices at Haaretz. That is why they do not shy away from the fact that, setting aside the context of Gaza, the slaughter of children, women, and the elderly can ultimately be explained only by another context: the millennia-old and apparently unquenchable hatred of Jews. As in so many recent episodes outside Israel—writes Anshel Pfeffer—“they were killed because they were Jews.”
In the face of this hatred, shared by a segment of global social media, Israel’s response must not be an eye-for-an-eye approach. Only a strategy of firmness, but also of responsible restraint, backed by the UN and the major Western countries, would alleviate the apocalyptic turmoil that surrounds and engulfs us.
Published in Reforma on October 15, 2023.