An outdated good friend from Cape City just lately instructed me they don’t wish to meet after I go to subsequent month. Many Jews may have skilled this – a good friend who stayed silent within the face of the worst terrorist atrocity in Israel’s historical past, solely to excoriate Israel on social media within the following weeks.
Dropping friendships is distressing, however nothing in comparison with watching uncooked footage of the October 7 massacres at a London screening I facilitated. The crimes, many filmed by Hamas terrorists, present humanity at its lowest. Purveyors of sickening terror joyfully invoke God’s identify whereas bringing demise and defilement to His creatures.
Any opinion that ignores or downplays Hamas’s evil is disconnected from actuality and has nothing to supply the seek for peace. But some deny or solid doubt on these barbaric acts. They justify or “clarify” them. Others, like my good friend, condemn the atrocity of October 7 when pushed earlier than then condemning Israel’s response. They emphasise “context”, with the obvious implication that Israel had it coming. As if killing mother and father in entrance of youngsters, utilizing a severed head as a soccer, rape, and parading and defiling corpses is an inevitable, reflex response to Israeli actions.
Context is certainly necessary. Right here is a few: Israel hasn’t occupied Gaza since 2005. Hamas brutally controls Gaza and has attacked Israeli civilians repeatedly. Israeli measures to include this terror are painful for Gazan folks and open to strong debate. However the terror precedes the response, not the opposite means spherical.
My good friend accuses Israel of “genocide”, however presents no thought of how higher Israel ought to shield its residents. Hamas knew that Israel’s response can be harsh and, embedded in hospitals and colleges, knew civilians would endure, although the numbers quoted seldom acknowledge the hundreds of Hamas terrorists among the many lifeless.
However Palestinian struggling is a part of Hamas’s plan to make peace unattainable and destroy Israel. Hamas confirmed us what “from the river to the ocean” means and the way it might carry it out. To chant it on demonstrations is both credulous or genocidal.
My good friend is upset when marches in London, Cape City or elsewhere are accused of anti-Semitism. However Jews see the banners, hear the chants and perceive that we’re targets.
I agree that demonstrating for Palestinians just isn’t anti-Semitic. For many years I’ve championed the Palestinian proper to self-determination and have been an outspoken critic of Israeli governments for obstructing that proper. Mockingly, I’ve misplaced friendships due to it. I preserve that trying to “handle” the battle relatively than resolve it has been disastrous. A authorities that boasted that it alone might ship safety has been uncovered. I’m assured the Israeli public, out protesting in large numbers earlier than Hamas began this battle, will ship higher management earlier than lengthy.
Palestinians have official grievances and aspirations however that isn’t Hamas’s agenda, which is to homicide Jews and destroy Israel. Imagine them once they say they might do it once more. A ceasefire that leaves Hamas in cost can be preposterous.
Its Israeli victims have included outspoken voices for peace and Palestinian rights, like Vivian Silver, a lifelong peace activist whose murdered physique was recognized weeks after the assault. Or Oded Lifshitz, 83, a peace activist and retired journalist, nonetheless held hostage, who spends his retirement driving Palestinian kids from Gaza for remedy. Such folks have executed extra for Palestinians than hundreds shouting “intifada” on our streets, or those that merely march with none care below whose banner they achieve this.
But Israel, the Palestinians and the worldwide group should renew the imaginative and prescient of two states for the 2 peoples who dwell within the land. My late good friend President F W de Klerk as soon as instructed me that his epiphany was not simply that apartheid was unconscionable, however that you simply can’t select the leaders you negotiate with. You cope with the leaders their folks select. The Palestinian folks should resolve who that management might be, and I hope they make the fitting selections.
However I’m struck by an disagreeable realisation: my good friend can select to not speak to me when our world views and ethical compass diverge. However Israel doesn’t have that luxurious.
Sir Mick Davis is a former chief govt of the Conservative Occasion and former Chairman of the Jewish Management Council
