I don’t have the amount of time I need to do this link post the justice it deserves.
The necessity for it sprung out of a heated discussion at a lovely lunch date in the midst of dark times — three sisters, a long-time friend, and a very long awaited, shared roti dish, and quite unexpectedly we were talking politics and went deep into the Israeli-Hamas war.
And found ourselves disagreeing about Hamas.
I found myself requesting, “Please research Hamas.”
So this is me following my own advice.
This Newyorker article is a long one and begins with the statement
“The only way to tell this story is to try to tell it truthfully and to know that you will fail.”
Which harkens to me the Hannah Arendt quote where this newsletter about forgiveness began two years ago. Always good to return to the beginning when the new year rolls around again. Welcome.
My action here will be to share what I found, and I begin with the promise to forgive because we all have the capacity to do so at any moment.
Forgiveness is not for others, it is for yourself, it doesn’t absolve sins, it absolves the tensions of holding on. Most of my readers are here in the US, but I have dear readers in Israel as well, and many of my readers are smarter in the ways of the world than me, my hope is that you will reach out if I make mistakes. My intention is to bring a convoluted history to the foreground and show some serious harms against humanity. Things are so tender right now, please forgive me if I have hurt you with my words in any way.
The above mentioned Newyorker article pulls no punches where Israel is concerned. It starts the article by bringing us close to the Palestinian Poet Moses Abu Toha and his life experiences in Gaza. It also is not afraid to praise Biden’s outspokenness about US failures and regrets regarding our 9/11 response. It addresses the difficulty in American liberal circles about talking Palestinian/Israel generally, even before the attack and the war began (more below). It speaks of
“The victims of the Hamas attack—the dead, the survivors, the kidnapped—were not settlers or fanatics; they were, in the main, the liberals of Israel, a breed that still speaks (with caveats and shades of difference) about peace and two states for two peoples.”
These were the people of whom I had met back in March when I visited for the wedding of my niece. She married a man who had grown up in Kibbutz Kfar Aza and I got to meet his parents at the event. His mother had spoke to me of their Kibbutz’s proximity to the border with Gaza and the people and programs that worked along both sides it. The article built on my understanding that the Hamas attack hit most harshly the Israeli’s most open to the plight of the Palestinians and confirmed that Hamas does not have Palestinians best interests in mind. More about Hamas atrocities later in post. The article continues, tracking the history of Hamas and the Netanyahu rise and long hold on the role of Prime Minister. This is a long and nuanced article including current characters, their reactions to the attack, and relatively recent history to answer the question, how did we get to this moment in time? I will be reading it a second time. Find it here. (There may be a paywall and I am sorry about that.)
The article above traces Hamas’ connection to Iran’s current government and this video is a PBS Newshour interview from November 9th, 2023 with a Hamas top official in Tehran speaking about support from both Iran and Russia. He claims that Hamas’ horrific attack on civilians, which Hamas has given the name, the Al-Aqsa Flood, was so that people don’t forget.
Here is another Newyorker piece, this one an interview about the gender-based violence that shown up in different locations during the Hamas attack on October 7. This report is from Physicians for Human Rights Israel, an organization that normally reports on humanitarian issues in Gaza but turned their attention to Hamas and what happened within Israeli borders after the attack because they wanted to highlight the specific things they were noticing. Here is the New York Times investigation into the same thing. This article is not to be read lightly, there are a lot of triggering details as to the extent of the horror. So please be forewarned before you click thru. Again, sorry if you encounter a paywall.
The evidence of gender-based violence in this attack is important because of Hamas’ history with Iran’s current regime. They are the same fundamentalist regime that took over Iran in 1979 and established “morality laws.” Women in Iran had won much freedom before then, and after the Iranian Islamic Revolution took over they were severely restricted again. I share the screenshot below of an Instagram post of Elica Le Bon, an Iranian who now lives in the US. In her posts, she shares much about the history of the Middle East, and the plight of women in Iran and has been addressing the untruths she sees in how people are covering the current Israel/Hamas conflict. I am just getting to know her, but my sister has been following for awhile. I link her account here in case you want to check her out as well.
Finally I am sharing an Amanpour and Company YouTube Interview of Masha Gessen who just received the Hannah Arendt prize for political thought and then was accused of Anti-Semitism when she compared Gaza to a Nazi Ghetto. I share this because I want to show how complicated things are. I mentioned, when I spoke about the Newyorker article, the first one above, how hard it is to talk about Palestinian/Israel and this interview addresses that I think. It talks about Gessen’s statement, her intentionally around it, and the limitations on free speech that come about due to the origins of Israel on the heels of the Holocaust.
I’m sure I will need to revisit these resources and bring it all around again. Until then, let me know your thoughts.
On a totally different note, here is a report by Judy Woodward from PBS Newshour set forth at the outset of this election year.
She is preparing us for this year as we come into an election year that promises to be divisive. Once again, welcome.
Our democracy is under attack, as democracy has been all over the world. As is mentioned in the final interview, we get the government we deserve. Doing my best to pull my weight, thank you for pulling yours.