… OK, well, Israel’s a state. It’s not a synagogue, and it’s going to make a whole set of calculations,”, an Israeli lawyer and diplomatic adviser, in 2022. He was speaking at an event on Russia’s war in Ukraine and was discussing Israel’s response. Becker explained that many people want Israel to behave like a beloved rabbi, but it can’t. It’s a state.
I’ve thought of Becker’s remarks often over the past few months, and in particular as he argued on Israel’s behalf at the International Court of Justice in a genocide case brought forth by South Africa. I’ve thought of it listening to discussions and debates over antisemitism and criticism of Israel’s war; following the aforementioned ICJ proceedings; hearing of family and friends arguing over what the appropriate “Jewish” response to the war is; having these arguments myself.
To be very clear: This does not mean that the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas and Israel’s subsequent war should not also be understood in the context of Jewish history. Nothing in this world is inevitable, but the fact that images of people dragged from their homes reminded Jews of pogroms, or that the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust recalled the Holocaust, comes close to inevitability.
It can be difficult to hold these two truths at once: that Jewish history is full of pain and victimhood and being the target of ethnic and religious violence, and also that Israel is a nation-state with a government and an army that is currentlythat has killed, per Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health, more than 27,000 people. It can be intellectually confusing. And there may be a sort of painful cognitive dissonance.
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