What to Feel, What to Do

 

As the grotesque tragedy in Israel-Palestine unfolds, all means of engaging it from afar disintegrate. Those of us who imagined we had seen the ultimate existential nausea postmodernity could induce have been handed a hard lesson. Worse still, it is impossible to know how much harder the lesson will become before it ends, if it ever does.

            Whether it is from cunning or lucky intuition, Hamas has read the moment correctly.  A world in which a man who tortures children can pretend to be President of the United States, and another man who engages in completely unprovoked aggression can talk of “de-Nazification,” is one in which a group of reprobates can, heedless of what it will cost their own neighbors and family in death and destruction, decapitate infants and elders, shout “God is Great,” and call it “anti-colonialism.” We have gone beyond a world in which it is impossible to understand what anything means, and entered a universe in which it is impossible to make anything mean anything at all.

            The cynicism, boorishness, and sheer malevolent stupidity of the current moment make the atrocities that innocent human beings are experiencing even worse. From the perspective of parents (whether Jews, Palestinians, or anyone else) it is always absurd to ask what the death of their children “means.” But both the Netanyahu government and Hamas, in their own ways and to different degrees, have worked tirelessly to achieve an utter void of anything but brutal horror.

            The cynicism of Benjamin Netanyahu has been on display for decades. Nothing he did or did not do justifies the obscenities of October 7^th, but he knowingly and deliberately used his power and pursued a political agenda designed to keep the Palestinian people permanently stateless, humiliated, and bereft of hope. He fostered what was not only a vacuum of power, but of decency, and in a space emptied of decency it can be no surprise that a malignancy like Hamas festered.

            Hamas, for its part, has kept the wheel of farcical cruelty and nihilistic chaos at full spin. The utter justness of the Palestinian cause makes the malicious, deliberate futility of Hamas’s tactics vastly more evil than they would be in the murderous abstract. Anyone who is celebrating Hamas as a ragtag band of “anti-colonialists” has misread the message written on the ground in blood.  Hamas would not have committed such monstrosities if they wanted an end to “colonialism” or anything else. Strife and destruction are their own ends for Hamas. What happens as a result of the carnage is not their concern. They trust that God will dispose. He is great, after all.

That is why Hamas has taken so many hostages. Cheap video technology ensures that if there is a pause in the horror, Hamas can set the wheel spinning again, by uploading to the web a video of hostages being tortured, raped, or murdered. I can feel the eyes of some of my fellow leftists rolling at this assertion. I of course hope I am wrong. I suspect I am not.

It is difficult to know what to feel. Perhaps it is a wonder to feel anything at all. Sorrow and fear are of course understandable, but can lead too easily to demoralization and passivity. Disgust is certainly apt.

I find it impossible to envision how this crisis will end, if it ever does. The Israelis have no constructive options, and even if they did their current leaders could not be trusted to pursue them. What Hamas will do is impossible to predict, except to be sure that whatever they do next will lead to more death and suffering for everyone in Israel-Palestine.

In the face of such utterly senseless tragedy all each person can do is to follow her conscience. I know that the citizens of Israel have a right to live free, secure lives. I know that all the Palestinian people have a right to be full citizens of a sovereign nation. I know that to kill innocent people, in any cause, no matter how just, is wrong. I will continue to speak these truths and work (expending thought, effort and money, donated to the organizations who are engaged on the ground) to see them realized.

The only course of action that is not acceptable now is to give up. That must be said, because the temptation to give up is going to become almost irresistible. As this horror continues, and its sheer pointlessness becomes ever more painful, it will be difficulty not to collapse in despair. Strife and destruction are easy to conjure, cynicism and callousness are easy to perpetuate. But even evil has its limits. If we adamantly refuse to capitulate to the cynics and the thugs, and act as if we have hope, hope can prevail.