October 7 is a day of mourning. For Israelis, it is a reminder they remain a broken nation, with 101 hostages (many, perhaps half, presumed dead) still held in Gaza, and a dangerous escalation in the north as Israel battles Hezbollah. As one friend wrote to me today: “Just when we think it can’t get worse, it does.”
There is Gaza: the heartbreak, massive civilian deaths, homelessness and hunger, resulting from the IDF invasion after 7 October, even as Hamas fights on and the Netanyahu government refuses to articulate a viable exit strategy.
The West Bank is inflamed as Jewish settlers, supported by the most rightwing government in Israeli history, freely and violently attack Palestinian villages and fields. An extreme Israeli leadership seeking to expand into Palestinian areas means a complete eradication of a possible two-state solution.
Before 7 October, often a quarter of a million Israelis took to the streets weekly for almost a year to protest the attacks on the judiciary by the BenjaminNetanyahu government. After 7 October, these large protests shifted mostly to demands that the hostages be returned, safely, starting with a negotiated ceasefire with Hamas.
There is no greater demand that any citizen has on its government than to keep it safe. On 7 October, the Israeli government neglected to do that. Today, the hostages appear an afterthought in the mind of Israel’s prime minister. It is an accepted fact that Netanyahu’s main objective is to keep himself in power (and away from criminal proceedings), at the expense of all else.
Meanwhile, this same Israeli government is doing whatever it can to handicap any potential, viable, acceptable (to its own people) Palestinian leadership. The popular Fatah leader, Marwan Barghouti (who has openly supported a two-state solution), remains in an Israeli prison where his lawyers and family report that he faces harsh conditions. Other Fatah leaders – the core party of the Palestinian national movement that signed the Oslo accords aiming for two states in 1993 – have been dismissed by the Israeli leaders, as the Israeli government also is destroying any viable Palestinian Authority. The argument that key Palestinian leaders and thinkers make – that the greatest defeat of Hamas would be to begin a negotiation for the two-state option that Hamas historically rejects – continues to be rejected, too, by the Netanyahu government.
Still, friends of mine in the Israeli peace camp have expressed the hope, perhaps myopic – but I choose to believe it possible – that out of such great tragedy could come a peaceful resolution. Indeed, a previous war between Israel and Egypt resulted in Anwar Sadat’s visit to Israel and a peace treaty, to pull one historic example.
There are partners on the ground and in the region for Israel. At the recent UN general assembly, Jordan’s minister of foreign affairs, Ayman Safadi, proclaimed: “The Israeli prime minister came here today and said that Israel is surrounded by those who want to destroy it,” he began. “We’re here – members of the Muslim-Arab committee, mandated by 57 Arab and Muslim countries – and I can tell you very unequivocally, all of us are willing to guarantee the security of Israel in the context of Israel ending the occupation and allowing for the emergence of a Palestinian state.”
In the past, an Israeli leader would pounce on the chance to transform these words into facts on the ground. Yet, Netanyahu shamefully ignores them. Political leaders in Israel, even those leading the struggling left camp, are tame at best in embracing this option right now.
But that doesn’t mean that the rest of us must stop trying to make peace. As the region has spiraled since 7 October, so too has the global protest movement, with scenes and incidents that many of us on the left thought we would never see or hear. Inexplicably, leftists have waved flags of support for fundamentalist, dictatorial regimes like Hamas and Hezbollah, thrown red paint on synagogues and employed Nazi slogans.
This left has essentially divided Jews into “good Jews”, (those who are anti-Zionist, who disown Israel’s right to exist) and “bad Jews”, (those of us who believe that the Jewish people have a right to self-determination).
Antisemitism and hateful cancellation rhetoric lives among some of the protesters, but that certainly does not represent all of them. Many protesters are rightly heartsick from the civilian deaths and destruction, and others want the cause of the Palestinians to be seen as equal to that of the Israelis in US foreign policy, as it should be.
There is an urgent need for a progressive and liberal movement to come together, on campuses and in communities, that will say enough; we are for humanity on both sides, we are for dignity and democracy for everyone. There are 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians in the same parcel of land and neither is going anywhere.
It is time to stop the cancellation and the boycotting of either side. Time to embrace those who want to live and to live freely. I believe that to free Palestine will also free Israel. No people is free when they dominate another.
I believe there could be a majority in the US for this approach. We can build a progressive alliance for peace. An alliance that is in the clear best interest of US foreign policy.
A plurality of American Jews support a two state solution, 46% believe a two-state solution is the best possible outcome to the conflict, according to a February 2024 Pew survey. American Jews also supported humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza more than the overall American population did. (61% v 50%).
It’s urgent that we build alliances, not rip each other apart. That we march with love, not shout or blockade with hate. This past week, on Rosh Hashanah, at my Brooklyn synagogue Congregation Beth Elohim, our senior rabbi, Rabbi Rachel Timoner gave a sermon to several thousand congregants (including at least one leading US political leader) and received a standing ovation. She said: “We are Jews who stand with the Israelis in the streets; who stand with the hostages; who count ourselves with the brave peace activists who do not give up, who continue to fight for a future where all human beings count. We are Jews who will find our way to those difficult conversations with our neighbors on antisemitism, and will rebuild relationships and make new ones, because we know that we cannot go it alone.” (Our synagogue was desecrated with red paint and slogans after 7 October and our neighborhood is an epicenter of ongoing protests against Israel).
None of us can go it alone. But there must be a coming to terms with our shared humanity. We need to seek practical ways to promote a constructive US policy moving forward that effectively spirals the region toward sustainable peace and human rights for all. It means creating a movement of urgency, compassion and practicality. That would be an impactful way to commemorate 7 October.
Jo-Ann Mort is co-author of Our Hearts Invented a Place: Can Kibbutzim Survive in Today’s Israel? She writes frequently about Israel for US, UK and Israeli publications
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