Since my first visit to Israel to volunteer on a kibbutz in 1966, I fell in love with Israel and even considered moving there. The next time I visited, Israel was just after the 67 war to help provide manpower to that same kibbutz. Now I am horrified that a country originated by those who experienced living in genocide are now themselves turning around and engaging in genocide themselves.
The rise of extreme right wing politics and engaging in genocide is no longer an epic occurrence in only the United States, apparently this regime is willing to follow the example of Netanyahu, even to the extremes of genocide. However, we seem to be ahead of Israel in building concentration camps.
I am not ashamed of being an American and I am not ashamed to be Jewish. But, I am horrified to be associated with two countries that engage in genocide.
We have in front of us the opportunity to rise from the darkest of times to again be a leader of a true democracy, and any economy that will serve us all.
It starts with voting in the next election, knocking on doors, and not being afraid to talk to people who have differing points of view. We should see ourselves no longer as simply victims feeling hopeless about our situation, but consider ourselves to be activists in the coming age of great change. This regime we live under will fall sooner than we expect. When that occurs, we cannot miss the opportunity to “build back better“ and create an economy and government that serves us all. To move forward in this epic task we must always look towards that which gives us hope.
Thank you for that optimistic view of the future. I would like to put on the rose colored glasses a young lady gave me in the sixties, but my old hands now shake and I wonder if my vision was ever clear. I think of Ben Franklin’s musing to John Priestly about progress. He described scientific progress that might happen in a thousand years, that we have passed in less than 250, but wondered if we would make enough progress to overcome the wolves in our nature to truly have a civil civilization. But I realize that the wonderful loving dogs I have shared many of my life’s years with are descendants of those wolves and can smile at your hope and believe it may be.
Native Americans believe that inside every man are two wolves: One wolf is a loner, and dangerous. The other is a pack member and noble. The wolf that survives is the one that we feed.
My thoughts also Stuart. You put it beautifully, with the dog/wolf theme, although I have respect for the wilder form of the domesticated dog. As a young girl, I used to look up to the moon we had set foot on, in the 1960's, and say to my mother: "Why have people been able to do this, but are still fighting silly wars?"
Benjamin Franklin could not have foreseen the speed with which we surpassed his dream of scientific progress, neither could he have foreseen that reaching a civil civilisation was to be (in direct contrast to science) so unbelievably stalled.
Obviously one part of the human brain is encouraged by the gains of scientific achievement while the efforts of another part of the brain are stymied from true development towards enlightenment, by the greed of some, for power and money, with weapons as the means of achieving both.
The letter to Priestly from Franklin in 1780 (I believe, please forgive my memory, but it is on line as well as inLOAs book of Franklins writings) is one of his most insightful, which is saying so much. I wish I didn’t have to keep being reminded of the complexity of man multiplied by society. However, in this Hobbesian regression of our land, I wonder if our world will reach civilization before it destroys itself.
There's a potential solution that could be explored in terms of directed modification of our genes. But the Nazi's have pretty much killed that as an alternative to be explored. Now people will write me off as a eugenics racist. Oh well.
Just better education would be a step, all children need to know about socialization, civil behavior, philosophy and the arts. Learn empathy (sorry Mucks) and the Golden Rule (not to be confused with any certain religion or faith).
Marc, your final point is the one that stays with me. Real hope is more than optimism. It is the willingness to engage, even when the challenges seem overwhelming.
If we are given the opportunity to build something better, we should resist the temptation to simply restore what existed before. Lasting change requires examining the systems and institutions that produced so much division, inequality, and distrust in the first place. Democracy is strengthened not only at the ballot box, but through respectful dialogue, community engagement, and the courage to work with people who see the world differently.
Hope becomes transformative when it is paired with action and a shared commitment to creating a society that serves everyone.
I totally agree that we must prepare ourselves now for the work that will be required once Trump is out of office. It will be a massive task to clean up what has occurred in the last several years and we cannot be talked into half measures. We must demand the government that represents and protects all. We must clean up all the graft and corruption no matter who is involved in both parties. Until then I am embarrassed to be an American and I cannot celebrate the 4th of July. I do celebrate the many activists who fight every day and I will join them in any way I can.
We were never a leader of a true democracy, and I am guessing the dark ages were probably darker times. We have, however, full-blown failed, and this opportunity appears to have been wasted on this country.
Emma,agree and did we ever see a self proclaimed " Nazi" become the president of the US. We have morphed into a shithole country,with very bad religious types and " nazis" in control.
Marc, just read the UN report about the genocide and the 22.000 children that were murdered in "self defense".
I agree with all you write here, considered migration to a kibboetz myself, in about the same time as you.
Thinking must be invested in the primitivity that always feeds new wars. A Jewish peace writer had a simple one: both sides have radicals that keep feeding the spiral of retribution and bloodshed. How can the balance be changed between radicals and normal people? A kind of Truth commission, style Mandela and Tutu?
Marc, I think that's beautiful. Being Jewish has inherently nothing to do with engaging in genocide. I'm wondering why we have conflated the two in our current dialog: if you're Jewish you have to be in favor of killing Muslims, or you're not a good Jew? Or you have to be not in favor of killing Muslims and thus agonize over whether you are a proper Jew? The question rather should be, Am I in favor of genocide or not? Saying "I have to do genocide because others do genocide" is faulty on every level. Our response as a human community should be to isolate the angry damaged ones who do genocide and keep them from harming more people and do whatever (little?) we can to heal them.
Excellent points, thank you for this. I have similar experience. And being Jewish does not obligate moral silence about Israeli state conduct, and conflating criticism of Netanyahu’s war policy with antisemitism is itself a category error that the Israeli right exploits deliberately. The numbers in Gaza are not ambiguous (some 80% of buildings destroyed and over 90,000 killed).
The blockade of food and medicine is not ambiguous. Calling this what it is, is not a betrayal of Jewish identity, it is a continuation of the post-Holocaust commitment to “never again” applied universally rather than tribally. The people most qualified to invoke that history are often the ones now using it as a shield against accountability. That inversion is the actual tragedy here.
- UNOSAT/UNITAR satellite damage assessments (using UN imagery analysis) found approximately 81% of all structures in the Gaza Strip damaged as of October 2025, with 123,464 structures destroyed outright.
- A more recent estimate cited by The Conversation puts it at 83% of buildings destroyed (Jan 2026).
- Statista, sourcing UNOCHA, reports about 81% of all structures damaged or destroyed, including 92% of housing stock.
Deaths: ~70,000–93,000+ depending on methodology
- Independent epidemiological estimates run well above that. A Lancet-published household mortality survey found violent deaths 34.7% higher than the Ministry’s count at the time it covered, and Wikipedia’s casualties summary notes a comparable estimate extrapolated to May 2025 of 93,000 (range 77,000–109,000).
- An even higher estimate from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research put total violent deaths at between 100,000 and 126,000 (Nov 2025).
So “90,000+” is supported by independent academic estimates (Lancet Global Health survey, Max Planck Institute), but the official MoH/UN figure is closer to 73,000.
Marc, Johan, and Susan, I think you are onto something profound, and I am not sure I know how to completely express it. I know something about repetition compulsion from an experience with our adopted daughter. At her wedding, I told those at the ceremony that she had been given away 3 times before she arrived with us, and I was not giving her away again. We welcomed her husband into our family. My business partner adopted a child out of foster care. Her record showed that she had been sexually abused several times before she was 3. She accused him of molesting her and ran away from home at the age of 14. As I write, she is 39, and my partner is trying for the 4th time to get her released from prison and into a group home for recovery. For some understanding of intergenerational trauma, see Raisa Manikah (sp.), "My Grandmother's Hands." Marc's insistence on Hope and Johan's on accountability for me, are as profound an echo of the Old Testament as I can imagine. However, Susan's opening consideration of the psychological phenomenon of repetition compulsion in the socio-historical-political realm is what has me going, because, as I suspect, it has always been an issue of compelling ethical and existential concern without resolution at the social level. What about the repetition compulsion that ignores the extraction economy on a finite planet? What about the repetition compulsion of an unrepentant capitalism that has become uncoupled from its ethical traditions? Or what about the repetition compulsions of all of what Karl Jaspers called the "false grandeurs of history?" (If I recall correctly, Willian Barrett, in his "The Illusion of Technique," cited Heidegger as characterizing Western metaphysics as "Cartesian thought annexed to the will to power.) All this is to suggest that we are on an unprecedented threshold where the denial that precipitates the repetition compulsion in a child and threatens a family home is now manifesting itself in nation-states and civilizations that threaten our planetary home. The issue before us is that knowing does not move us to act. Hope and ethics, despite their underlying urge to act, are also powerless. So the issue before us is that neither knowledge, will, nor ethical obligation to act is sufficient to create the agency to act, despite the urgency to do so. This suggests to me that we don't fail because we lack the desire; we fail because we do not yet have the means to learn and act together in the presence of complexity. The challenge was never technical, although we are inclined to think it is. The issue is that we need to respond as a collective whole with an agreed-upon way of knowing, but we don't yet know how to become one. We succumb to the repetition compulsions in the social system because we do not yet have a social construction of a planetary commons with a common consciousness or cognition and an accompanying narrative sufficient to overwhelm the false grandeurs of history by which we are possessed.
You, your family, and your partner, sound like excellent humans. If only everyone were the same. We are watching a land grab, resource driven, period. The Hilton wasn't just hosting the diaspora buying up Palestinian land because NYers are working through their trauma.
Craig, brilliant questions. Unique insight to see that ideology resolves some (?) most (?) of the trauma created by living in an unjust society. I wrote a pair of essays , “Toward an Erotic Economy of Sharing,” and “A Portrait of Homo Economicus as a Young Man” that engage these questions.
The compulsion to repeat can be manifested in “identification with the aggressor” who is often but not necessarily a parent. I wonder if Trump is another instance of this “Mach’s Iam of defense “ against intolerable feelings.
Susan, I have been wondering if it is something like what you name here. A sort of mass, inherited Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which causes an historically abused population to mete out similar to another population.
i would agree with both the sentiment and personal experiences Marc has shared. I too volunteered for and support israel. but i will not declare israel a genocidal state. their leadership is incompetent and often racist in behavior but the country as a whole is not. lets distinguish between the perpetrators and the nation.
I think 60 years ago we all had a romantic idealism concerning Israel. It makes me sad that people who suffered so abominably could do to others what they now do.
Marc - I think you have it all wrong. This is a summary of the Hamas charter: The charter explicitly states that Israel will exist only until Islam obliterates it. It rejects any peaceful resolution, compromise, or international negotiation, stating that "there is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad." The people committing genocide are not Israel they are Hamas. Israel has offered land for peace over 6 times to the Palestinians and were refused every time. Israel left Gaza 25 years ago, they had their own state Gaza, and what did they do, they voted for Hamas and sent over 50,000 rockets on Israel.
Peter, It is not that simple. Hamas is an extreme terror organization using Islam for its agenda for destroying Israel based on very false premises, so no equivalency there. Netanyahu formed a coalition with extreme right wing nationalists, he is not making decisions alone, once again that is not Judaism in any sense. Trump a complete narcissist melomaniac does not represent America, in fact his popularity is now in the 30 percentiles.
Marc, I suggest you study a bit deeper before you claim genocide, that claim is not supported by any facts. 1. Hamas rockets fell on Gaza, 2. Hamas did not allow civilians to enter hundreds of miles of tunnels, 3. Hamas was hiding inside mosques, hospitals, schools and buildings, 4. Hamas was funded and supplied with weapons by Iran, 5. Israel notified by leaflets, dud bombs and speakers that bombs will hit buildings in order for civilians to evacuate, 6. Hamas stole most of the food supplies, 7. for the last 25 years Hamas has sent over 40,000 rockets towards Israel. The ratio of civilians to combatants in the Gaza war was 1.1:1 lower than just about any war in history. So how is that genocide?
"...that those who experienced living in genocide...are now engaging in genocide themselves"
This comment points to the problem with the condemnation of Isreal -- the conflation of the people of Isreal with its politicians and policies. And this easily slides into a condemnation of the whole of the Jewish community, either by birth, commitment, or residence in a nation defined by its Jewish population. The door has been open to blatant antisemitism (there were "good people on both sides", and the revival of ancient and enduring antisemitic stereotypes. It is important to condemn any nation's use of military force, violence against its people or any other group; Israel is not sacrosanct because of its unique place and origin by charter and war. However, when (just) criticism is directed only at Israel, or its supporters, it raises a "red flag", as one congressman said in response to condemnation of candidates taking money from AIPAC.
Would we want the world to believe that we are one monolith that supports Trump et. al, or that we are all in on being a "white Christian nation? That we support extra-judicial killings?
The list goes on -- Trump's support of Putin who has invaded a sovereign nation and commits war crimes every day is a glaring example.
Place the blame clearly where it belongs: on Netanyahu and his desperate deal with the far-right fanatics want the Palestinians and Arab Israelis to disappear, at their hands, just as others wish that the Jews would too.
Marc, your post echoes my thoughts. Netanyahu, mimicking Hitler’s genocide, even excusing it with the same reasoning, is too ironic for me to have made up.
I went to Israel on my honeymoon in 1983. I remember being freaked out by the young soldiers with very large guns who patrolled the busy plazas. That was before the First and Second Infitadas. Israel has been threatened from the very beginning of its existence.
Marc you remind me my first quarter at UC Santa Cruz. It was the spring of 1967. There was a guy in my dorm at Stevenson College who did the same thing you did: He left school to go help in Israel. I have always wondered what happened to him. And like you, I have gone from being a big fan of Israel in the Golda Meir era (is that correct spelling) to wondering what it is that all our money has created over there. I feel that the only reasonable thing to do is merge Israel, Lebanon, including Gaza and the West Bank into a big state like the US. Bury the differences and Israelis and Palestinians can live together in peace. Become an example for the entire Arab world. That is the future.
The news has been sporadic as of late, seeing as how Trump is efforting to control everything we hear. How should we treat Israel? Like a sick relative who has a contagious illness.
Netanyahu is a monster and is the flip side of Hamas. The jewish people, as a whole, are not responsible and should continue to be supported. Israel, as a country, should be required to follow international law if they want assistance. The people of Israel are shackled to Netanyahu just as US citizens are shackled to Trump — they, and we, should work to oust our criminal leaders via our country’s legal mechanisms.
Recent polling from mid-2026 shows that public support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is quite low, though Israeli public opinion remains highly divided depending on the specific policy, military action, or political alignment.
1. Overall Approval and Premiership Support
According to a comprehensive June 2026 poll published by The Times of Israel:
Premiership Support: Personal support for Netanyahu’s premiership has plummeted to 29.4% (down from roughly 40.5% in early March).
War Management: Nearly 69% of Israelis rate his management of recent military conflicts as "failed" or "poor," while only about 11% view it as "good" or "excellent."
Trust in Claims: Roughly 72.5% of the public explicitly stated they do not believe Netanyahu's assertions of achieving "total victory" or eliminating major existential threats.
True, bibi polls are all over the place, but up to 80 at one time in march. I don't tend to believe polls anyway, but the trend is there. I have never seen as many polls on anything as they do on israeli politics. Numbers are basically the same on palestinian statehood since pre oct 7, close to 65-70 against. Pick a day and a poll. What I meant, and did not articulate carefully, is that, like here, this is not just bibi or trump. Huge sections of the population have moved right in the last few decades, this is not at all like before and not just a lunatic at the top issue. This is structural and widespread. I feel horrible for the people there who are against this; they are not in a good situation. I also wish we would stop conflating religion and country; this is seriously dangerous and creates an unfair risk to bear for those in strong opposition. Majority is okay with war there because whatever they think their goals are, they never meet them. Outliers obviously arabs, haredi, lib bloc; even so they have gone way right and this is not just bibi. If anything they want bibi out because he isn't good at winning, whereas even a few years ago they wanted him for the corruption. I am betting the criminal issue goes away, he appears to throw ben gvir under, and he tries to regain power. [Sorry, typing on my little phone on this app has some serious drawbacks ;) ]
The two countries that have opposed THE TWO-STATE SOLUTION for decades are the US, and Israel.
There are no other solutions. The alternative is perpetual war.
If I were prez I would tell Bibi, to his face, in person, that the US has been propping up Israel for too long, I am 100% in agreement that the Israeli people need a homeland, and Israel is the most logical place, as it has been for 80 years. But the Palestinians too need a homeland, and their history in the religion is as old as the Israelis.
If you will agree to that kind of solution we will work with you and the Arab and Persian countries to make it happen, if you do not agree then we will act in our own self-interest and phase out our historic support for Israel.
We cannot and will not continue to support a country that is dedicated to the genocide of its neighbors.
Yes there is: A 1 state solution. How to get there? Massive international military intervention to disarm the two sides & enforce a 5 year process of Truth & Reconciliation. Then elections. If the Jews don’t like who wins they can leave. As they have no right to be there in the first place.
The Arabs/Muslims have 22 countries, the Jewish people only one. Since before the time of modern Israel, the Arabs were offered land to create a state for Palestinians. They said no. They also forced nearly a million Jews living in their countries to leave.
You say: "Jews don’t like who wins they can leave. As they have no right to be there in the first place." Read your history books. Where would 8 million Jews go?
In the Bible, Zion is a synonym for Jerusalem and the original 3,000 year old Israel. It was a desire of a people subjugated and made into slaves by Romans 2,000 years ago to be allowed to return to their home. The desire grew because with few exceptions, countries all over the world treated their Jewish people so horribly: in Arab and Europeans countries alike, Jews were/are second-class citizens, forced Jews to live in ghettoes, forced Jews to abandon their religion or be punished, forced Jews to leave the countries in which they had once been slaves, rounded up and burned Jews at the stake (still happening up through the 19th century) and in 1942, Jews were reduced to ashes in Hilter's ovens.
This history transformed an impoverished, stateless, persecuted people into one that desperately needed to return to their home. We were slaves to Rome, forced out of our home, hated for no discernable reason. Our problem was being hated and homelessness. Our solution was a return to Zion - again the bible's synonym for Israel. Arab countries forced their Jews out.
Modern Israel is imperfect, as is every democracy. It has had highs and lows. We want to be a good neighbour, if you will let us. But we will not willingly return to slavery, abandonment of our morality, or returned to ovens.
Bibi and his appointed ministers are not living up to moral standards and must be forced from office. The same is true for Hamas and Hezbollah.
It isn't returning to a home when someone else has the housekey...it seems like we miss the late 1800s/early 1900s part of this historical discussion re location.
If someone’s stolen the house key, and you’ve got it back, it is “returning”.
Ever wondered why there were so many Jews in Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, etc.? Many can trace their descent back to the destruction of ancient Israel, and their banishment, and they “returned home” after the first attempted destruction of modern Israel in 1948. That conflict used to be known as Israel vs. Arabs; even I, as one of the youngest regulars here, remember a time before the “Palestinian” ethnicity was invented.
Many of the modern “Palestinians” have much shallower roots, having immigrated to the Mandate in the 1930s, attracted by the new jobs generated as Israel industrialised.
Israel has a far more solid “land claim” than nearly all the “First Nations (should actually be “second-last”, but hey) over here.
You make many good points - Jews were persecuted in Arab countries as well as European ones.
And tell ANY country that they must be destroyed - whether it’s Arab countries saying that to Israel, Russia invading Ukraine, or Trump threatening to destroy Iran (brutal though its government is) … and that country is going to act to defend itself!
That said, I believe we ALL are entitled to self determination. No one should have to live as a second-class citizen ANYWHERE.
Palestinians have a right to their own country, or polity, just like Israel. And using starvation and with holding medical aid are war crimes.
A people who have been persecuted for 2000 years should know better. But maybe they are afflicted by repetitive compulsion!
I like the idea of beginning with a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for both sides. Both sides need to know each other’s accurate history, and face up to crimes on both sides.
I’m Jewish and support Israel, but I didn’t know until a few years ago that Israel had not just settled in uninhabited areas or bought land, but had also violently pushed off many Arabs from land their families had lived on for centuries. I learned this from liberal Jewish sources capable of criticizing their own side - which I believe we ALL need to do.
Israel is NOT a democracy. It is a Jewish state. If you are not Jewish, you are a second class citizen. A democracy is a place where all citizens are equal.
Actually, all citizens are equal. Christian, Muslim, Jew. And 20% of population is Arab/non-Jewish.
As in America, not all people are treated equally even if that is the law. The Torah - basis for laws - mentions the commandment to treat and love the stranger more than any other ethical imperative— repeated 36 times.
Military service is fully voluntary for most Arab Israelis, because we must recognise it could be uncomfortable for them. In spite of this, many volunteer. Why? Because Israel is their home too. Because it is a way to be part of the society. Because when other countries attack Israel in modern times — in the main these are Iran & it's proxies in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, & Hamas — they & their families are put at risk.
Interesting idea but how are we planning to disarm a nuclear power currently in syria and lebanon and probably iraq etc? They are super not interested in disarming. Nor does our paid off congress appear to be interested either. Otherwise I find it interesting.
There is a Palestinian State. It's called Jordan. The majority of Jordanians are Palestinians. Since the Palestinians have yet to prove they can govern themselves without attacking Israel, a two state solution would be a Jordanian rump state as a portion of the West bank and a portion of Gaza as a rump state of Egypt. Perhaps then a slow transition to more Palestinian autonomy is possible.
How about support of the military machine of the USA? Do you support that? If you do, perhaps you don't realise that much of the best military technology used in the US was developed by Israel. Providing military aid to Israel also supports U.S. interests by maintaining a reliable democratic ally in the Middle East, securing critical intelligence, testing American-made weapons in active combat, and boosting the US domestic economy. It is not like the US is giving aid away with Israel. The US gets everything plus more back.
I realise this is up for debate. But if America will not support the "military machine" of Israel - which has always been completely defensive - then who or what will America support?
We should support Israel because it is to our benefit to test american made weapons in active combat? What like palentir in Gaza and bombs in Minab? For real? That is not a winning argument at this juncture.
When Iran arms Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, Houthis in Yemen and all the armaments are aimed at Israel, who is at risk, who starts every hostility?
Since 2005, an estimated 30,000 to 40,000+ rockets, mortars, and missiles have been fired into Israel from these surrounding these areas by these Iranian proxies. The vast majority originate from the Gaza Strip, with a significant increase in projectiles originating from Lebanon & Yemen. Israel wants peace. We don't want war. Iran is the issue. We have accepted every peace agreement. Can you get Iran to do the same?
No, I don't support the military machine of the U.S. Nor that of Israel. Let's support diplomacy and democracy, imperfect though they may be.
Yes, the militaries of the U.S. and Israel are entwined. We must work to disengage them. Do we want AI targeting and killing people? 2000 pound bombs? Nuclear weapons?
There are elements I would accept in all three "opposed" positions. Netanyahu and Trump both belong in a circle of hell reserved for destructive and corrupt leadership. They both should go. We should not supply arms to Israel that they use to destroy neighbors and oppress people within or near their borders. Sadly we do the same with ICE, but we don't use bullets as often to do it. Our actions in Iran are just as bad as Israel's with Lebanon and the Palestinian people. I do think Israel has a right to exist. So does Palestine. They need to work out how to live in the same land together. We need to do the same. Our native people population is not nearly as high by percentage as Palestinians in the occupied territory, but have we really done any better historically? Maybe Israel learned how to be brutal from us? In a world deeply troubled by environmental decline, deep economic divides and disparities, gender inequity and more, cooperation will get us closer to solutions than our rapid resort to violence to solve problems. Sadly, the oligarchy that runs things always chooses to make money over real solutions.
Other than illegality, our illegal aggression re iran is nothing like israel's illegal actions in gaza or lebanon. Also, ICE is not at all similar, nor have they been since 2003; guarantee a good portion would like to be though. I get your point that it is all illegal and horrible, just not sure conflating these will help re solutions. Israel did not learn this from us, they have acted this way on that land since before Israel; also - Israel actually trains ice and our other "employees". What does not get play that I think should, are the numbers of US citizens who are in the IDF. It is such a big issue that large companies have had to create new areas in their leave policy. I think they should be prosecuted in the future.
I understand that the comparison is stretched, but you should go deeper historically. Our treatment of native people's, extermination and reservations combined with cultural burial, served as a model for apartheid in South Africa and the Israeli separate and unequal treatment of Palestinians. (It was a white South African who told me this.) ICE would like the leverage General Sherman had dealing with the "Indians" but we retain at least some of the civil rights restrictions MLK worked so hard to expand. Trump and company would like to destroy those, but do not have enough power, yet. We had better not let them. Agree with you about American participation in the IDF.
I don't think it's properly up to the U.S. to "get Netanyahu out of office." But I think the U.S. should stop funding and backing the current Netanyahu government, and I think that no country should fund the bottling and squeezing, the disenfranchisement, the land expropriation of the weak, the persecution, the demolition, or the murder of a demographic of its own or a demographic of another nation.
I am closest to "Get Netanyehu out of office." But I am not there.
I supported Israel for so long. I believed that Jewish people deserved a place to call "home." But Israel has evolved into a nation that inflicts the same terror on others that were inflicted on its own Jewish community. Has the irony escaped them? "Never again" must apply to everyone -- not only to Jewish people.
Part of the problem is that the nation's leadership has devolved into a class that relishes the infliction of cruelty on people who simply are trying to live their own lives. Old people. Infants. School children. Fathers and mothers. Netanyahu may justify all this by saying that the nations around them are trying to obliterate Israel. And yet, Israel has itself crushed the homes of Palestinians -- who lived there for generations before Palestine was sectioned and given to create Israel.
This current phase of fighting has been going on since Israel was formed in 1947. And it will continue until each side obliterates the other.
As to Israeli history, there is a long history of Zionist and Israeli efforts to achieve peace with Arab neighbours and Palestinians. Israel made so many compromises, offered concessions, pulled back from territory (e. g. Gaza), and there was an ongoing willingness of both Israeli leaders and Israeli public to take extraordinary risks to find peace for all of this neighbourhood.
Instead, every time there was about to be a peace, Palestinian partners retreated from their promises, elected or allowed extreme & violence-pursuing leaders, and every risk for peace is paid for in Israeli blood. That led to the extremist settler movement. Israelis will complain and demonstrate if asked to leave the settlements. It would be ugly. But it would happen, just as it happened in 2005 when Israel left Gaza. But there has to be someone on the other side with whom to make peace.
Jewish history transformed an impoverished, stateless, persecuted people into one that desperately needed to return to their home. We were slaves to Rome, forced out of our home, hated for no discernable reason. Our problem was being hated and homelessness. Our solution was a return to Zion - again the bible's synonym for Israel. Arab countries forced their Jews out.
The problem is that no one in history - no country - wants Jews. So we have learned we need a home. What better home that our original home?
I am not saying only Israel has suffered. Palestinians have as well. But Israel did not choose to put Hamas in charge, or blow up buses, or shoot deadly missiles into civilian Israel, or start a war in October 7 in which civilians at home, at a music festival were killed and kidnapped. Then Yemen started shooting bombs, and Iran, and Hezbollah from Lebanon. And 20% of Israel is made up of Arabs who generally live in peace and even volunteer (not mandatory) to serve in the military to protect their home - Israel.
We want peace desperately! Find us a willing Palestinian partner!
Maybe you should worry about not breaking the bones/hospitalizing/imprisoning the haredi first.
As for land, take it up with smotrich, who has 3 settlements ready to build now in gaza. Have fun with that. Haaertz today: "the Gaza Strip is becoming a real estate bonanza," and the plan is "on President Trump's desk." Speaking at the Real Estate Center conference in Tel Aviv in September, the minister added that negotiations have begun with the United States regarding a business plan for Gaza.
"We paid a lot of money for the war, so we need to decide how to divide the percentages of the land in Gaza. The demolition phase is always the first phase of urban renewal. We did that, now we need to start building. We didn't sacrifice these prices to transfer Gaza from one Arab to another. Gaza is an inseparable part of the Land of Israel," he said.
Just as we Americans are not all responsible for the hate and violence of this administration, the Jewish people in Israel are not all responsible for the genocide in Gaza and theft of their land. The lovers trifecta of Netanyahu, Trump, and Putin (and those who support their killing, raping, and stealing) are not the majority and we must stop all three of them by any means possible. The fact that all three have succeeded in their dirty deeds does not mean the American people, the Russian people, or the Jewish people, are each other's enemies. I believe we can look to Zekensky, Carney, and Sheinbaun as examples of modern leaders with wisdom and compassion for all the world's inhabitants.
Stop supplying all military aid to Israel and support a secular one state solution with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians with a right to return and reparations.
my only reason for picking the second option above the third is that as long as neighbour nations hold that Israel has no right to exist (on whatever grounds) and seek to destroy it, Israel needs US backing in some fashion. A permanent diplomatic contract in which Palestine also exists seems the only solution, which can only happen under a different Israeli (and US) government.
I get the impression that tRUMP and his friends are pals with Netanyahu. The two "leaders" both want to stay in power to avoid facing consequences for crimes. When tRUMP called for cease fire in the current war with Iran, the ceasefire ended when Netanyahu attacked Lebanon, allowing tRUMP to look innocent, blaming Israel for the violation. I wonder if Netanyahu is as interested in tRUMP's desire to create "the Riviera of the Middle East" as tRUMP is. Gaza has beach front property. Then there is the West Bank. They want to "clean out" places that are the homes (or used to be) of Palestinians. This has been going on longer than the tRUMP Netanyahu friendship. There have been protests of the way Palestinians have been treated for decades. Genocide is ugly, both men never wanted a two-state solution. Of course, tRUMP has no business going in to build resort hotels.
To gain a good understanding of this conflict (for which the United States bears a great deal of responsibility), one should read Israel – What Went Wrong by Professor Omer Bartov. He is Jewish, served in the Israel Defense Forces (including as a battalion commander), and is the Dean’s Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University. He is also one of the world’s leading experts on antisemitism.
In this relatively short book, he summarizes the conflict and the challenges and dilemmas faced by both sides. Among his conclusions is that, after a long period of hesitation and reflection, he has come to believe that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Having studied this conflict for more than 20 years and read countless books and reports on the subject, I believe this is one of the best analyses I have ever read.
Since my first visit to Israel to volunteer on a kibbutz in 1966, I fell in love with Israel and even considered moving there. The next time I visited, Israel was just after the 67 war to help provide manpower to that same kibbutz. Now I am horrified that a country originated by those who experienced living in genocide are now themselves turning around and engaging in genocide themselves.
The rise of extreme right wing politics and engaging in genocide is no longer an epic occurrence in only the United States, apparently this regime is willing to follow the example of Netanyahu, even to the extremes of genocide. However, we seem to be ahead of Israel in building concentration camps.
I am not ashamed of being an American and I am not ashamed to be Jewish. But, I am horrified to be associated with two countries that engage in genocide.
We have in front of us the opportunity to rise from the darkest of times to again be a leader of a true democracy, and any economy that will serve us all.
It starts with voting in the next election, knocking on doors, and not being afraid to talk to people who have differing points of view. We should see ourselves no longer as simply victims feeling hopeless about our situation, but consider ourselves to be activists in the coming age of great change. This regime we live under will fall sooner than we expect. When that occurs, we cannot miss the opportunity to “build back better“ and create an economy and government that serves us all. To move forward in this epic task we must always look towards that which gives us hope.
Thank you for that optimistic view of the future. I would like to put on the rose colored glasses a young lady gave me in the sixties, but my old hands now shake and I wonder if my vision was ever clear. I think of Ben Franklin’s musing to John Priestly about progress. He described scientific progress that might happen in a thousand years, that we have passed in less than 250, but wondered if we would make enough progress to overcome the wolves in our nature to truly have a civil civilization. But I realize that the wonderful loving dogs I have shared many of my life’s years with are descendants of those wolves and can smile at your hope and believe it may be.
Native Americans believe that inside every man are two wolves: One wolf is a loner, and dangerous. The other is a pack member and noble. The wolf that survives is the one that we feed.
Thank you for that very perceptive view. What a wonderful world this would be if it were on the right diet
What a wonderful analogy that we can all understand. I still think real wolves get a bad rap.
My thoughts also Stuart. You put it beautifully, with the dog/wolf theme, although I have respect for the wilder form of the domesticated dog. As a young girl, I used to look up to the moon we had set foot on, in the 1960's, and say to my mother: "Why have people been able to do this, but are still fighting silly wars?"
Benjamin Franklin could not have foreseen the speed with which we surpassed his dream of scientific progress, neither could he have foreseen that reaching a civil civilisation was to be (in direct contrast to science) so unbelievably stalled.
Obviously one part of the human brain is encouraged by the gains of scientific achievement while the efforts of another part of the brain are stymied from true development towards enlightenment, by the greed of some, for power and money, with weapons as the means of achieving both.
The letter to Priestly from Franklin in 1780 (I believe, please forgive my memory, but it is on line as well as inLOAs book of Franklins writings) is one of his most insightful, which is saying so much. I wish I didn’t have to keep being reminded of the complexity of man multiplied by society. However, in this Hobbesian regression of our land, I wonder if our world will reach civilization before it destroys itself.
There's a potential solution that could be explored in terms of directed modification of our genes. But the Nazi's have pretty much killed that as an alternative to be explored. Now people will write me off as a eugenics racist. Oh well.
Just better education would be a step, all children need to know about socialization, civil behavior, philosophy and the arts. Learn empathy (sorry Mucks) and the Golden Rule (not to be confused with any certain religion or faith).
Marc, your final point is the one that stays with me. Real hope is more than optimism. It is the willingness to engage, even when the challenges seem overwhelming.
If we are given the opportunity to build something better, we should resist the temptation to simply restore what existed before. Lasting change requires examining the systems and institutions that produced so much division, inequality, and distrust in the first place. Democracy is strengthened not only at the ballot box, but through respectful dialogue, community engagement, and the courage to work with people who see the world differently.
Hope becomes transformative when it is paired with action and a shared commitment to creating a society that serves everyone.
I totally agree that we must prepare ourselves now for the work that will be required once Trump is out of office. It will be a massive task to clean up what has occurred in the last several years and we cannot be talked into half measures. We must demand the government that represents and protects all. We must clean up all the graft and corruption no matter who is involved in both parties. Until then I am embarrassed to be an American and I cannot celebrate the 4th of July. I do celebrate the many activists who fight every day and I will join them in any way I can.
FEMA in another guise!
We were never a leader of a true democracy, and I am guessing the dark ages were probably darker times. We have, however, full-blown failed, and this opportunity appears to have been wasted on this country.
Emma,agree and did we ever see a self proclaimed " Nazi" become the president of the US. We have morphed into a shithole country,with very bad religious types and " nazis" in control.
Marc, just read the UN report about the genocide and the 22.000 children that were murdered in "self defense".
I agree with all you write here, considered migration to a kibboetz myself, in about the same time as you.
Thinking must be invested in the primitivity that always feeds new wars. A Jewish peace writer had a simple one: both sides have radicals that keep feeding the spiral of retribution and bloodshed. How can the balance be changed between radicals and normal people? A kind of Truth commission, style Mandela and Tutu?
Marc, I think that's beautiful. Being Jewish has inherently nothing to do with engaging in genocide. I'm wondering why we have conflated the two in our current dialog: if you're Jewish you have to be in favor of killing Muslims, or you're not a good Jew? Or you have to be not in favor of killing Muslims and thus agonize over whether you are a proper Jew? The question rather should be, Am I in favor of genocide or not? Saying "I have to do genocide because others do genocide" is faulty on every level. Our response as a human community should be to isolate the angry damaged ones who do genocide and keep them from harming more people and do whatever (little?) we can to heal them.
Oh no, they are way ahead of us on that last one. We just think small.
You're on the roll today! Lots of good thoughts to share with us, as I feel exactly the same.
Excellent points, thank you for this. I have similar experience. And being Jewish does not obligate moral silence about Israeli state conduct, and conflating criticism of Netanyahu’s war policy with antisemitism is itself a category error that the Israeli right exploits deliberately. The numbers in Gaza are not ambiguous (some 80% of buildings destroyed and over 90,000 killed).
The blockade of food and medicine is not ambiguous. Calling this what it is, is not a betrayal of Jewish identity, it is a continuation of the post-Holocaust commitment to “never again” applied universally rather than tribally. The people most qualified to invoke that history are often the ones now using it as a shield against accountability. That inversion is the actual tragedy here.
Thank you.
Johan
I have been inspired by the number of Jewish people l have heard and read who have stood against what is happening in Israel.
we get a fuller sense of what some meant by the phrase "never again"
As so often, thank you for making these comments. To the point, with care.
Thank you
Curious about your source for these numbers.
Buildings destroyed/damaged: ~80–83%
- UNOSAT/UNITAR satellite damage assessments (using UN imagery analysis) found approximately 81% of all structures in the Gaza Strip damaged as of October 2025, with 123,464 structures destroyed outright.
- A more recent estimate cited by The Conversation puts it at 83% of buildings destroyed (Jan 2026).
- Statista, sourcing UNOCHA, reports about 81% of all structures damaged or destroyed, including 92% of housing stock.
Deaths: ~70,000–93,000+ depending on methodology
- Independent epidemiological estimates run well above that. A Lancet-published household mortality survey found violent deaths 34.7% higher than the Ministry’s count at the time it covered, and Wikipedia’s casualties summary notes a comparable estimate extrapolated to May 2025 of 93,000 (range 77,000–109,000).
- An even higher estimate from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research put total violent deaths at between 100,000 and 126,000 (Nov 2025).
So “90,000+” is supported by independent academic estimates (Lancet Global Health survey, Max Planck Institute), but the official MoH/UN figure is closer to 73,000.
UNOSAT/UNITAR Gaza Strip Comprehensive Damage Assessment — unosat.org
UNOCHA situation reports — ochaopt.org / reliefweb.int
The Lancet Global Health* — “Violent and non-violent death tolls for the Gaza conflict” (Gaza Mortality Survey)
Gaza Health Ministry figures as reported via UNRWA situation reports — unrwa.org
It’s a brilliant historical example of mass psychosis. They are caught up in Repetition Compulsion
Marc, Johan, and Susan, I think you are onto something profound, and I am not sure I know how to completely express it. I know something about repetition compulsion from an experience with our adopted daughter. At her wedding, I told those at the ceremony that she had been given away 3 times before she arrived with us, and I was not giving her away again. We welcomed her husband into our family. My business partner adopted a child out of foster care. Her record showed that she had been sexually abused several times before she was 3. She accused him of molesting her and ran away from home at the age of 14. As I write, she is 39, and my partner is trying for the 4th time to get her released from prison and into a group home for recovery. For some understanding of intergenerational trauma, see Raisa Manikah (sp.), "My Grandmother's Hands." Marc's insistence on Hope and Johan's on accountability for me, are as profound an echo of the Old Testament as I can imagine. However, Susan's opening consideration of the psychological phenomenon of repetition compulsion in the socio-historical-political realm is what has me going, because, as I suspect, it has always been an issue of compelling ethical and existential concern without resolution at the social level. What about the repetition compulsion that ignores the extraction economy on a finite planet? What about the repetition compulsion of an unrepentant capitalism that has become uncoupled from its ethical traditions? Or what about the repetition compulsions of all of what Karl Jaspers called the "false grandeurs of history?" (If I recall correctly, Willian Barrett, in his "The Illusion of Technique," cited Heidegger as characterizing Western metaphysics as "Cartesian thought annexed to the will to power.) All this is to suggest that we are on an unprecedented threshold where the denial that precipitates the repetition compulsion in a child and threatens a family home is now manifesting itself in nation-states and civilizations that threaten our planetary home. The issue before us is that knowing does not move us to act. Hope and ethics, despite their underlying urge to act, are also powerless. So the issue before us is that neither knowledge, will, nor ethical obligation to act is sufficient to create the agency to act, despite the urgency to do so. This suggests to me that we don't fail because we lack the desire; we fail because we do not yet have the means to learn and act together in the presence of complexity. The challenge was never technical, although we are inclined to think it is. The issue is that we need to respond as a collective whole with an agreed-upon way of knowing, but we don't yet know how to become one. We succumb to the repetition compulsions in the social system because we do not yet have a social construction of a planetary commons with a common consciousness or cognition and an accompanying narrative sufficient to overwhelm the false grandeurs of history by which we are possessed.
You, your family, and your partner, sound like excellent humans. If only everyone were the same. We are watching a land grab, resource driven, period. The Hilton wasn't just hosting the diaspora buying up Palestinian land because NYers are working through their trauma.
Craig, brilliant questions. Unique insight to see that ideology resolves some (?) most (?) of the trauma created by living in an unjust society. I wrote a pair of essays , “Toward an Erotic Economy of Sharing,” and “A Portrait of Homo Economicus as a Young Man” that engage these questions.
Interesting theory. But does it include re-enacting the trauma you've suffered (persecution and holocaust) on others?
Probably. It's all bad.
Everywhere. Bibi is crazy just like trump.
The compulsion to repeat can be manifested in “identification with the aggressor” who is often but not necessarily a parent. I wonder if Trump is another instance of this “Mach’s Iam of defense “ against intolerable feelings.
The AI synopsis is pretty good.
Trauma has become an over-used word to justify whatever the user wants to do.
Susan, I have been wondering if it is something like what you name here. A sort of mass, inherited Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which causes an historically abused population to mete out similar to another population.
That’s what repetition compulsion is … the unprocessed trauma driving behaviors outside of conscious awareness
i would agree with both the sentiment and personal experiences Marc has shared. I too volunteered for and support israel. but i will not declare israel a genocidal state. their leadership is incompetent and often racist in behavior but the country as a whole is not. lets distinguish between the perpetrators and the nation.
I think 60 years ago we all had a romantic idealism concerning Israel. It makes me sad that people who suffered so abominably could do to others what they now do.
I also worked on a Kibbutz immediately following 67 war. Felt like you, now I am opposed to Israel
Marc - I think you have it all wrong. This is a summary of the Hamas charter: The charter explicitly states that Israel will exist only until Islam obliterates it. It rejects any peaceful resolution, compromise, or international negotiation, stating that "there is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad." The people committing genocide are not Israel they are Hamas. Israel has offered land for peace over 6 times to the Palestinians and were refused every time. Israel left Gaza 25 years ago, they had their own state Gaza, and what did they do, they voted for Hamas and sent over 50,000 rockets on Israel.
I'm wondering if these are false equations: Hamas with Islam, Netanyahu with Judaism, or Trump with America.
Peter, It is not that simple. Hamas is an extreme terror organization using Islam for its agenda for destroying Israel based on very false premises, so no equivalency there. Netanyahu formed a coalition with extreme right wing nationalists, he is not making decisions alone, once again that is not Judaism in any sense. Trump a complete narcissist melomaniac does not represent America, in fact his popularity is now in the 30 percentiles.
Yes you are right Peter, these are very false equations, and anyone making them is just not studying all of the facts.
Marc, I suggest you study a bit deeper before you claim genocide, that claim is not supported by any facts. 1. Hamas rockets fell on Gaza, 2. Hamas did not allow civilians to enter hundreds of miles of tunnels, 3. Hamas was hiding inside mosques, hospitals, schools and buildings, 4. Hamas was funded and supplied with weapons by Iran, 5. Israel notified by leaflets, dud bombs and speakers that bombs will hit buildings in order for civilians to evacuate, 6. Hamas stole most of the food supplies, 7. for the last 25 years Hamas has sent over 40,000 rockets towards Israel. The ratio of civilians to combatants in the Gaza war was 1.1:1 lower than just about any war in history. So how is that genocide?
Yes Craig. Humans are tribal and desire others' stuff.
"...that those who experienced living in genocide...are now engaging in genocide themselves"
This comment points to the problem with the condemnation of Isreal -- the conflation of the people of Isreal with its politicians and policies. And this easily slides into a condemnation of the whole of the Jewish community, either by birth, commitment, or residence in a nation defined by its Jewish population. The door has been open to blatant antisemitism (there were "good people on both sides", and the revival of ancient and enduring antisemitic stereotypes. It is important to condemn any nation's use of military force, violence against its people or any other group; Israel is not sacrosanct because of its unique place and origin by charter and war. However, when (just) criticism is directed only at Israel, or its supporters, it raises a "red flag", as one congressman said in response to condemnation of candidates taking money from AIPAC.
Would we want the world to believe that we are one monolith that supports Trump et. al, or that we are all in on being a "white Christian nation? That we support extra-judicial killings?
The list goes on -- Trump's support of Putin who has invaded a sovereign nation and commits war crimes every day is a glaring example.
Place the blame clearly where it belongs: on Netanyahu and his desperate deal with the far-right fanatics want the Palestinians and Arab Israelis to disappear, at their hands, just as others wish that the Jews would too.
I have similar thoughts and feelings.
Marc, your post echoes my thoughts. Netanyahu, mimicking Hitler’s genocide, even excusing it with the same reasoning, is too ironic for me to have made up.
Mark Van Stone
I went to Israel on my honeymoon in 1983. I remember being freaked out by the young soldiers with very large guns who patrolled the busy plazas. That was before the First and Second Infitadas. Israel has been threatened from the very beginning of its existence.
Marc you remind me my first quarter at UC Santa Cruz. It was the spring of 1967. There was a guy in my dorm at Stevenson College who did the same thing you did: He left school to go help in Israel. I have always wondered what happened to him. And like you, I have gone from being a big fan of Israel in the Golda Meir era (is that correct spelling) to wondering what it is that all our money has created over there. I feel that the only reasonable thing to do is merge Israel, Lebanon, including Gaza and the West Bank into a big state like the US. Bury the differences and Israelis and Palestinians can live together in peace. Become an example for the entire Arab world. That is the future.
If only ...
The news has been sporadic as of late, seeing as how Trump is efforting to control everything we hear. How should we treat Israel? Like a sick relative who has a contagious illness.
We, or more specifically, tRUMP and his regime, have the same illness.
Netanyahu is a monster and is the flip side of Hamas. The jewish people, as a whole, are not responsible and should continue to be supported. Israel, as a country, should be required to follow international law if they want assistance. The people of Israel are shackled to Netanyahu just as US citizens are shackled to Trump — they, and we, should work to oust our criminal leaders via our country’s legal mechanisms.
No they aren't. It is as if everyone on these threads is living 30 years ago. There is well over majority support, probably 70 percent easy now.
Recent polling from mid-2026 shows that public support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is quite low, though Israeli public opinion remains highly divided depending on the specific policy, military action, or political alignment.
1. Overall Approval and Premiership Support
According to a comprehensive June 2026 poll published by The Times of Israel:
Premiership Support: Personal support for Netanyahu’s premiership has plummeted to 29.4% (down from roughly 40.5% in early March).
War Management: Nearly 69% of Israelis rate his management of recent military conflicts as "failed" or "poor," while only about 11% view it as "good" or "excellent."
Trust in Claims: Roughly 72.5% of the public explicitly stated they do not believe Netanyahu's assertions of achieving "total victory" or eliminating major existential threats.
True, bibi polls are all over the place, but up to 80 at one time in march. I don't tend to believe polls anyway, but the trend is there. I have never seen as many polls on anything as they do on israeli politics. Numbers are basically the same on palestinian statehood since pre oct 7, close to 65-70 against. Pick a day and a poll. What I meant, and did not articulate carefully, is that, like here, this is not just bibi or trump. Huge sections of the population have moved right in the last few decades, this is not at all like before and not just a lunatic at the top issue. This is structural and widespread. I feel horrible for the people there who are against this; they are not in a good situation. I also wish we would stop conflating religion and country; this is seriously dangerous and creates an unfair risk to bear for those in strong opposition. Majority is okay with war there because whatever they think their goals are, they never meet them. Outliers obviously arabs, haredi, lib bloc; even so they have gone way right and this is not just bibi. If anything they want bibi out because he isn't good at winning, whereas even a few years ago they wanted him for the corruption. I am betting the criminal issue goes away, he appears to throw ben gvir under, and he tries to regain power. [Sorry, typing on my little phone on this app has some serious drawbacks ;) ]
The two countries that have opposed THE TWO-STATE SOLUTION for decades are the US, and Israel.
There are no other solutions. The alternative is perpetual war.
If I were prez I would tell Bibi, to his face, in person, that the US has been propping up Israel for too long, I am 100% in agreement that the Israeli people need a homeland, and Israel is the most logical place, as it has been for 80 years. But the Palestinians too need a homeland, and their history in the religion is as old as the Israelis.
If you will agree to that kind of solution we will work with you and the Arab and Persian countries to make it happen, if you do not agree then we will act in our own self-interest and phase out our historic support for Israel.
We cannot and will not continue to support a country that is dedicated to the genocide of its neighbors.
Yes there is: A 1 state solution. How to get there? Massive international military intervention to disarm the two sides & enforce a 5 year process of Truth & Reconciliation. Then elections. If the Jews don’t like who wins they can leave. As they have no right to be there in the first place.
The Arabs/Muslims have 22 countries, the Jewish people only one. Since before the time of modern Israel, the Arabs were offered land to create a state for Palestinians. They said no. They also forced nearly a million Jews living in their countries to leave.
You say: "Jews don’t like who wins they can leave. As they have no right to be there in the first place." Read your history books. Where would 8 million Jews go?
In the Bible, Zion is a synonym for Jerusalem and the original 3,000 year old Israel. It was a desire of a people subjugated and made into slaves by Romans 2,000 years ago to be allowed to return to their home. The desire grew because with few exceptions, countries all over the world treated their Jewish people so horribly: in Arab and Europeans countries alike, Jews were/are second-class citizens, forced Jews to live in ghettoes, forced Jews to abandon their religion or be punished, forced Jews to leave the countries in which they had once been slaves, rounded up and burned Jews at the stake (still happening up through the 19th century) and in 1942, Jews were reduced to ashes in Hilter's ovens.
This history transformed an impoverished, stateless, persecuted people into one that desperately needed to return to their home. We were slaves to Rome, forced out of our home, hated for no discernable reason. Our problem was being hated and homelessness. Our solution was a return to Zion - again the bible's synonym for Israel. Arab countries forced their Jews out.
Modern Israel is imperfect, as is every democracy. It has had highs and lows. We want to be a good neighbour, if you will let us. But we will not willingly return to slavery, abandonment of our morality, or returned to ovens.
Bibi and his appointed ministers are not living up to moral standards and must be forced from office. The same is true for Hamas and Hezbollah.
It isn't returning to a home when someone else has the housekey...it seems like we miss the late 1800s/early 1900s part of this historical discussion re location.
If someone’s stolen the house key, and you’ve got it back, it is “returning”.
Ever wondered why there were so many Jews in Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, etc.? Many can trace their descent back to the destruction of ancient Israel, and their banishment, and they “returned home” after the first attempted destruction of modern Israel in 1948. That conflict used to be known as Israel vs. Arabs; even I, as one of the youngest regulars here, remember a time before the “Palestinian” ethnicity was invented.
Many of the modern “Palestinians” have much shallower roots, having immigrated to the Mandate in the 1930s, attracted by the new jobs generated as Israel industrialised.
Israel has a far more solid “land claim” than nearly all the “First Nations (should actually be “second-last”, but hey) over here.
All the way thru to today
You make many good points - Jews were persecuted in Arab countries as well as European ones.
And tell ANY country that they must be destroyed - whether it’s Arab countries saying that to Israel, Russia invading Ukraine, or Trump threatening to destroy Iran (brutal though its government is) … and that country is going to act to defend itself!
That said, I believe we ALL are entitled to self determination. No one should have to live as a second-class citizen ANYWHERE.
Palestinians have a right to their own country, or polity, just like Israel. And using starvation and with holding medical aid are war crimes.
A people who have been persecuted for 2000 years should know better. But maybe they are afflicted by repetitive compulsion!
I like the idea of beginning with a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for both sides. Both sides need to know each other’s accurate history, and face up to crimes on both sides.
I’m Jewish and support Israel, but I didn’t know until a few years ago that Israel had not just settled in uninhabited areas or bought land, but had also violently pushed off many Arabs from land their families had lived on for centuries. I learned this from liberal Jewish sources capable of criticizing their own side - which I believe we ALL need to do.
I do not accept your characterization of how Israel came to be in the immediate aftermath of WWII.
Israel is NOT a democracy. It is a Jewish state. If you are not Jewish, you are a second class citizen. A democracy is a place where all citizens are equal.
Actually, all citizens are equal. Christian, Muslim, Jew. And 20% of population is Arab/non-Jewish.
As in America, not all people are treated equally even if that is the law. The Torah - basis for laws - mentions the commandment to treat and love the stranger more than any other ethical imperative— repeated 36 times.
Military service is fully voluntary for most Arab Israelis, because we must recognise it could be uncomfortable for them. In spite of this, many volunteer. Why? Because Israel is their home too. Because it is a way to be part of the society. Because when other countries attack Israel in modern times — in the main these are Iran & it's proxies in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, & Hamas — they & their families are put at risk.
True, but that doesn't solve any problems that exist now.
Without change, there is no progress.
Well said. Thank you
Interesting idea but how are we planning to disarm a nuclear power currently in syria and lebanon and probably iraq etc? They are super not interested in disarming. Nor does our paid off congress appear to be interested either. Otherwise I find it interesting.
Fantasy Susan.
What did she write that is a fantasy? Why do you think so?
There is a Palestinian State. It's called Jordan. The majority of Jordanians are Palestinians. Since the Palestinians have yet to prove they can govern themselves without attacking Israel, a two state solution would be a Jordanian rump state as a portion of the West bank and a portion of Gaza as a rump state of Egypt. Perhaps then a slow transition to more Palestinian autonomy is possible.
Problem is bibi and trump would be all over that and push them to the sinai. Obviously that would be complicated. Also wrong on every level.
I am against supporting the military machine of Israel.
How about support of the military machine of the USA? Do you support that? If you do, perhaps you don't realise that much of the best military technology used in the US was developed by Israel. Providing military aid to Israel also supports U.S. interests by maintaining a reliable democratic ally in the Middle East, securing critical intelligence, testing American-made weapons in active combat, and boosting the US domestic economy. It is not like the US is giving aid away with Israel. The US gets everything plus more back.
I realise this is up for debate. But if America will not support the "military machine" of Israel - which has always been completely defensive - then who or what will America support?
We should support Israel because it is to our benefit to test american made weapons in active combat? What like palentir in Gaza and bombs in Minab? For real? That is not a winning argument at this juncture.
Always defensive? Perhaps in the past: not now. How many countries has Israel attacked during a "cease fire" since Trump attacked Iran?
When Iran arms Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, Houthis in Yemen and all the armaments are aimed at Israel, who is at risk, who starts every hostility?
Since 2005, an estimated 30,000 to 40,000+ rockets, mortars, and missiles have been fired into Israel from these surrounding these areas by these Iranian proxies. The vast majority originate from the Gaza Strip, with a significant increase in projectiles originating from Lebanon & Yemen. Israel wants peace. We don't want war. Iran is the issue. We have accepted every peace agreement. Can you get Iran to do the same?
No, I don't support the military machine of the U.S. Nor that of Israel. Let's support diplomacy and democracy, imperfect though they may be.
Yes, the militaries of the U.S. and Israel are entwined. We must work to disengage them. Do we want AI targeting and killing people? 2000 pound bombs? Nuclear weapons?
There are elements I would accept in all three "opposed" positions. Netanyahu and Trump both belong in a circle of hell reserved for destructive and corrupt leadership. They both should go. We should not supply arms to Israel that they use to destroy neighbors and oppress people within or near their borders. Sadly we do the same with ICE, but we don't use bullets as often to do it. Our actions in Iran are just as bad as Israel's with Lebanon and the Palestinian people. I do think Israel has a right to exist. So does Palestine. They need to work out how to live in the same land together. We need to do the same. Our native people population is not nearly as high by percentage as Palestinians in the occupied territory, but have we really done any better historically? Maybe Israel learned how to be brutal from us? In a world deeply troubled by environmental decline, deep economic divides and disparities, gender inequity and more, cooperation will get us closer to solutions than our rapid resort to violence to solve problems. Sadly, the oligarchy that runs things always chooses to make money over real solutions.
Other than illegality, our illegal aggression re iran is nothing like israel's illegal actions in gaza or lebanon. Also, ICE is not at all similar, nor have they been since 2003; guarantee a good portion would like to be though. I get your point that it is all illegal and horrible, just not sure conflating these will help re solutions. Israel did not learn this from us, they have acted this way on that land since before Israel; also - Israel actually trains ice and our other "employees". What does not get play that I think should, are the numbers of US citizens who are in the IDF. It is such a big issue that large companies have had to create new areas in their leave policy. I think they should be prosecuted in the future.
I understand that the comparison is stretched, but you should go deeper historically. Our treatment of native people's, extermination and reservations combined with cultural burial, served as a model for apartheid in South Africa and the Israeli separate and unequal treatment of Palestinians. (It was a white South African who told me this.) ICE would like the leverage General Sherman had dealing with the "Indians" but we retain at least some of the civil rights restrictions MLK worked so hard to expand. Trump and company would like to destroy those, but do not have enough power, yet. We had better not let them. Agree with you about American participation in the IDF.
Fair points
Stop supporting them with our military aid.
I don't think it's properly up to the U.S. to "get Netanyahu out of office." But I think the U.S. should stop funding and backing the current Netanyahu government, and I think that no country should fund the bottling and squeezing, the disenfranchisement, the land expropriation of the weak, the persecution, the demolition, or the murder of a demographic of its own or a demographic of another nation.
I am closest to "Get Netanyehu out of office." But I am not there.
I supported Israel for so long. I believed that Jewish people deserved a place to call "home." But Israel has evolved into a nation that inflicts the same terror on others that were inflicted on its own Jewish community. Has the irony escaped them? "Never again" must apply to everyone -- not only to Jewish people.
Part of the problem is that the nation's leadership has devolved into a class that relishes the infliction of cruelty on people who simply are trying to live their own lives. Old people. Infants. School children. Fathers and mothers. Netanyahu may justify all this by saying that the nations around them are trying to obliterate Israel. And yet, Israel has itself crushed the homes of Palestinians -- who lived there for generations before Palestine was sectioned and given to create Israel.
This current phase of fighting has been going on since Israel was formed in 1947. And it will continue until each side obliterates the other.
As to Israeli history, there is a long history of Zionist and Israeli efforts to achieve peace with Arab neighbours and Palestinians. Israel made so many compromises, offered concessions, pulled back from territory (e. g. Gaza), and there was an ongoing willingness of both Israeli leaders and Israeli public to take extraordinary risks to find peace for all of this neighbourhood.
Instead, every time there was about to be a peace, Palestinian partners retreated from their promises, elected or allowed extreme & violence-pursuing leaders, and every risk for peace is paid for in Israeli blood. That led to the extremist settler movement. Israelis will complain and demonstrate if asked to leave the settlements. It would be ugly. But it would happen, just as it happened in 2005 when Israel left Gaza. But there has to be someone on the other side with whom to make peace.
Jewish history transformed an impoverished, stateless, persecuted people into one that desperately needed to return to their home. We were slaves to Rome, forced out of our home, hated for no discernable reason. Our problem was being hated and homelessness. Our solution was a return to Zion - again the bible's synonym for Israel. Arab countries forced their Jews out.
The problem is that no one in history - no country - wants Jews. So we have learned we need a home. What better home that our original home?
I am not saying only Israel has suffered. Palestinians have as well. But Israel did not choose to put Hamas in charge, or blow up buses, or shoot deadly missiles into civilian Israel, or start a war in October 7 in which civilians at home, at a music festival were killed and kidnapped. Then Yemen started shooting bombs, and Iran, and Hezbollah from Lebanon. And 20% of Israel is made up of Arabs who generally live in peace and even volunteer (not mandatory) to serve in the military to protect their home - Israel.
We want peace desperately! Find us a willing Palestinian partner!
Maybe you should worry about not breaking the bones/hospitalizing/imprisoning the haredi first.
As for land, take it up with smotrich, who has 3 settlements ready to build now in gaza. Have fun with that. Haaertz today: "the Gaza Strip is becoming a real estate bonanza," and the plan is "on President Trump's desk." Speaking at the Real Estate Center conference in Tel Aviv in September, the minister added that negotiations have begun with the United States regarding a business plan for Gaza.
"We paid a lot of money for the war, so we need to decide how to divide the percentages of the land in Gaza. The demolition phase is always the first phase of urban renewal. We did that, now we need to start building. We didn't sacrifice these prices to transfer Gaza from one Arab to another. Gaza is an inseparable part of the Land of Israel," he said.
https://www.haaretz.com/gaza/2026-06-30/ty-article/.premium/smotrich-israel-ready-to-build-three-settlements-in-gaza-immediately/0000019f-180e-d222-a9ff-9e1f38f90000
Get Netanyahu out of office AND stop sending military aid.
Your discussions with your brother-in-law must have been (be?) lively there, Lauren Booth.
Just as we Americans are not all responsible for the hate and violence of this administration, the Jewish people in Israel are not all responsible for the genocide in Gaza and theft of their land. The lovers trifecta of Netanyahu, Trump, and Putin (and those who support their killing, raping, and stealing) are not the majority and we must stop all three of them by any means possible. The fact that all three have succeeded in their dirty deeds does not mean the American people, the Russian people, or the Jewish people, are each other's enemies. I believe we can look to Zekensky, Carney, and Sheinbaun as examples of modern leaders with wisdom and compassion for all the world's inhabitants.
Religious fanatacism is toxic for civilized society.
like toxic waste
Stop supplying all military aid to Israel and support a secular one state solution with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians with a right to return and reparations.
That seems a harder task to do than a 2 state solution.
It may be harder, but it's certainly better than a divided area practicing apartheid. The best way to get rid of an enemy is to make them your friend.
As noted above, Middle Eastern Jews have exercised their “right of return”.
my only reason for picking the second option above the third is that as long as neighbour nations hold that Israel has no right to exist (on whatever grounds) and seek to destroy it, Israel needs US backing in some fashion. A permanent diplomatic contract in which Palestine also exists seems the only solution, which can only happen under a different Israeli (and US) government.
I get the impression that tRUMP and his friends are pals with Netanyahu. The two "leaders" both want to stay in power to avoid facing consequences for crimes. When tRUMP called for cease fire in the current war with Iran, the ceasefire ended when Netanyahu attacked Lebanon, allowing tRUMP to look innocent, blaming Israel for the violation. I wonder if Netanyahu is as interested in tRUMP's desire to create "the Riviera of the Middle East" as tRUMP is. Gaza has beach front property. Then there is the West Bank. They want to "clean out" places that are the homes (or used to be) of Palestinians. This has been going on longer than the tRUMP Netanyahu friendship. There have been protests of the way Palestinians have been treated for decades. Genocide is ugly, both men never wanted a two-state solution. Of course, tRUMP has no business going in to build resort hotels.
To gain a good understanding of this conflict (for which the United States bears a great deal of responsibility), one should read Israel – What Went Wrong by Professor Omer Bartov. He is Jewish, served in the Israel Defense Forces (including as a battalion commander), and is the Dean’s Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University. He is also one of the world’s leading experts on antisemitism.
In this relatively short book, he summarizes the conflict and the challenges and dilemmas faced by both sides. Among his conclusions is that, after a long period of hesitation and reflection, he has come to believe that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Having studied this conflict for more than 20 years and read countless books and reports on the subject, I believe this is one of the best analyses I have ever read.
Thanks, I've been looking for such a book.
Thanks. I will read it.