Let me state this clearly.

I have been and will continue to be a critic of Israel and Zionism itself.

I believe critiquing both is my ethical obligation as a Jew, for reasons I’ve written about and spoken about for decades. I reject ethnic and/or religious nationalism on principle and will make no exceptions for a group to which I belong, for there are no principled reasons to do so.

I believe the bombardment of Gaza and the shutting off of food, water, and electricity by Israeli authorities, which is producing an ever-increasing death toll, are moral abominations — as has been the treatment of Gaza for generations, and the occupation of the West Bank.

That said, it is also true that much rhetoric and action within the Palestinian solidarity movement since October 7 when Hamas murdered 1,400 people in Southern Israel and kidnapped hundreds more is morally grotesque and so strategically inept as to boggle the imagination.

It is important that those of us who are critics of Israel and who have a principled opposition to Zionism distance ourselves from the irresponsible, unthinking, and often anti-Semitic in our ranks.

And this is true whether you believe this contingent to be a small minority or a substantial cadre within the solidarity movement.

It is possible to hold fast to our criticisms of both Israel and the philosophy underpinning it without making alliances with Hamas apologists and those who rationalize killing children in the name of decolonization.

It is even possible to understand why marginalized peoples lash out violently in such a horrific manner, as a predictable reaction to trauma, while still condemning the action as unacceptable.

It is possible to hold fast to our criticisms of Israel and the political philosophy underpinning it without making alliances with Hamas apologists, and those who rationalize killing children in the name of decolonization

Indeed, if we do not differentiate between the legitimate cause of Palestinian human rights and the murder of innocents, it will be impossible to build opposition to what Israel is doing in Gaza and to Palestinians more broadly.

And although many will try and link all critics of Israel (and certainly Zionism) to Hamas, no matter what we say or do, that is not a reason to do their work for them — to score own goals, so to speak.

Yes, we can judge how people try and “get free” — to suggest otherwise is absurd

And I know what some may be thinking: namely, what right do I have to judge how oppressed people seek to get free?

It’s a common refrain among some on the left.

But however nice it sounds, I doubt that most who say it have really considered the implications of the position.

Taken to its logical conclusion, this would mean that if Hamas obtained biological weapons and threatened to release them into the Tel Aviv water supply, killing millions of Jews unless every Jew agreed to vacate the region within a month, we would be duty-bound to endorse such a thing. Or at least not condemn it.

Because the oppressed have a right to “get free,” however they choose, and it’s not our place to judge.

Yeah, no.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but if the oppressed cannot be judged for how they choose to obtain liberation, then Jews in the late 19th and early 20th century (and surely after the Shoah), who had been consistently oppressed and then marked for extermination, would have to have been allowed the same leeway, no?

And if that meant stealing someone else’s land, so be it.

Who are you to judge?

I mean, if murdering babies is acceptable to “get free,” then surely land theft would be, right?

I suspect the people who say the oppressed can do anything they wish to get free without judgment won’t like that version of the argument much.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand.

The use (and misuse) of (de)colonization narratives

Though a two-state solution may be the best we can hope for, I have long preferred, at least ideally, the notion of a single, binational state with liberty and equality for all. And for those marching around shouting, “From the river to the sea,” maybe that’s what they’re thinking of too.

But I sorta doubt it.

It appears that most advocate a total elimination of Jews from the region.

Because in recent weeks many of these same people have labeled Jews in Israel “colonizers” and said that, therefore, there are no true “civilians” on the Israeli Jewish side. It’s a position that implies all of them, kids included, are oppressors, implicated in genocide by their very presence.

If you tear down posters of kidnapped Israelis, many of which feature children, you suggest they deserve no sympathy. Perhaps they even deserved to get kidnapped.

And if this is how you view them, what is to be done except to purge them?

This is Hamas’s goal, about which they have never been coy, so lining up behind them in any way is further evidence that removing Jews from the region is more important to you than justice for all.

Is Israel, the state, a settler-colonial entity? Yes, absolutely.

Its founders admitted as much. Early Zionists said so openly. But to then suggest every Jew who lives there or moves there is a colonizer is to paint a simplistic narrative that ends up justifying murder.

By that standard, everyone not indigenous to a place — or not recently so, as in the case of Jews in Palestine — is a colonizer and a legitimate target for anyone who is indigenous, or more recently so, as with Palestinians.

But what would this mean in the United States?

Would the white radicals donning kaffiyehs (despite the cultural appropriation they typically find so troubling elsewhere) endorse an incursion by Lakota militants into the homes of white families in South Dakota, followed by mass slaughter in the name of decolonization?

Doubtful.

And yet, unless one assumes violent decolonization is only a prerogative held by its practitioners for, say, 75–100 years (thus, Jewish Israelis are still fair game while white Americans would not be), one would have to endorse the morality of such a pogrom against the white folks of Sioux Falls.

Unless we distinguish between settler-colonial states (which most are — that’s the nature of geopolitics, war, and conquest) and individuals as settler-colonists, we’re in trouble.

About half the Jews in Israel are Mizrahim (from the Middle East and North Africa). To call them settlers and colonists is possible, I suppose, simply because Israel is a newer state and Jews who moved there even from nearby lands weren’t technically living there, in most cases, before.

But this is a stretch. And it’s not what those engaged in decolonization rhetoric are talking about.

Those pushing the decolonization narrative want you to think of Jews in Israel as just European white folks and, thus, as interlopers anywhere outside of Europe, conveniently forgetting why surviving European Jews might have left Europe eight decades ago.

I mean, it wasn’t exactly for want of new pastures.

For most, it wasn’t born from a burning desire to take other people’s stuff.

Indeed, with early Zionist propagandists lying about a “land without a people for a people without a land,” many Jews who came probably believed, falsely, that they wouldn’t be displacing anyone.

But regardless, Ashkenazim there today are mostly descended from people who migrated from 1900-1949. As such, they are just as tied to that land now as most descendants of those who came to the American colonies from Europe would have been by the time of the revolution.

Unless they take up residence in illegal settlements, as in the West Bank, why should Jews who come to Israel be seen as illegitimate?

And how can a left that welcomes immigrants to the U.S. from around the world — most of whom have no claim to indigeneity — reject the right of Jews to go to Israel?

Sure, Palestinians should also be able to return to their homeland, including within Israel proper. But that doesn’t mean Jews are usurpers who shouldn’t be allowed in at all.

Condemning murder is simple and necessary — so do it already

But the colonizer rhetoric is not the only problem with how some have engaged these issues lately. So, too, has been the way in which many have refused to flatly condemn the butchery of October 7.

Perhaps some think having to issue such condemnations is unfair when Israel’s defenders are never asked to condemn what Israel does as a precondition for being taken seriously.

And you know what? That’s true.

It is unfair for Palestinians and their supporters to be expected to utter the magic words “I condemn Hamas” before saying anything about Israel, while Israel boosters need say nothing about the depravity of the IDF in the West Bank or Gaza (or the terroristic violence of religious settlers) before weighing in on Hamas.

But the way to remedy the unfairness is not to refuse to condemn Hamas. Instead, it is to insist that Israel’s defenders also condemn its actions and the actions of racist, Islamophobic, and reactionary Jews.

Making both sides reject the killing and oppression of innocents is the answer to hypocrisy, not refusing to condemn the violence on the side you support just because the other side often refuses to condemn theirs.

If nothing else, refusing to condemn Hamas is a bad look among folks who are unsure about these issues. And guess what? That’s most people. So, ya know, how about we all just condemn murder and get on with it?

The virtues (and limitations) of “root cause” analysis

And yes, I know what’s coming next.

But what about the root causes of Hamas’s actions: specifically, Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza?

Of course, we must address those, including the way Benjamin Netanyahu strengthened Hamas in prior efforts to weaken the Palestinian Authority, all because he opposes the creation of any Palestinian State.

History matters. There is no virtue in looking at any phenomenon in a vacuum, terrorism included.

But that doesn’t change the fact that it is terrorism.

Root cause analysis is helpful, and the right too often ignores it in favor of an abstract focus on individual choice and agency. But the left often fetishizes root cause-ism, thereby ignoring human agency altogether.

By the logic of this approach, since the root causes of criminal offending are largely found in socioeconomic marginality and inequality, anyone who kills, rapes, or carjacks shouldn’t be criticized, let alone held accountable. Their actions are presumably acceptable until the root causes are addressed.

But this is madness.

Root cause analysis is helpful, and the right too often ignores it in favor of an abstract focus on individual choice and agency. But the left often fetishizes root cause-ism, thereby ignoring human agency altogether

Even prison abolitionists believe offenders have to be held accountable. Restorative justice doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want without consequence or criticism.

So, root cause arguments only take us so far.

To suggest Israel bears total responsibility for 10/7 is as stupid as saying Hamas does. This argument treats Palestinians like automatons who couldn’t help but butcher entire families. Ironically, this dehumanizes the very people whose actions the left is trying to contextualize.

The fact is, millions of Palestinians don’t kill Jewish children and other civilians. Almost none do, in fact, statistically. If 99.9 percent can exercise agency differently, so can the other 0.1 percent.

People have choices. Israel does, too. They don’t have to do what they’re doing now. They choose it.

Unless we reject binary thinking — angels on one side, devils on the other — nothing will change.

Strategic thinking is a key element of moral decision making

If you care about Palestinian freedom and human rights, you have to think strategically and ground your arguments in a universal morality.

The truth is, most have never heard alternatives to Israel-centric, pro-Zionist, and anti-Palestinian narratives. And if they’ve never heard them, it probably won’t be helpful if the first versions they do hear come wrapped in a layer of support for Hamas, or indifference to their depravity.

If people think that is the alternative to supporting Israel — whose actions they’ve never been encouraged to question— you’d best be prepared to lose forever in the court of public opinion.

And that matters.

Often, we on the left operate as if strategic arguments are luxuries the oppressed cannot afford. Tactical concerns are “tone policing.” Morality is what matters. So, in this case, if what Israel is doing is immoral, they must simply be stopped.

But strategic thinking is not a luxury. It is deeply connected to the morality of an action.

If you believe outcome x is the moral one, to act morally, your actions on behalf of x should be those more likely to bring it about — or at least not less likely.

If x is moral and your actions make x less likely, you have acted not only in a strategically unwise manner but an immoral one.

We have to do better. Millions of people’s lives are at stake.

And performative radicalism isn’t helping any of them.

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Previously Published on Medium

Neil Ward on Flickr under CC License

Photos from the Palestinian side of the “security fence” in Bethlehem – spot the Banksy pieces!