Six Months
By Steve Sheffey
Six months ago today, on October 7, 2013, on Simchat Torah, Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel and murdered 1,200, wounded 3,300, and took 240 hostage during a day of brutal savagery and unspeakable, undeniable sexual violence; 134 hostages, half probably dead, some possibly pregnant, remain captive in Gaza six months later.
The images we saw — people dragged from cars, families held hostage, mutilated bodies on the street — will never leave us, especially those of us who have family and friends in Israel. The Yom Kippur War was a military attack; this was a terror attack aimed at civilians, including women, children, the elderly, and teens at a music festival. It was barbaric. More Jews were murdered on October 7 than on any single day since the Holocaust.
There is no justification for brutally murdering, abducting, and raping civilians, especially women, children, and the elderly. President Biden responded by becoming the first sitting U.S. president to visit Israel during a war and delivering a speech in Israel that cannot be summarized — you have to read it. His condemnation of Hamas and his support for Israel was unequivocal. A few days later, speaking from the Oval Office, Biden said to America what he said to Israel and followed up by asking Congress for an unprecedented $14.3 billion in emergency aid for Israel on October 20 (still blocked by Republicans — more on that below).
Since October 7, Biden has approved more than 100 separate military sales to Israel and authorized the transfer of billions of dollars worth of bombs and fighter jets to Israel. Biden vetoed three UN Security Council resolutions biased against Israel, blocked a UN Security Council statement biased against Israel, and voted correctly by abstaining on UN Security Council Resolution 2728.
And our Republican friends? Two weeks before October 7, on September 29, 198 Republicans — 90% of all House Republicans — voted for HR 5525, a so-called continuing resolution that would have cut aid to Israel by nearly 30%. Republicans wrote the bill without Democratic input, brought it to the floor, and voted for it even though it violated our Memorandum of Understanding with Israel. It failed because 21 Republicans and 211 Democrats voted against it. No Democrats voted for it.
Republicans continue to spread misinformation (otherwise known as “lies”) about Iran sanctions waivers, so know the facts: These waivers do not give Iran more money to fund terrorism and the money is not fungible. Weird that our Republican friends didn’t say anything when these policies were initiated during the Trump administration.
Yet many of us want to cling to the myth that despite its other problems, despite deleting support for a two-state solution from its platform, despite the antisemitism rampant within its ranks, the Republican Party can be trusted to look out for Israel when the going gets tough. But thus far, House Republicans have prevented President Biden’s emergency aid request from passing for nearly six months. We all know that one word from Trump and they would pass it faster than you can say “insurrection.” But the loquacious Donald Trump seems to have nothing to say on the subject, just as he managed to conduct an entire interview with Israel Hayom without once mentioning the hostages.
President Biden continues to support Israel’s safety and security, its legitimate right and need to eliminate the threat from Hamas, and the urgent necessity of releasing the hostages. That has not changed. What has changed is the conduct of Israel’s current government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu.
This makes many of us uncomfortable. Even those of us who no longer buy into the myth of the perfect, can-do-no-wrong version of Israel we grew up with conflate our identities as Jews with the State of Israel. Criticism of Israel feels like criticism of us. We’d rather people looked the other way and pretended everything was okay, as if pretending would make it so.
The only way to escape the pain of this cognitive dissonance is to remember that the government of Israel is not the State of Israel. We are Americans but we are not Donald Trump. Israelis are not Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israelis are grieving. Hundreds of thousands in the north and the south are displaced. We want the world to focus only on them and what happened on October 7. I often feel that way, and that’s my gut reaction to any criticism of Israel right now. And yet I know that we must, as President Biden (a self-declared Zionist) is doing, support Israel and its people by opposing the dangerous policies of its current government.
The pro-Israel community rightly pointed out in the aftermath of October 7 that whatever grievances, real or imagined, Hamas had with Israel, none justified what Hamas did on October 7. In that context, context was irrelevant.
Without drawing moral equivalencies, we should be able to see that the killing by Israel of seven members of World Central Kitchen was inexcusable. The Israel Defense Forces dismissed two senior officers and reprimanded three senior officers after concluding that “those who approved the strike were convinced that they were targeting armed Hamas operatives and not WCK employees” but “the strike on the aid vehicles is a grave mistake stemming from a serious failure due to a mistaken identification, errors in decision-making, and an attack contrary to the Standard Operating Procedures.”
Israel’s war is just, but the World Central Kitchen strike did not occur in a vacuum. Questions have been raised that Netanyahu has been unable to satisfactorily address about whether he is fighting this war justly, how he could invade Rafah and kill Hamas combatants without endangering the hostages, how he would avoid a humanitarian disaster if he invaded Rafah, his plans for after the war ends, and his negotiating stance regarding the hostages. Every state must prioritize the lives of its own citizens over other lives. In wars, innocent civilians die. The question is whether the state has exercised reasonable care, given the military objectives, to minimize civilian deaths, and Netanyahu seems unwilling or unable to do this.
President Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are not a couple of wild-eyed anti-Israel radicals. Maybe, just maybe, we should consider whether their concerns have merit. If we conclude that they do, that does not mean they or we are calling for an end to military assistance to Israel or abandoning Israel in its time of need. It means that Netanyahu’s policies are taking Israel down a dangerous path, politically and militarily, and are not making return of the hostages more likely.
We should be able to understand that while the ratio of combatants to non-combatants killed by Israel in Gaza compares favorably to similar asymmetrical urban wars fought by the United States, the prospect of mass starvation in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis that would result from a full-scale invasion of Rafah is an exigency neither Israel nor the United States can ignore, from both a political and moral standpoint.
That’s why Biden made clear to Netanyahu on Thursday “the need for Israel to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers. He made clear that U.S. policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action on these steps.” Biden also urged
Netanyahu “to conclude a deal without delay to bring the hostages home” (Biden then asked Egypt and Qatar to press Hamas to agree to a hostage deal.)
Biden did not call for a permanent ceasefire. Biden did not demand that Hamas return the hostages because Biden was talking to Benjamin Netanyahu, not Yahya Sinwar. This is a readout of a private call focused on the most recent developments, not a policy statement. After the call, Secretary of State Blinken provided more background.
The Biden administration welcomed steps announced by Israel to increase aid flow to Gaza following Biden’s call with Netanyahu.
On Friday, the Biden administration reiterated that “this basic fact remains true: There would be a ceasefire in Gaza today had Hamas simply agreed to release this vulnerable category of hostages — the sick, wounded, elderly, and young women. Holding these innocent people is outrageous and a reminder as to how this war started in the first place. The onus is on Hamas to release the hostages and bring relief to the people of Gaza through a prolonged ceasefire. Nobody on President Biden’s team will rest until the hostages are returned to their families.”
Biden sees the difference between Netanyahu and Israel. Jose Andres, the founder of World Central Kitchen, sees the difference: “We know Israelis. Israelis, in their heart of hearts, know that food is not a weapon of war. Israel is better than the way this war is being waged. It is better than blocking food and medicine to civilians. It is better than killing aid workers who had coordinated their movements with the Israel Defense Forces.”
Nothing happening in Gaza alters the reality that Israel faces major threats and that the U.S. should continue to support Israel’s right to defend itself, as any country would and should. But whether we like it or not, Netanyahu’s policies in Gaza are isolating Israel diplomatically and six months after October 7, are not bringing the hostages home. Those who conflate Netanyahu with Israel are doing Israel incalculable damage. The only way to effectively advocate for Israel is to distinguish between the current government of Israel and the State of Israel — and to be vocal in our opposition to Netanyahu and our support for Israel.
You can sign up for Steve Sheffey’s weekly pro-Israel Political Update here.
The views expressed here are those of the author and not necessarily of JDCA
