A year has passed since October 7. This needs to sink in. A year and no progress. The hostages are still dying in Gaza, the displaced have yet to return home, soldiers continue to die and the existential threat about the future of our country persists. In Gaza, death, hunger, displacement and no prospect of a reasonable life. A year has passed and it’s still all too quiet on the Mediterranean front. There is no end to this collective nightmare in sight.
I’m writing this on a train in the States. After October 7 – when my mother, Vivian Silver, was killed in the massacre in Kibbutz Beeri –I felt a sense of responsibility to invest my time and energy in change and immerse myself in peacebuilding. I quit my job as a social worker and now, I find myself on a Northeast tour with the Parent Circle Family Forum; two Israelis and two Palestinians talking to polarized Americans about reconciliation, empathy and our ability to create a shared future between the river and the sea that will emerge from our collective pain and trauma.
Why talk to Americans? Why write this in English? The US is not a passive bystander in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The US actively enabled the status quo up until October 7 and has sponsored this war ever since. They do it with immense resources and unparalleled diplomatic relations. The word of the day is ‘unconditional.’ How can you support someone unconditionally with one hand and wag your finger at them with the other? You can’t.
Up until now, it seems America has put all its eggs in one basket: the State of Israel as a liberal democracy in the Middle East with a leg up on its neighbors. We receive weapons from the States; we export technology and knowledge; we serve as a strategic extension of America in the region. In return? Unconditional support even in the face of criminal oppression and subordination of an entire people, the Palestinian people.
But the basket has fallen, and the eggs have cracked. Israel is less liberal, less stable and more radical than the US expected. In order for America and the West to maintain their liberal, democratic agenda and assert global dominance, they need new partners and a new way to construct an international alliance. That can’t be done with the occupation of the Palestinians and the continuation of this conflict.
It is an undeniable truth that Israelis will only be secure if Palestinians are free. It is an undeniable truth that the only way for everybody to enjoy human rights is through peace – a mutual and genuine agreement between the two peoples on how to share the land.
When I talk to officials in America and Europe, they tell me that it needs to come from us, and that it’s an internal matter. That’s cowardly, hypocritical and false. War isn’t possible without international support, but peace is an internal matter? How can the Biden Administration pour so many resources into security and invest so little in the only effective tool to reach security?
There is no wall high enough and no weapon sophisticated enough to stop your enemies from hurting you. The only effective way to achieve security is to transform your enemy into your partner. For that, we need support. We need resources for civil society. We need incentives for mutual economic, cultural and political projects. We need the international community to tell our leaders that we have a problem that needs fixing – the occupation and the conflict – and that insecurity is a symptom of that underlying problem.
Humans are intertwined and interdependent. Anything that happens in the world, good or bad, is either enabled by others or overlooked. We are capable of the worst and always have the potential for the best. We create conflicts and we resolve them. It is time we resolved this one.