So let’s start with some basic reality. The fact is that the thousands of victims across Israel, Gaza and the West Bank have been overwhelmingly civilian. On Oct. 7, Israel was wounded and deeply traumatized by the killings of more than 1,000 Israelis, including women and children, by Hamas. And since then, more than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed by the indiscriminate Israeli shelling of Gaza. Thousands of children lie dead in the rubble of Gaza’s destroyed houses, schools and hospitals. In the name of our common humanity, how can such brutal acts and murders be accepted?
Today’s human suffering and global tensions urge us to adhere to the norms of humanity before we reach a moral breaking point for all.
Leaders everywhere have the responsibility to face the full reality of this crisis, as ugly as it is. Only by anchoring ourselves to the concrete facts that have brought us to this point will we be able to change the increasingly dangerous direction of our world.
It begins by recognizing our duty not only to enforce humanitarian intervention and put an end to this atrocious war but also to admit that the current path is not a path to victory for anyone — and most definitely not a path guided by moral clarity.
I cannot but believe that Palestinians and Israelis want the same things. They are not monsters; they do not cherish misery and death. Like Israelis, Palestinians have a right to lives of dignity, security and respect, in an independent, sovereign and viable state.
Yet for almost 20 years, Israel’s unilateral actions have undermined the peace process and flouted the Oslo accords, which promised the two-state solution of peace and security for both sides. Instead, step by step, and against international law, the Palestinian territories have been divided into small, disconnected enclaves. Israel has tripled its “settlements” on land that the accords recognized would be part of the Palestinian state. Jerusalemites have been pushed out of their homes. Muslim and Christian holy sites have been attacked and worshipers harassed. And now, 60 percent of Gaza’s besieged population of 2.3 million Palestinians has been displaced.
Gazan families being bombed out of their homes are victims of this collective punishment, with no place to take shelter. No hospital, no school and no U.N. building is safe any longer. And make no mistake, Gazans will not abandon their homes because a leaflet or a text message tells them to do so. They know that leaving means losing hope, dignity and the chance to go back to their land: They have seen it happen to waves and waves of their fellow Palestinians and to their ancestors throughout the past seven decades of this conflict.
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