Consider this is an art project, in the medium of a video game, released on the 1-year commemoration of the October 7th terror attack in Israel. It’s an attempt to say something about it that I couldn’t quite express in a fact sheet. I do think facts are crucial to clear up misconceptions - and I’ve collected some of those below as well as some thoughts on the war itself.
Alright - with that preamble out of the way, the something I want to say… is that I don’t think being informed makes much of a difference. It seems to me there’s some sort of base hatred that drives good people into bad headspaces, often at a level they aren’t even aware of. In other words, why would anybody want to hit the “attack” button on this game? Yeah, fine, I get it - the game is not very good to begin with, and it’s downright boring if you just hit the one button. Is that what I’m saying - people kill Jews for… funsies, anti-semitism is the result of boredom? Not quite… but also, a bit closer to the truth than we’d like to admit.
Hamas has been very clear that they wish to kill every Jewish man, woman, and child in Israel. It’s in their founding charter, and demonstrated time and time again by their actions. If you disagree with this basic point and you think the current war has anything to do with “Palestine”, well, read on. So… where does their decision-making come from, what is driving them to hit that button?
That’s why I consider this an art project. I’m asking a question I don’t have the answer to. But let’s explore this a little more… isn’t it eerie how ancient and frequent this pattern is? It’s been millennia, and it’s always the same story. Sometimes it’s about Jews as a genetic race, sometimes it’s about religion - but it’s always the same basic plot: “exterminate the Jewish identity”. More often than not, it’s been as guests where we flourish (Egypt, Babylon, Middle East, Persia, Spain, Europe, …). Something flips, and the world we love turns to hate us so vehemently that they militarize campaigns for our eradication.
Now it’s a bit different than the last few times around. We’re back on our home turf and we have some ability to defend ourselves - but this is an old story too. One prominent time we were in this setup was against the Greeks who had no problem with our genetics, they “merely” wanted to eradicate our culture, religion, and way of life in the land of Israel… and this is very much what we are facing today.
I have yet to see a compelling explanation of this phenomenon, and it happens in nearly every generation to some extent, for well over 2,000 years. Over and over and over again.
That’s the essence of what I’m trying to say here. It’s a cry for an answer to a rhetorical question: why would anyone “play the game”???
I don’t expect anybody’s mind to change after learning more about the situation - because again, I consider it a mysterious phenomenon.
But - on the off chance that someone out there is sorta sitting on the fence due to lack of information, I’ll present a bunch of facts and some more thoughts, as well as a proposed solution, which I’ll keep on hoping could make a difference.
The goal of this fact sheet is not to be comprehensive in every point, but rather some very basic, fundamentals that lay at the heart of the issue
I want to emphasize that this is not about belief. Whether you believe in it or not, whether you are Jewish or not, doesn’t make a difference in terms of supporting the Jewish religion’s right to existence.
The kicker is - it is impossible to say “I think Judaism is a pretty ancient and peaceful religion, by and large, it would be wrong to snuff it out” while also pretending that the religion is separable from the land. This may be a surprise, if you aren’t aware of how intertwined they are. Once aware - if you’re honest, you have to pick one or the other. You can’t play both sides, ultimately.
- Many, many agricultural laws like Shemittah, Orlah, Bikkurim, etc. can only be done in the land of Israel
- Certain property rights such as Yovel only apply in the land of Israel
- Various laws of timing regarding holidays are specific to Israel
- Cities of Refuge (and thereby laws pertaining to manslaughter) are specific to the land of Israel
- Abraham’s explicit purchase of Hebron and passing it on to Isaac (who then passed it on to Jacob/Israel, all of whom are buried there with their wives)
- The very first verse in the Torah says that it begins with the creation of the world, even though it’s primarily a book of laws, and the most prolific commentator, Rashi, explains that this is because it must establish that the property rights of Israel come from the Creator of the world, not human conquest. It explicitly predicts that the world will accuse us of stealing the land of Israel, and that from a religious perspective, our primary rebuttal should be this verse from the Torah.
- “Israel” is the name given to Jacob, and “Jew” comes from his son Judah (and more to the point - the area in Israel where many of the Israelites survived after the other 10 tribes were exiled, modern day Judea).
One argument against all of this I’ve heard is that orthodox Judaism itself prohibits taking over the land (e.g. “the three oaths”). First of all, this is hotly debated within Rabbinical circles - second of all, it's missing the point, which is the Jewish religion’s right to determine this for ourselves.
One might think that Judaism has given up on this, and found a way to prosper without the land.
This is simply wrong - while the religion did adapt for the diaspora, it was always seen as a stop-gap measure, as evidenced by the constant longing and prayer to return home throughout every aspect of Jewish life. Here’s some examples:
- After every meal with bread, we recite a prayer for the return to Israel and rebuilding of Jerusalem
- Praying three times a day, facing Israel (and within Israel, towards Jerusalem), with clear words for the return to Israel, rebuilding of the Temple, etc.
- Countless volumes of stories, laws, folklore, longing for the end of the exile and return to Israel
- The messianic vision of utopia, eradication of disease and war, real universal bliss for all nations - is predicated on first having Jewish sovereignty over Israel, and in particular rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem
While I personally don’t think Britain should have the sole right to decide on Judaism’s freedom to exist, the fact is that the current pickle we’re in is largely a question of “what does Palestine mean”? Well, the modern Palestine means very precisely the British Mandate of Palestine, which was formed on the land after the Ottoman Empire. The name itself comes from an old Roman insult, but bottom line - it’s what Britain called it, and modern debate should at least consider what the actual text of the mandate says.
- The text of the British Mandate of Palestine has very clear language throughout showing the connection between historical Jews and the land, e.g. “Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country;”
This language is throughout the document. It also acknowledges the need to protect the rights of other local populations - but at no point whatsoever does it name those as a distinct nation with a historical claim as it does the Jews. Put bluntly: was no such thing as a nation of Palestine
Let’s talk about that…
It’s baffling how the whole world has been hoodwinked...
Please keep in mind I am referring solely to a national identity of “Palestine”. I am not belittling the plight of millions of Arab refugees who are living in poverty and despair. One of the worst things that’s happening to these people is that millions upon millions of dollars earmarked for their aid has been stolen in the name of radical Islam and nonsensical narratives. Much of this money has gone toward lining the pockets of those at the top… the rest, to tunnels and war, for nothing.
- It wasn’t even a thing until around 1964, when Yasser Arafat, himself born in Cairo, Egypt, advocated for a new Palestinian nation. Prior to the sixties, there was no flag, leader, language, olympic presence, band, logo, religion, culture, dance move … anything that distinguished the “Palestinians” from Arab refugees that lost the 5-nation attack of 1948 and got stuck. Organizations with any form of national representation were under the rule of distinct Pan-Arabic nations such as Egypt or Syria. There’s no two ways about it - Palestine as we know it today is a thoroughly modern invention.
- The first Palestine Arab Congress, in 1919, went out of their way to emphasize the fact that they do not have their own identity: “We consider Palestine nothing but part of Arab Syria and it has never been separated from it at any stage. We are tied to it by national, religious, linguistic, moral, economic, and geographic bounds."
- Some people get confused and think the “Philishtim” of biblical times have anything to do with “Palestinian”. They don’t. It’s a completely different people, long ago extinct (as mentioned above, the regional rename came from an old insult from the Romans, but that’s another story and not really relevant here - neither Jews nor Arabs are claiming to be Roman)
- Fun fact - Palestinians typically can’t pronounce “Palestine” due to having no letter “P” in their alphabet. You might say that this is okay because it’s “Falestine”, but no, the modern name of the region came from the British, who distinctly spelled and pronounced it with a “P”. Prior to this, the region was under Ottoman rule, and had different names based on administrative divisions (Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, Vilayet of Beirut, Vilayet of Syria, etc.)
- From the end of the Ottoman Empire (1917) until the formation of Jordan (1946) - the entire area from the Mediterranean Sea to the eastern border of Jordan (i.e. far past the Jordan river), was the British Mandate of Palestine. The Transjordan part (east of the Jordan river) became its own country in 1946, Jews claimed Israel west of the Jordan River in 1948, essentially in line with the spirit of the mandate to begin with.
- To spell it out further - the war of 1948 was launched by all the Arab countries against the nascent modern-day state of Israel. At no point during any of this was there any claim for an independent nation of Palestine (because it wasn’t a thing, people might have thought they were fighting for the Jews who were just as much Palestinian then!).
- A very significant number of today’s so-called “Palestinians” got their refugee status due to the various wars to annihilate the Jews, where they were told by their Arab brethren to vacate their homes to clear room for attack.
- Unfortunately, the refugee story is more complex than just that - many were indeed innocent victims. While there was suffering across everyone in the region, the fact is that many Arabs lost their homes due to being on the losing side of a war they didn’t directly participate in or a number of complex factors due to being caught in the middle of chaos they wanted no part of.
I’d like to emphasize that the last point is very sad - much of this was caused a long time ago, in relative terms, and it’s unfortunate that anyone is suffering without a home. Thankfully, many Arab/Muslims flourish in Israel today, and I believe that this can get better. I’ll get to solutions later - but for now, I really want to emphasize that I am not belittling or ignoring the suffering. I’m simply pointing out the fact that there was no “Palestinian” identity at the time of modern-day Israel’s formation- it came much later.
For some reason people tend to think the Arab attacks against Jews started in 1948, even in modern secular terms. It did not. Here’s a few examples from this period of time.
Many of these were met with reprisal attacks and/or British force resulting in deaths on the Arab side too- it is not one-sided. My point is that the narrative of “Jews came in 1948 and started it all out of nowhere” is lacking modern historical perspective. Additionally, there was a mixture of horrible persecution in other Arab/Muslim countries against Jews, as well as warm hospitality as long as the Jews accepted second-class status (spoiler alert - these two are the _best_ a Jew could hope for in a Hamas-controlled Palestine, and that's a reach, as we'll see). Arab/Muslim & Jewish relations across time and space is too storied to list here. This list is speaking only to a specific point
- 1920 Nebi Musa (5 Jews killed, many more injured, yeshiva Torat Chaim - established in 1886, ransacked)
- 1921 Jaffa (47 Jews killed, many more injured)
- 1929 Hebron (60 Jews killed, many more injured)
- 1929 Safed (18 Jews killed, many more injured)
- 1936-1939 Arab Revolt (hundreds killed and injured)
Long story short, in the 1980’s or thereabouts, the narrative of the “Palestinian nation” got slowly but surely taken over by militant Muslims who took interpretations of the Koran, and used it as a basis for “holy war” - as well as the outright extermination of Jews who refuse to acknowledge Muslim rule over Israel (or, in some cases, any place in the world deemed under Muslim control).
These maniacal extremists use the Palestine narrative as a convenient excuse to launch terror campaigns. Often the leaders are very rich warlords, issuing commands a safe distance away. This is where we stand today, or more precisely - the events that led up to October 7th 2023.
For example, Hamas directly quotes in their founding charter: “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him”. This is a quote from scripture that many Muslims consider holy. Some do not take it literally. Hamas does.
There are scores and scores of calls to religious war, martyrdom, terror attacks, and so on. This has been spread to many different groups beyond Hamas, such as Hezbollah, and the coordination is often funded and directed by Iran, or more specifically the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Interesting tidbit: while Jerusalem isn’t even mentioned in the Koran, the Temple Mount is currently under Muslim control and Jews are forbidden to pray there (and this is enforced by Israeli police!! Yes, you get arrested if, as a Jew, you try to go near the site of Solomon's Temple and pray!)
Bottom line - while the western world seems to think that a “two-state solution” would solve everything, the radical Isalmists who actually govern the Gaza Strip routinely reject this - they want every Jew dead “from the river to the sea”.
Fundamentally, this is the impasse we’re at, since many secular, left-wing Israelis are fine with “land for peace”, but there is no room whatsoever for “land for our annihiliation”, even from the most liberal politicians in Israel.
On that note, there are many concessions that Israel has made for peace, and they routinely backfire:
- Land conquered in the six-day war of 1967 was given back in 1979 (Camp David Accords)
- Giving parts of the West Bank and Gaza to government by the PA (Oslo Accords)
- Giving parts of northern Israel / southern Lebanon to Lebanon (UN resolution 425)
- Unilateral Gaza Disengagement in 2005
- many offers of land in the West Bank throughout the years
In all cases, this has led to major security risks for Israel - with Hamas taking over (via election!) military power in Gaza, Hezbollah arming up and attacking in southern Lebanon, and weapons tunnels made on the border with Egypt.
I find it an extreme waste of time arguing about various horrifying tragedies that have occurred in the course of war.
What I do want to speak to is ideologies and intent.
If you think Israel wants to kill civilians, as a policy, you’re absolutely wrong. Israel goes to enormous lengths to prevent this - from warning our enemies in advance to extremely risky intelligence-gathering operations. Comparitively, if you think Hamas and Hezbollah do not want to kill civilians, you’re absolutely wrong. As I’m writing this, I just read an article of a terrorist shooting up a McDonalds in Beer Sheva. The other day it was in the middle of Tel-Aviv. I’m tired of citing clippings from newspaper articles, debunking and tolerating translations from Hamas propoganda, and so on, so I suppose you’re free to disbelieve me. Do your own homework, but I beg that you do it fairly.
Let’s consider a few things about this war, if only as thought experiments…
First of all, the Iron Dome is the stupidest military strategy to ever exist. How could any nation actually have a strategy of intercepting thousands of rockets fired at its civilian population centers, and not take offensive action to shut down those attacks??? Can you imagine Canada launching thousands of rockets at NYC, and New Yorkers going, “eh, let’s not rock the boat of world opinion, let’s just do our best to make sure the rockets don’t land on our people most of the time”!?!?!
I am quite sure that if Canada fired even one rocket anywhere near an an American city, with their stated goal to “kill Americans”, and after years of bus bombings and other local attacks - the gloves would come off immediately (not unlike what happened with the Taliban and 9/11). Thousands of rockets and incredible restrictions on pre-emptive military action??? It’s not even something you could depict in a TV show and expect the audience to believe it.
Secondly, let’s turn that around, and picture what the past decade would have look like without the Iron Dome and advanced intelligence. The numbers of civilian casualties would be through the roof. There would have been intentional explosions of Israeli schools, hospitals, and more - not due to the proximity of war against militants, but as the actual high-priority targets. I’m not saying this by guesswork, I’m saying this because Israel has deflected at least hundreds if not thousands of these exact attack scenarios. And yet - the success of this defense measure gets turned against the IDF, as though it should be expected to lose more civilian life to even the score. Sickening.
Thirdly, what the world seems to miss, is that very many Arabs and Muslims live peacefully in Israel. Personally, I’d venture that like 90% of the pharmacists I’ve ever interacted with are Muslim Arabs, and our kids play together in the same park all the time. It’s awkward sometimes, especially in times of war, but everybody gets along. Similar point but slightly different: the West Bank is home to a couple million or so Palestinians (i.e. refugees who are likely combatants against Israel, if given the chance), many of whom cross back and forth between the Israeli border checkpoints every day.
Lastly, the horrific targeting of October 7th itself. It wasn’t just that Hamas carried it out. Fatah and other “Palestine-friendly” organizations celebrated the butchering of ravers, farmers, elderly, children… these absolutely innocent people. It should be a complete non-starter to legitimize this insane act of violence, and the world should be prepared to fight against this, with no kowtowing whatsoever to such perverse evil. That celebrations were carried out across all pro-Palestinian camps over the abduction, murder, rape, and torture of children. I am a father. I can’t even force myself to pretend to get into the mindset of such a sicko - and we’re talking about this as the foundational headspace of a make-believe nation that is gaining worldwide support for their policy on killing Jews
Wake up people.
On a deep level, we need higher consciousness. That’s a bit vague - but I genuinely think the issue here is a sick hatred that rears its head every generation or so, and so we need to heal. What this looks like is better acknowledgement of right and wrong, accountability, and transparent communication. We need law, even as it applies to historical rights. We need an unwavering desire for good to triumph over evil. We need to stop ascribing moral equivilencies where there are none, and similarly, put an end to imagining claims of equal weight when they are worlds apart. That last line is a particular disease of the modern world, and it’s baffling that in the age of information we create misinformation out of thin air. It’s repairable by having more integrity.
If the Jewish people want to govern Israel, we need to be on the level. We need to stop the infighting. We need to have fixed courts, eliminate the corruption. We need to cherish the Torah, at the very least as our gift and legacy. We need to stop conflating holiness with cult tactics and popularity. We need to judge eachother favorably, lift eachother up, or not judge eachother at all. We need to look for the good and not the bad. We need to be more refined intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and behaviorally. There’s a lot of work to do even within each home and interpersonal relationships. We don’t need to be perfect - but these sorts of things should be front and center of what we are as a nation, whether we all agree on learning it from the Torah or not, we need to prioritize being worthy of our task to govern this land.
Importantly, we need to eradicate racism and hatred from our midst. If the world recognizes the Jewish claim to Israel, and we have the responsibility of government, then it is our duty to try and care for every person in our land. This means overt support for peaceful refugees, no matter their race or religion. Whether that's a grant of property rights, resettlement inside or outside the land, financial compensation, or a bunch of other ideas, would vary on a case-by-case basis with an objective review of the claims and facts. If this were the actual problem in front of us, and we were on the level to deal with it from a place of higher-consciousness, and the criteria were clear, then worldwide cooperation could be very welcome, to try and find acceptable solutions.
There is no way Israel can share a border with a people who routinely attack it without circling back to war. It’s a non-starter. While peaceful Arabs and Muslims are welcomed with open arms, there must be a zero-tolerance policy for any notion of a Palestine within Israel. Those who continue to attack and terrorize Israel in the name of this absurdity must be dealt with severely and immediately, and some distance is required to avoid more bloodshed.
In precise terms - due to the bloody history and repeated attacks, enough is enough, the only way Palestine should exist would be for it to be gifted from eastern Jordan (or some buffer away from Israel). As explained at length above, the notion of a "Palestinian people" is a thoroughly modern invention. If we consider everything, it makes no sense to grant it within Israel’s borders. If it must be created - then let it be in a sensible way. There are already 2-3 million Palestinians in Jordan, it was part of the original mandate (i.e. literally part of “Palestine”), and - hey - the flag is nearly identical. While it might not be ideal - it would be a real workable path to peace.