I try to write about Israel and, in particular, the war, which began on Oct. 7th, but I become overwhelmed with emotion and confusion. I feel like I am looking at my image in a shattered mirror. I can recognize myself in the fragments, but parts of my face are missing or distorted. There is no way for me to repair a shattered mirror. 

Israel lives in my heart. It is the only country in the world I have ever loved. Zionism has been an integral part of my life since I was a small child growing up in the fog of San Francisco. 

The State of Israel and I are almost the same age. I was born on January 27, 1945, the day Auschwitz was liberated. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, declared the State of Israel just three years and four months later.  This declaration resulted in the War of Independence when the armies of the neighboring Arab countries attacked the newly formed Jewish State, Israel. The Jews accepted the decision of the United Nations to establish two nations where there had been none for more than 2000 years: a state primarily for Jews and another primarily for Arabs. This is now called the “Two State Solution.” The Arabs did not accept the UN resolution.  What they wanted is what they still shout for, a Palestinian state from The River to the Sea, meaning from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. A land without Jews.

Please keep in mind that Israel is a tiny country, just the size of New Jersey. Arab countries represented about 10% of the world’s land mass and were much larger than the United States  or Europe. Israel is about 0.2% the size of the Arab countries. 

Israel was established only three years after a third of all Jews were murdered by the Nazis in the holocaust. The goal of the Nazis was to rid Europe of its Jews, who numbered close to ten million in 1938 and represented about 2% of the total European population.  Now, there are just a bit more than a million Jews in Europe, representing less than 0.2% of its population.  This number is expected to decline. Hitler may have lost the war, but he achieved his goal of eradicating the Jews from Europe. 

Since 1948, Israel has fought many wars. There has been almost one major war every ten years, plus constant Palestinian terrorism. Against this backdrop, Israel became stronger and stronger both economically and militarily. It has one of the world’s most vibrant and successful high-tech industries.  Its GDP per capita is higher than the EU’s. 

Even with the continuous threats from hostile Arab countries and, eventually, Iran, many Jews finally felt safe. The stronger its military became, the safer it felt. But to feel secure, Israel had to ignore the plight of their Palestinian neighbors.  Rather than genocide, Israel created a situation where the Palestinian population grew very fast. 1948, there were less than 600,000 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.  Now, they number more than 5 million, and this does not count the Arabs living in Israel proper.  

Palestinians suffered greatly from the war of 1948. Many were forced out of their homes by the Israelis, while others fled at the direction of their leaders. The War of Independence ended with an armistice and a temporary border, the “Green Line.” 

 It is hard to know how things would have turned out had they not attacked Israel but rather established their state as per the UN mandate.  Certainly it would have been a lot better. Instead, they became refugees in Arab lands that would not offer them citizenship. The Palestinians that remained in Israel faired much better. The Arab countries never really cared about Palestinians and still do not. But they could not accept a non-Muslim nation.  There has never been a Palestinian nation. The last independent nation existed more than 2000 years earlier, and it was Jewish.   The area that is now Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza was called Palestine by the British, who took it over after WWI from the Turks in 1929. The Turks had ruled this area for almost 500 years. The Jews that lived there were called Palestinians.  

The Arab people that lived in the region were mainly tribal. After 1948, there was no attempt to create a Palestinian nation. Jordan took the West Bank, and Egypt took Gaza. The Jordanians integrated the West Bank Population, giving them citizenship and full rights.  Yasser Arafat formed the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1964 while living in Jordan. However, later,  the Palestinian leader was thrown out when he tried to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy in 1970.   The Egyptians never gave rights to those living in Gaza. 

In 1967, the six-day war resulted in the Palestinians living in the West and in Gaza coming under the control of Israel. Initially, there was no border between Israel proper and the West Bank.  I can remember traveling there. It was just 15 minutes from where I lived. We would do grocery shopping. We felt safe. 

Gaza was under Egyptian control.  After the six-day war, these areas were referred to as the Palestinian territories. The long-term occupation of these areas was a great strategic error on the part of Israel, in my opinion.  Israel mistakenly believed that they could trade the West Bank and perhaps Gaza for peace treaties with the Jordanians and the Egyptians. But frankly, both countries were glad to be rid of the people living there.

There were many in Israel who thought the West Bank should be part of Israel as it was in biblical days. This resulted in the settler movement, which has been a cancer in the body of Israel and under the Netanyahu government, metastasized. The rise of Palestinian nationalism under Arafat had a major effect on Israel’s willingness to see a Palestinian nation be established just 20 miles from Tel Aviv. In 2005, Israel left Gaza only to see it taken over by the terrorist organization Hamas. Now, after October 7th, I see no way that Israel would agree to a Palestinian state. But without a Palestinian state, there can never be peace.

I first moved to Israel in 1974 with my wife and two sons. My daughter would be born there.  We left in 1979 for the USA.  I could not adjust to living in Israel, nor could my wife. It was one of the most significant failures of my life. 

In 2015, I returned to live there once again but in a very different Israel.  It was a joy for me to live in that Israel. I felt at home, even though I struggled with Hebrew. I felt I belonged in a way I had never felt elsewhere. But the country was turning more and more to the right politically.   In the summer of 2023, I realized that Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, was, for his own purposes, dividing the country and moving more and more to embrace right-wing extremists in order to stay in power.  We had decided to leave the country in 2025 but are plans were accelerated. We were out of Israel on Oct. 7th and chose not to return. That was more than ten months ago.  We put our beautiful home on the market and recently sold it. 

Less than a third of Israelis are descendants of holocaust survivors. About 60% of Israelis trace their lineage to Arab-speaking countries, as about 800,000 Jews were forced out of those countries after the War of Independence.  Most Israelis are secular, but there is a large group of ultra-orthodox. Since the creation of the state of Israel, the Jews living there moved from being Jews living in Israel to becoming Israeli Jews.  Their identity is primarily with Israel. Israel has compulsory military service for both men and women. The exemption from this is the almost 20% of Arabs living in Israel and the ultra-orthodox, although the latter is in contention.  It was the Israeli Defense Forces that created the melting pot that became Israel. Rich or poor, male or female, black or white, served together.  

Even as a Zionist who believes in the right of Jews to have a homeland,  I was torn by Israel’s actions concerning the Palestinians. I despise the Settler Movement. I was appalled by the treatment of the Palestinians in the West Bank and the actions that Israel took in Gaza. Still, I also realized the role the Palestinians and, in particular, their corrupt leaders play.  I took some direct action to help Palestinians with little or no impact.  It was clear to me that Abbas and his cronies did not want to solve the problems.  They are corrupt and have benefited from the situation.  

I am proud of Israel’s contributions to the world. I loved living in Tel Aviv. But I also saw Israel moving more and more to the right.  One of my main motivations for leaving the USA in 2015 was Trump.  I did not want to live in a country where almost half the people had voted for this dreadful man. But Israel had its version, Benjamin Netanyahu. When he was elected last time, I sadly realized that we could not stay in Israel. So, we made a plan to leave in 2025.  No many has done more to harm the Jewish people since WWII  than Netanyahu. 

On October 3, 2023, we went to Bodrum, Turkey, to celebrate my wife, Deborah’s birthday. I woke up on October 7 to the news from Israel. I, like so many, was stunned and in pain. It was hard to understand how something like this could happen.  I thought that Israel could protect itself from a direct attack by terrorists. 

We had planned to travel in Europe until 19 October, when we were to fly back to Israel. However, we decided not to return and have not been back since. The Israel that we left on Oct. 3rd no longer exists. I am trying to see how it could return. It is possible, just not probable. 

Of course, I have mixed feelings about not returning. Sometimes, I feel guilty, although I do not think there would be much I could do if I were there.

I have been watching what has happened and have concluded that Israel has been broken and not broken by its disgusting enemies but by itself and its failed leadership. Netanyahu has broken the country. He has shattered the reflection that was the soul of the Jewish people. No one has done more harm to the Jewish people since Hitler. 

In the meantime, the war continues in Gaza. Is it just? I have a hard time deciding the answer to this question. I believe that the Israeli government failed its people by not protecting them from Hamas and then took actions that only resulted in destroying Israel’s standing in the world and did not make Israel safer.  So many of the hostages were killed.  I can think of a number of better strategies than going into Gaza.  Now it is time to get out.  Nothing is being accomplished.  Israel should agree to leave in return for all the hostages.  Then Israel should build a real security border.  It should also make it clear that any rockets being sent into Israel from Gaza will result in major bombings in Gaza.  They should invite the United States to put together a group of nations to rebuild Gaza.   

How many innocent people can be killed in justification for killing evil people? I don’t have an answer to that. I think of the Israeli soldiers who have lost their lives, and I think of the Israeli soldiers who now have blood on their hands.  How will they recover? How will the people of Gaza ever recover from the actions of Hamas and their horrible leadership?