By Joe Szwaja
When I first heard about the October 7 attacks, I contacted my son Engel, who follows the region closely. He was horrified by the violence against Israeli civilians and predicted a huge response that would be devastating for Palestinians and likely include a full-on ground invasion of Gaza. He said he thought we were in store for an absolutely awful new war.
As predicted, Israel went on the offensive and massively overreacted, murdering tens of thousands of civilians, including many children. Hamas claimed responsibility for the October 7 attack, and vowed to continue with more attacks, making it clear they make no distinction between killing soldiers and civilians.
The political landscape felt bleak to me, nearly hopeless. Many justified or even cheered Hamas’s horrific attack, while many others sought to sanctify Israel’s ruthless response. The defense of Israel came mostly from familiar right-wing sources, and didn’t surprise me, nor did the defense of Hamas from extreme Islamist and ultra-left viewpoints. But what caught me off guard was the lack of condemnation and sometimes even support for the Hamas attacks from some of my progressive friends. I had worked with some of them for years to oppose U.S. intervention and injustice in places like East Timor, Iraq, and Guatemala. Didn’t I still support the right to resist, they asked? Some claimed the October 7 attacks were exaggerated or made up, suggesting perhaps Israel committed a lot of the killing, not Hamas. Maybe the attack was unfortunate, but inevitable, given Israel’s open-air prison and massive cruelty in Gaza. Did I have the right to criticize the methods of resistance chosen by oppressed people?
I see these progressive friends as good people, rightly outraged by Israel’s actions and the U.S. support of them. But I couldn’t stomach it and argued back. Yes, people have the right to resist, but murdering civilians at a concert can’t be justified in my book. Hamas showed videos of the attacks and bragged about them, and evidence of their crimes abounds. And yes, I believe we do have the right to criticize the actions of groups who intentionally kill civilians, especially when they are, very predictably, going to lead to massive lethal retaliation against civilians by a much stronger foe. I maintained that condemning the attacks, with no caveats, did not equal support for Israel’s unspeakable policies towards Palestinians. Some listened respectfully but expressed considerable unease or strong condemnation of my views. A dear old friend even denounced me as a genocide-supporter online.
These were rough, painful discussions for me. Perhaps one reason they hurt was that I was an early supporter of Palestinian rights and statehood and a long-time critic of Israel’s many abuses. Somehow, I figured out in 6th grade after doing a report on Israel that the majority in the area that would become Israel were not consulted when it was created. Having been taught by my parents about the importance of self-determination, it seemed very unfair to me. In Shaker Heights High School and Kenyon College, I argued with pro- Israel students and teachers in favor of Palestinian rights; I was very much in the minority and was often called a terrorist supporter. At Kenyon, I became friends with several Palestinians, one of whose stories of how he and his family were expelled at gunpoint from their ancestral home in Jerusalem was very moving to me.
After moving to Seattle, I co-founded the Seattle International Human Rights Coalition (SIRHC) in the early 2000s, which included a pro-Palestinian group and argued forcefully for their rights. So, to be attacked for condemning October 7th, then later supporting Kamala Harris, despite my differences with the Democrats’ policy towards Israel, was difficult to swallow.
In frustration, I began to look for groups that embodied my view that the October 7 attacks and Hamas itself were deeply wrong, and so is Israel’s response and its overall policies towards Palestinians. It was hard at first. Some groups condemned excesses on both sides but seemed to have no plan for how to bring reasonable folks from both parties together and move towards a solution. Others who claimed to want peace or a two-state solution heaped nearly all their condemnation on the actions of the other, ignoring clear crimes committed by their own side. A lot of the discussion felt like sanctimonious lecturing unconnected to any solution. Few of the groups seemed to include both Palestinians and Israeli Jews, both of whom, after all, would be the ones most responsible for upholding any real peace.
Then, I saw a social media ad on behalf of Standing Together. It intrigued me that it talked of a third narrative, one that embraced the complex truths and falsehoods of the two opposing sides, including Hamas’s attack and Israel’s response. I read on.
