The Israel-Hamas War: Why Are You So Silent Now?

By Mara Hochberg-Miller

SAN DIEGO — There are no words.

I have been struggling with what to say because I have no words. And what can I say, that hasn’t been said already, or better? Finally, I decided I must write for me. And for the off chance that someone outside of my echo chamber hasn’t heard this before.

First, some history:

On October 7, 2023, Israel was invaded by air, land, and sea by Hamas, an internationally recognized terrorist organization. Hamas has been in power in the Gaza Strip since Israel unilaterally withdrew in 2005.

Israel uprooted the Jewish settlers who lived in Gaza, which many Israelis were against, but because it was the right thing to do — give Palestinians an area where they can self-govern. After fighting with their political rivals, Hamas was democratically elected, and then promptly canceled all future elections and became a totalitarian regime. Hamas is funded by the authoritarian government in Iran, and instead of taking care of its Palestinian people, its charter swears to the destruction of Israel.

Due to the situation that has devolved in Gaza since 2005, Israel is understandably very reticent to withdraw from the West Bank — afraid to have yet another hostile regime along its borders. It won’t make the same mistake again. Israel has already gone to war with each of its neighbors several times, though it has had a peace treaty with Egypt since 1979 and another with Jordan since 1994. And speaking of Egypt, Gaza also shares a border with Egypt. So, when people talk about Israel putting sieges or blockades on Gaza, remember that it is not just Israel. Egypt also does not open its border with the Palestinians in Gaza because they, too, do not want to be infiltrated by terrorists.

I feel for the Palestinians. I really do. So do many Jews. They are stuck in Gaza, living under a totalitarian regime, and don’t have anywhere to go. But you must ask yourself, why can’t they go to Egypt? Or Lebanon? Or Jordan? Or Syria? Or one of the many other Arab countries in the region? Sadly, their Arab neighbors would rather use them as political pawns than help their fellow people. Why must all of the blame be placed on Israel?

Back to October 7:

Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, killed 1,400 people, and took over 240 hostages. It was the most Jews killed in one day since the Holocaust. And it wasn’t just Jews. Arab-Israelis, Americans, Canadians, Thai, British, French, Argentinians, Nepalese, and others were among the victims. Many have likened this to Israel’s 9/11; 2,996 people were killed on 9/11. For comparison, 1,400 Israelis is equivalent to 40,000 Americans — 13 times as many people who died on 9/11.

In the immediate aftermath, many people around the globe condemned the Hamas terrorists. But not everyone. Progressive Jews in America, like myself, have heard a deafening silence from those we considered to be our friends and allies. We have marched with our siblings of color and chanted “Black Lives Matter.” We have condemned hate directed towards our compatriots who are Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI).

We have spoken out against Islamophobia because no one deserves to be targeted for what they believe. We have advocated for gun control because no one should fear for their lives if they go to the movies, take public transportation, or simply show up at school. We lobbied for same sex marriage because love is love. But what gets me most of all is the women’s rights movement.

When Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, they were unspeakably evil. Families were murdered by the dozens. Children were made to watch as their parents were murdered, and parents were made to watch as their children were murdered. 21 children are now orphaned because their parents were massacred. Houses were burned down so that those hiding inside in “safe rooms” would burn alive. Grenades were thrown into bomb shelters where people were hiding. Young adults attending a music festival were mowed down by terrorists dressed up as IDF forces and medics, so that people would run towards them for help. Babies were beheaded and burned. Bodies were dismembered, with their hands and feet cut off. Victims’ cell phones were used to livestream their deaths to their social media pages.

And the women. Women were raped to death, and then paraded through the streets of Gaza as trophies. A pregnant woman was found with her fetus cut out of her body and beheaded — and was beheaded herself. An Israeli morgue reports that mass rape was so brutal that bodies of women, including grandmothers, were found with their pelvises broken. Eighty percent of the bodies recovered displayed signs of sexual abuse, torture, or other degradation.

So, let me ask you, did you ever share a #metoo post? Did you change your profile picture black after George Floyd was murdered?

Why are you so silent now?

The support for Israel in the days following the massacre is gone. Now in the third week of war, the narrative has predictably changed. People are demanding Israel agree to a ceasefire. But they aren’t demanding that Hamas release the hostages. Israel has agreed to 15 ceasefires with Hamas since 2005, each of which Hamas has broken.

People are demanding that Israel lift the blockade and allow aid into Gaza. But they fail to realize that Israel sends hundreds of trucks of aid into Gaza each month. Much of this aid is stolen by Hamas — cement is used to build tunnels into Israel instead of schools and hospitals. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) recently reported that Hamas had stolen their fuel and medical equipment. If even the United Nations can’t ensure that its aid reaches its intended recipients, how can anyone else in the world have faith that the millions of dollars in aid directed to Gaza actually reaches the Palestinian people and doesn’t just fund the Hamas government?

Reports also claimed that Israel had bombed a hospital in Gaza. People were outraged. The New York Times, CNN, BCC, and many, many other news agencies reported on it, each placing the blame on Israel. They cited “Palestinian officials” as the source — aka the Hamas government. Within 24 hours, video and audio footage came out that not only was the missile launched from inside Gaza by the Islamic Jihad, it had hit the hospital parking lot, not the hospital itself.

This false reporting and jumping to conclusions has very real consequences. Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of State, had spent the week hopping between Middle Eastern countries trying to stabilize tensions and prevent the conflict from spreading to neighboring countries. There had been so much work to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia over the past few years. The fake news that Israel had bombed the hospital in Gaza stopped these negotiations cold. The Israeli embassy in Jordan was attacked. A historic synagogue in Tunisia was destroyed. A congregation in Berlin was firebombed.

Instead of taking responsibility for fomenting hatemongering, news outlets quietly change the headlines. They issue statements of retraction, which no one sees, and everyone forgets. But why would any news agency use Hamas, a terrorist organization, as their source of information in the first place?

If the Mexican cartel had invaded the U.S., killed a dozen people, let alone 1,400, and taken hostages back into Mexico, what do you think the U.S. would have done? Do you think the U.S. would be dropping flyers and making calls to Mexicans telling them to evacuate the area so that they can come bomb the cartels, like Israel does with the Palestinian people when they are targeting Hamas? Do you think any other country would announce their military targets to their enemies, thereby giving their enemies time to escape and move their weapons, like Israel does? Do you think any military in the world would bother “roof knocking,” or dropping non-explosive devices on the roofs of targeted buildings to warn inhabitants of imminent bombing attacks and give them time to leave, the way Israel does in Gaza? Do you think any other country would jeopardize the success of their mission, remove any strategic advantage of surprise, or go to such great lengths to minimize civilian casualties the way Israel does? I doubt it, but I would love to be proven wrong.

And speaking of civilian casualties, Hamas specifically uses civilian infrastructure and people to hide behind, because they WANT the civilian death toll to be as high as possible, to make Israel look bad. When a school is used to launch missiles, it becomes a military target, not a civilian one. When a hospital is used to store artillery, it becomes a military target, not a civilian one. The Palestinian people deserve better than their leaders using them as intentional collateral damage. The Palestinian people deserve better than to be treated as human shields. I mourn for the Palestinian civilians that have been killed. The tears of Palestinian mothers are just as salty as the tears of Israeli mothers.

Israel is far from perfect — I will be the first one to tell you that. Jews inside and outside of Israel have spoken up against xenophobic political rhetoric, against the West Bank settlements, against many of the far-from-perfect practices or laws in Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu belongs in jail, not in leadership. Israelis have spent every weekend of the last nine months protesting judicial “reform” taking place. But Jewish and Israeli people are not the Israeli government. Just like the Trump presidency didn’t represent all Americans.

Despite Israel’s problems, the fact that I am able to be Jewish living in the United States is because of Israel. I am only able to create Jewish community in America, or celebrate Jewish life and traditions, because of Israel.

Israel gives a sense of security to the audacious act of simply being Jewish out in the world — there is somewhere for us to go if we need to. But more fundamentally, Israel is the place that created Jewish peoplehood and identity in the beginning — we wouldn’t be Jewish if it weren’t for Israel. We are the people of Israel and we are the land of Israel. I am part of Israel.

Ultimately, Jews and Israelis deserve to live. Many of our enemies disagree with that statement. When they shout, “from the river to the sea,” they are talking about removing Israel and its people from the map. They don’t even try to hide this objective. The goal is ethnic cleansing, and we Jews have experienced this before. If you are annoyed that all you keep hearing is the Jews crying wolf, it’s because 90 years ago no one bothered. All of Europe stood by for YEARS before deciding that the Nazis needed to be stopped. This time at least, we have our own army. And we have the right to defend ourselves against terrorism.

Have you ever said, “Never Again?” How about after Rwanda? Or Cambodia? Or the Armenian genocide? Now, as mobs worldwide chant “death to Jews,” would be the time to prove you mean it. Speak up for your Jewish friends.

Israel is a tiny country. About 10,000 square miles. The size of New Jersey. The Jews have been in Israel for centuries — that’s why the Bible took place there. Like any other area, there were periods of time when we lived there, and periods of time when we were expelled by whatever party happened to be in power at the time. But we have always been there, whether many of us or few. We aren’t the foreign colonizers our enemies make us out to be. And I speak for the majority of us when I say that we really just want to live peacefully among our neighbors. Why don’t they want to live peacefully next to us?

It is often repeated that years of oppression by Israel have turned the Palestinian people to violence against Israel. I don’t argue with this, although it should be noted that there was violence long before the State of Israel was created. There is a long history of pogroms and massacres against Jews in the region. If you look at the numbers of Jews left in historical Jewish communities in the Levant, you can trace how we were either killed or forced to flee. But I want to ask another question too. Do you not recognize that generations of violence make it harder, not easier, to live side by side? How are we supposed to react when we face terrorism? How can we be expected to live side by side when Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranians, and many others just want us dead? Compromise and coexistence are not possible when annihilation is the goal.

What would it take, what would Israel have to do, for the Palestinians to live peacefully alongside us? I do believe, I must believe, that most Palestinians just want peace, too. But I have never heard this question answered — or even asked.

As the world focuses on the supposed “disproportionate” response that Israel takes out on Gaza, they forget that October 7 was not a one-time event, it was just the beginning of the most recent round of violence. Rockets are still being launched at Israel — more than 7,000 rockets and counting — and Israelis are still living in their bomb shelters. Hamas terrorists have attempted to infiltrate Israel several more times, they just haven’t been successful.

I pray for a swift end of violence, but an even more swift end of Hamas. Free Gaza from Hamas.

There are only 16 million Jews in the world today. We make up 0.2% of the global population. Fourteen hundred of us were murdered on October 7 and more than 240 of us are being held hostage. Everyone knows someone who is affected. Friends are missing. Family was killed. It is all anyone has been able to think about for the last 18 days. We are not okay.

So let me ask you again: Why are you so silent now?

The only answer I can come up with is that you didn’t know. So now you do.

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Raised in Southern California, Mara has spent her career serving the Jewish community in San Diego. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science – International Relations from the University of California, San Diego, and a master’s degree in International Development and Service from Concordia University in Portland, Oregon.