OPINION: Let’s not hand Hamas a victory in the Diaspora
The truth is that not a word of what Rabbi Baginsky and Rabbi Levy said would be out of place at the weekly rally for the hostages in Tel Aviv
In nearly a quarter of a century reporting on our community, I’ve never seen anything like the scenes that played out in front of the national media at the hostages rally yesterday. As I stood in Whitehall watching two rabbis being shouted down by the crowd and then ejected from the stage by organisers, I couldn’t help but think that Hamas would be rubbing its hands in glee and welcoming these fruits of its monstrous handiwork.
It was the most public example yet of a phenomenon that is usually reserved for social media or private debate. We rightly ask the world to view Israel as another member of the family of nations but then, in some circles, refuse to tolerate criticism of government policy that any other government might receive. Just as social media rewards maximalist black and white thinking devoid of nuance, so too this increasingly seems to be a favoured approach offline.
As it happens, I don’t think Keir Starmer’s Labour will ever recover within the Jewish community if it recognises a Palestinian state while the hostages remain in underground dungeons and their captors in charge.
I say that as someone who prays we’ll one day see two states as the only realistic long-term solution but also as a Jewish journalist who feels and hears and writes about how deep the wounds of 7 October go. I say it as someone who sees up close how traumatised the vast majority of our community remains by the ever more harrowing images of hostages starved and abused for 675 days. And I realise that ours is a people that is, inevitably, forever changed by the horrors of that day nearly two years ago. Yes, there will be those for whom 7 October is just the latest excuse to oppose Palestinian statehood in any circumstance – indeed, a few proudly identified themselves during yesterday’s event. But for many in our community this remains a necessary if now distant goal.
On such a grave issue as the Middle East, we should be able to hold two thoughts in our heads at once. Surely we can pray daily for the hostages, and also recognise the suffering of innocents in Gaza. Recognising the latter doesn’t diminish the former. Indeed this reality seems to be given the loudest voice by the hostage families in Israel, so why not by us in the Diaspora?
Let’s be clear about what it is Rabbis Charley and Josh actually said: while stating that Hamas bears responsible for this war and what’s happened since 7 October, they went on to insist that Israel also has a role to play in bringing the hostages home and that the rhetoric of far-right ministers is an impediment to achieving this.
They went on to say that Palestinians have a right to statehood. “What we reject is a methodology that tries to force this future through violence, terror, and the suffering of civilians. Statehood cannot be built on the blood of innocents, and peace will never grow from the soil of fear. We say this because we affirm our common humanity. We mourn for those murdered on 7 October. For the soldiers who have since fallen and for those innocent civilians in Gaza whose lives have been lost. Every life is precious.”
Some will argue that this wasn’t the time or place or that the rabbis could have guessed what the reaction would be, but the truth is that not a word of this would be out of place at the weekly rally for the hostages in Tel Aviv. There was no criticism of the type peddled by the Israel-is-the-route-of-all-evil crowd who appear to be larger and louder than many of us feared. Though that realisation may well go some way to explaining why many have adopted a siege mentality, clouding their ability to hold two thoughts at the same time.
The community I know and love practised the ‘two Jews three opinions’ mantra like the best of them.
Is a result of this war that we can’t even listen to views with which we disagree? Have we really become a community for whom the very idea of Palestinian statehood is too much to handle, or that is unable to recognise the humanity of people ‘on the other side’? From the conversations I have, I genuinely think not. We had better hope not, or our ability to speak both to the next generation of Jews and to the world beyond our bubble will be severely limited. And then Hamas really will have won.
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