Looking back on what I wrote, and where we are now.
I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day.
Today is a personal essay about the war in Gaza.
Going back.
A little more than 10 months ago, I woke up to a horrifying text message from a friend: Israel had been attacked by Hamas.
It was bad, he said.
Very bad.
On that rainy fall Saturday morning in Philadelphia, I was thousands of miles from the yeshiva I'd studied at in East Jerusalem, and years of distance separated me from the many friends I made during my six months living there. Still, my heart began to race, I shot up out of bed, and I stared at the link on my phone trying to decide whether to click it.
As part of my (admittedly unique) observance of Shabbat, I log off of social media and refrain from any news consumption from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday night. While most observant Jews have much stricter rules, this — along with keeping kosher, attending services, and taking part in a Shabbat meal — is part of the way I stay connected to my faith in the modern world.
The friend who sent me the text knows this, which is how he knows I wouldn't have seen the news. Surely, he wouldn't have sent me the text if he wasn't certain the reports were legitimate. I swiped down on my iPhone and there they were: Dozens of hidden news notifications reporting the same story. My heart sank. I fell back into my bed, clicked a Reuters story at the top of the notification list, and began to read.
It was worse than I thought.
I started texting my friends in Israel, checking to see if the people I knew were alive or okay or had any information, knowing full well that some of them may not reply either — or even know what had happened — given that Shabbat had yet to conclude. Eventually, I was relieved to learn that all my friends were safe; but every single one of them knew someone who had been killed, maimed, or taken hostage.
In the 10 months since, the notifications haven't stopped. Nor has the reading, the watching, or the unremitting debate. The conflict never seems to take a day off. Horror after horror after horror has populated my newsfeed, typically inflicted upon Gazans, but every so often there has been a new Israeli tragedy, too — a dead soldier, a dead hostage, an attack from Iran or Hezbollah or the Houthis.
The Tuesday after Hamas’ attack, on October 10, I published this edition of Tangle. "My take" became the most-read piece of writing I've ever published. The vast majority of the people who read it responded positively, regarding it as a measured take on the conflict and the attacks, though of course that left ardent supporters of Israel and Palestine alike voicing their outrage.
This excerpt, taken from a section where I had written critically about Israel, became one of the most contentious passages in the entire piece. I got emails from dozens of readers, friends, and strangers condemning me for it:
Israel has already responded with a vengeance, and they will continue to. Their desire for violence is not unlike Hamas’s — it’s just as much about blood for blood as any legitimate security measure. Israel will “have every right to respond with force." Toppling Hamas — a group, by the way, Israel erred in supporting — will now be the objective, and civilian death will be seen as necessary collateral damage.
But Israel will also do a bunch of things they don't have a right to. They will flatten apartment buildings and kill civilians and children and many in the global community will probably cheer them on while they do it.
They have already stopped the flow of water, electricity, and food to two million people, and killed dozens of civilians in their retaliatory bombings. We should never accept this, never lose sight that this horror is being inflicted on human beings. As the group B’Tselem said, “There is no justification for such crimes, whether they are committed as part of a struggle for freedom from oppression or cited as part of a war against terror.” I mourn for the innocents of Palestine just as I do for the innocents in Israel. As of late, many, many more have died on their side than Israel's. And many more Palestinians are likely to die in this spate of violence, too.
Unfortunately, most people in the West only pay attention to this story when Hamas or a Palestinian in Gaza or the West Bank commits an act of violence. Palestinian citizens die regularly at the hands of the Israeli military and their plight goes largely unnoticed until they respond with violence of their own. Israel had already killed an estimated 250 Palestinians, including 47 children, this year alone. And that is just in the West Bank.
Every single time Israel kills someone in the name of self-defense they create a handful of new radicalized extremists who will feel justified in wanting to take an Israeli life in retribution sometime in the future. Half of Gaza’s two million people are under the age of 19 — they know little besides Hamas rule (since 2006), Israeli occupation, blockades, and rockets falling from the sky. The suffering of these innocent children born into this reality is incomprehensible to me. They will suffer more now because of Hamas’s actions and Israel’s response, all through no fault of their own.
There is no way out of this pattern until one side exercises restraint or leaders on both sides find a new solution.
I'm writing today to revisit this piece. And I'll spoil the ending: I don't have much good news. This will not be an uplifting newsletter. This will not be easy to read. I'm here to tell you that all my worst fears have come true — and many have been exceeded. On October 10, I was writing about “dozens” of dead Palestinians and lamenting the “250” who had been killed that year — today, we’re discussing death tolls that are orders of magnitude higher.
I wish this weren't so. Genuinely. If I am being radically honest, I wish I could write to you today to tell you that Israel — a country I fell in love with as a young man and saw as a beacon of hope in an otherwise battered region — had taken a just and righteous road. I wish I were writing to you with news of a swift, precise military victory conducted with remarkable restraint and moral conduct. I wish these things because I'm a Zionist, a Jew, and a believer in democracy and freedom. I do not want to utter a sentence or write a word that gives strength to the enemies of these values. It'd be so much easier to see Hamas as the one and only “bad guys” here, and have that viewpoint magically white out all the details of what Israel has done.
And yet, there is another side to this coin: Not speaking the truth about what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank right now undermines these values even more. Not being able to speak the things I can see with my own eyes reduces my credibility, and the credibility of people I consider allies, and thus undermines our ability to speak with legitimacy about freedom, democracy, international norms, Western values, or the future of Israel.
Ignoring what is happening, or downplaying it, or excusing it, or asking what about anything else doesn't just give more strength to the enemies of these values — it gives cover to their dishonest champions.
In order to engage in an honest debate about the costs and benefits of this war, and the future of it, you have to grapple with the reality on the ground. You have to look at it with clear eyes and honesty. You have to actually see it.
Don't run away.
A few months ago, I read a piece by someone who was being incredibly unfair to Israel. I thought the piece was dishonest, borderline anti-Semitic, and ahistorical. I had paid to read this person's writing, and I loathed that I had done so. So I canceled my subscription and unsubscribed from their newsletter.
About a week later I came back. I realized, after letting my emotions reset, that the author was challenging my views in ways other writers weren't. While I disagreed strongly with their arguments on Israel, they had punctured a bubble I had built for myself, and I reacted vehemently not just because I was offended, but because I was uncomfortable. I may have disagreed with how they presented or wrote about one issue, but that didn't mean I should abandon them altogether.
I am usually on the other side of that interaction. I am usually the person being canceled; this is usually the newsletter people unsubscribe from because they didn't like an opinion of mine.
So, I wanted to take a few paragraphs to plead with you not to be like me. Be better than me. Don't run from what I'm writing. Send me a note, argue, have the dialogue, leave a comment, convince me I'm wrong. I suspect we’ll be publishing a lot of reader feedback after this newsletter. First, though, hear me out. Look at what I’m showing you. Don't run.
What I can see with my own two eyes.
There are very few independent monitors in Gaza. Hundreds of journalists have been killed or displaced, and a scant few impartial ones remain on the ground. The Gaza Health Ministry seems to oscillate between accurate accounts of events and inflated death tolls. Relief organizations have strained relationships with Palestinians and Israelis, and some include among their ranks active members of the Palestinian resistance — a fact often pointed out to discredit the entire relief effort.