On Israel and the war, I am four Jews

This is my best current take. Help me make it better by suggesting perspectives I’ve missed or points you would emphasize differently.

There are no bumper stickers on my Nissan Leaf, but if the car had one for the war in Israel and Gaza, it would read something like this:

“Honk if you support the war and have a better strategy for fighting it.”

Or perhaps:

“If you’re not wrestling with the complexity, you’re not paying attention.”

I made the case for the first bumper sticker in a recent piece called How to Best Restore Israel’s Security and Save Innocent Lives.

It’s now time to explain the second sticker. The message applies to everyone, but it is particularly directed at American Jews like me. Many of us are deeply torn about the war. This includes people whose message is “I stand with Israel” and, in contrast, those primarily pained by Israel’s actions.

What’s behind this inner tearing? Many factors. One that gets less attention than it deserves is the mismatch between the war’s complexity and our minds’ capacity to handle this complexity, especially when we’re flooded with difficult emotions. The situation demands an ability to hold many perspectives at once, but our minds under stress frequently grasp onto the one that seems safest and/or least likely to cost us relationships. The catch is that this perspective varies based on who we spend time with and which people we feel loyal to at any given moment. We don’t have the capacity to hold all of this at once.

The result is that we feel inner tearing. It hurts. It’s confusing. And it is poorly represented in the polarized public debate. Thus, in addition to being tangled up, we feel alone.

For American Jews, there is not one stance toward the conflict, but four. I count myself in this, so here’s how I’d frame the situation:

On Israel and the war, I have not one perspective, but four. And although I’d like to think that I hold these perspectives, just as often I am held by them. Instead of me owning them, they own me. In this sense, I am not one Jew, but four Jews, each renting varying proportions of my awareness at different moments.

Here are descriptions of the four Jews. All of these find ample representation in the American Jewish population. Although some details apply more to me personally than do others, there is a version of each Jew within me.

Script-Flipping Jew

Summary: I grew up hearing a fairy tale about Israel. Now I see the light.

Story: The Jewish community in which I was raised painted Israel as a heroic underdog of history. It was David battling Goliath, a courageous liberal democratic country in a land of despots. With ingenuity, it transformed an arid landscape into lush cropland. With courage, it battled large invading Arab armies and, against all odds, won. This is what my family and community taught me. This is what I believed in my bones. And it was all a lie…or at least incomplete and misleading. I now see Israel’s sins and flaws, and I don’t like them. And I’m embarrassed that I once innocently believed in its pure virtuosity.

Often heard saying or at least thinking

• “Israel does not speak for me.”
• “I stand with the Palestinians. I stand for justice.”
• “The mainstream Jewish community is oppressive. Nobody wants to listen to me.”
• “Before Israel was created, many Jews were anti-Zionist.”
• “There is a long tradition of Jews taking moral stands critical of the Jewish community. I stand in this tradition.”
• “I will not remain quiet amidst this ethnic cleansing and genocide.”

Common moods

Note: I define a mood as a persistent emotional state coupled with an assessment of the future. This combination creates a particular predisposition for action. Moods are to emotions as climate is to weather. They stick around. So it’s worth paying attention to them.

• Resentment toward Israel, the Jewish community, and my childhood community
• Guilt about being Jewish in a world where Israel wields power
• Resolve to differentiate myself from Israel’s unsavory actions

I grow by realizing that

• I regularly ignore or filter out facts and perspectives that counter my current story about Israel and the Palestinians. I refer to these facts and perspectives as lies and propaganda. That’s how I justify them. But could my mind be caught in cognitive bias?
• My heart is closed to the suffering of Israelis, especially Israeli Jews. Such closeheartedness is so unlike me as it contradicts my universal compassion. What could be going on?
• My argument with Israel is a displaced version of the argument I long to have with my community of origin.
• My frustration with Israel is not a self-authoring act. I’m simply flipping the script on my socialized mind. Before, I swallowed whole the tale of Israel as David. I automatically and reflexively internalized this perspective from the childhood community around me. That’s the socialized mind described by Harvard’s Robert Kegan. Now, I am swallowing whole the tale of Israel as devil incarnate or at least deeply flawed. I automatically and reflexively internalize this perspective from the progressive community around me. This is the same socialized mind, but with an inverted script.

Home Team Jew

Summary: I stand fully with Israel even though I see its flaws, especially when it is under attack.

Story: Of course, I see Israel’s country’s faults and sins, but they are no greater than that of any other country. The UN, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch all single out Israel by holding it to higher standards than everyone else. Ditto for far-left activists in universities and major cities. Whether this behavior is due to antisemitism or ignorant stupidity and bias, one thing is clear: the world won’t give Israel a fair shake. So in the public sphere, I will not feed ammunition to Israel’s enemies by criticizing it.

Often heard saying or at least thinking

• “I stand with Israel.”
• “The world singles Israel out for criticism.”
• “Israel may look strong compared with Palestinians, but it is surrounded by enemies determined to destroy it.”
• “Why does the media uncritically accept everything Hamas says even though it’s a death cult built around murder and lies?”
• “Even global women’s organizations won’t condemn Hamas’s rapes.”
• “The Palestinian and Arab countries have rejected every peace offer and every proposal for a two-state solution.”

Common moods

• Resolve in supporting Israel in a world that too often leaves it standing alone
• Anger about the unfair criticism Israel receives
• Fear of rising anti-semitism
• Anxiety about own ability to keep the criticism private

I grow by realizing that

• I can firmly support Israel’s right to exist and duty to defend itself while expressing discomfort with certain actions it takes. Israelis themselves do this every day, don’t they?
• Israel’s ability to survive and thrive depends on its moral standing in the world. When I ask Israel to be at its best (however imperfect this may be), I’m taking a stronger stand for Israel’s longevity than when I brush its misdeeds under the carpet.
• Israel’s enemies and polemical critics take extreme positions that don’t represent my thinking. I can express concern with Israel’s actions while clearly differentiating myself from such positions.
• The people of Israel are not well represented by its current extreme far-right leadership. Why should I defend this leadership any more than I would defend my own country’s President when he or she acts in ways I don’t support?

All-in Jew

Summary: I stand fully behind Israel because it has a right and duty to defend itself against enemies devoted to destroying it. Period.

Story: Israel is surrounded by enemies bent on its destruction. It is the only democracy in the Middle East. It is the one place in the world where Jews do not have to fear the government or broader public turning against them. Israel’s critics do not understand what the country is about and hold Israel to a higher standard than any other country. When you’re fighting an enemy that has massacred your people, the war is just. When that enemy uses its civilians as human shields to win the world’s sympathy, it, not Israel, is committing war crimes and does not deserve a pass. If your family and community had been massacred and raped, you would look at this exactly the same way.

Often heard saying or at least thinking: similar to Home Team Jew but with more conviction and very little doubt or self-censoring

Common moods: similar to Home Team Jew but without the anxiety

I grow by realizing that

• The suffering of Palestinians isn’t only a fact visible to my mind but also something I can feel with my heart
• Maybe, in some ways and at certain times, Israel crosses the line. Maybe I cannot justify everything it does. Maybe it’s OK to acknowledge this to myself.
• These tiny voices of doubt are not indications of disloyalty but instead signs that my heart is opening. Acknowledging them may feel like a death to be avoided but is actually a sign of a new self gradually being born.

Split-in-Two Jew

This may seem like simply a combination of the first three Jews, but it has characteristics that are worth describing separately. This is technically a split-in-three Jew.

Summary: I am deeply torn about what Israel is doing and what I should say about it.

Story: Israel has a right and duty to defend itself, yet I feel uncomfortable with the approach it is taking. The slaughter of Jews on October 7 was horrible. I have friends who were murdered and others who were kidnapped. The experience was horrific. Then Israel started bombing Gaza. For the first few days, the world community came out in support of Israel, but quickly that turned. As the images of destroyed buildings filled the screen and as the Palestinian death count increased, I started feeling sick in my stomach. I had barely started to grieve the loss before my mind was overwhelmed with worry about Israel’s actions. Yet even then, the experience of wrestling with Israel’s choices was confused by the vitriolic anger directed against Israel in large street protests and in social media posts. I feel sick about the massacre, disturbed by Israel’s bombings, and fearful about rising anti-semitism. It’s all one big tangled emotional mess.

Often heard saying or at least thinking

• “The whole thing is so disturbing and confusing.”
• “I’m tied up in knots around this.”
• “It’s hard to know where to stand.”
• “I don’t know what to say.”

Common moods

• Confusion about what’s happening out there and the conflicts happening within me
• Frustration by how hard it is to see things clearly
• Disappointment that things are turning out like this

I grow by realizing that

• The inner tearing is absolutely normal and understandable. The fact that I experience so many different angles and emotions isn’t a sign of incompetence. On the contrary, it suggests that this conflict is pushing me toward my growth edge.
• It’s OK and even healthy to make space in my awareness for everything I am experiencing.
• I cannot do this alone. It’s useful to be in conversation with others who are similarly conflicted and someone who can hold the space for us.

The opportunity to grow

You’ve probably heard the saying “Grow or die.” I don’t think that’s the actual choice we face. It’s possible to live decades without growing and expanding ourselves. This is how things go down for far too many of us. It describes substantial periods in my own life. And the path of growth in adulthood is itself a winding road with twists and turns, frequently fallbacks and unexpected steps forward. That’s how evolution rolls.

Yet whether the wicked ugly mess is the war in Israel and Gaza, climate change, AI, political polarization, rising illiberalism, or the culture wars, the situation offers us an opportunity. We can speak and listen not as the person we were yesterday, but as the person we aspire to be tomorrow and on behalf of the world we are dedicated to fostering.

Weary of the pointless prickly polarization? Ready for more fiercely nuanced stands? I can help.

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