I’m a Jewish fella. I go to synagogue. I read the parsha (Torah portion) of the week, every week. I keep something approaching Kosher and keep something approaching Shabbos (which means I don’t work or travel Friday night and Saturday until sundown) imperfectly, but I think about it and feel it. I’m more Conservative than Orthodox and imperfect in my observance, but I understand how Orthodox people see the world, which is something like the way I see it.
I’ve always been connected to Jewish values and think about those values, write about them, try to understand, and try to practice them. I think Israel should exist, even must exist, and I like being in Israel in the sense that it’s the only place I don’t feel like an outsider, even as much as I hate being in Israel, because the mistrust, hatred, and anger between people of different traditions is palpable to me, especially in Jerusalem.
I thought October 7th was unspeakably brutal and inhuman and will never forgive or forget what happened there, what Hamas and Islamic Jihad did and how they did it, and I hope every day that the people who planned that unspeakable horror can be caught and punished, after all the hostages are released.
I’m also convinced that much of what the demonstrators are saying is wrong headed, naïve, distractionary, and incredibly one sided. Boycott and divest? What good is that going to do? Our great big boycott of Russia didn’t slow Putin’s invasion of Ukraine one iota. From the river to the sea? That’s absurd. Both sides need to understand that neither Jews nor Palestinians are going away. The sooner everyone involved realizes that both peoples will continue to live in that God-forsaken land and that both need autonomy, independence, respect, dignity, and democracy, the sooner we’ll be able to end this unforgivable and unending violence and start on the pathway to peace.
Is there antisemitism mixed in with the calls for ceasefire and the elimination of the Jewish state? You bet there is. But is it all antisemitism? Absolutely not. Underneath many of the protests is a core truth, which the propaganda back and forth has obscured: there will never be peace until Palestinians have the right to live freely as a free people. But also, that violence won’t ever fix this, not on either side. Rockets, bombs, and missiles and suicide bombers only cause more pain.
So I’m deeply grateful to the demonstrators on college campuses for speaking up and speaking out.
Why? Because protest helps us fix social problems when the normal channels of government and diplomacy fails, as it has failed in the Middle East. And we all need to be reminded of that, and to start thinking out of the box, so we can find that pathway to peace.
Don’t the protests make me as a Jew feel unsafe? Perhaps. But my discomfiture is nothing compared to what people on both sides are going through in Gaza — the Palestinians, starving, their loved ones lying dead under the rubble, their houses destroyed; the hostages, pawns in a powerplay with no obvious pathway to resolution; and Israelis themselves, those murdered and maimed on October 7, those terrified and heartbroken and suddenly aware of their vulnerability, as well as thousands of Israeli soldiers and reservists, put in harm’s way by a government that seeks only to justify itself. Both peoples are hurting and heartbroken because two sets of men in power can’t see the suffering of others.
I’m grateful to the demonstrators because they are saying something needs to be said, which is the killing must stop, and because they are holding the rest of us to account for too many years of going along and getting along, of letting a dangerous wound fester, even if they are missing the mark in many important ways.
Sticks and stone will break my bones. Demonstrations will never hurt me. Let the demonstrators say what they want. But let us all hold ourselves accountable for letting the madness on both sides fester and spread for far too long.
The way forward is complicated and difficult. We will need huge reforms in Israel and Israeli government if there is to be a pathway to peace, reforms that well-meaning American Jews need to look at in the face and quit trying to block by calling every criticism of Israel antisemitism. We need a complete makeover of the Palestinian political process as well, and perhaps years of military occupation by Muslim officers from NATO or the UN, people steeped in democratic traditions, to put Gaza and the West Bank on the path to peace and democracy. None of that seems even imaginable. But it is certainly not imaginable unless and until everyone on both sides and in government itself looks this endless unnecessary violence in the face and stops pretending that they have the answer. Which they don’t.
So let us make all the noise we can, and demonstrate as much as we can, until we shake off our complacency and our enabling, until we put the value of human life before all everyone’s bright ideas. Let us make that pathway to peace a reality, as difficult as it will be to find a way forward together.
Michael Fine, MD, is a writer, community organizer, and family physician. He is the chief health strategist for the City of Central Falls, RI, and a former Director of the Rhode Island Department of Health, 2011–2015. He is currently the Board Vice Chair and Co-Founder of the Scituate Health Alliance, and is the recipient of the Barbara Starfield Award, the John Cunningham Award, and the June Rockwell Levy Public Service Award. He is the author of several books, medical, novels and short stories, including On Medicine and Colonialism, Rhode Island Stories, and The Bull and Other Stories, You can learn more about Michael at www.michaelfinemd.com
Thank you