On this grim anniversary, focus on what we can — and cannot — control

“I can’t control what happens to me,” my friend said as we sat by a lake one Shabbat afternoon this summer. “I can only control how I respond.”

She was talking about a family dispute. But her wise words apply equally to politics and war, to individuals, communities and nations. As I prepared for the anniversary of Oct. 7 and the High Holidays, this succinct life lesson stuck in my heart as the best way to reflect on this horrific, painful year and gird ourselves for the one to come.

We American Jews certainly cannot control whether and how Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas attack Israel.

We cannot control what distorted propaganda people post on social media.

We cannot control how activists protest the war on college campuses.

We cannot control the spewing of Jew hatred and Islamophobia.

We can, in each case, respond with integrity, humility, empathy and patience. And, perhaps most importantly, a long view.

We must, actually. The future of Israel and the Jewish people depend on it.

It can be hard to remember, after 365 days of devastating war in the Middle East and in our broken discourse around it, that most of the civilized world responded with proper horror and outrage at the barbaric attacks of Oct. 7. That the relative handful who openly celebrated were generally condemned.

Yet many American Jewish leaders responded not with gratitude for those multitudes who supported Israel’s right to defend itself, but by criticizing the minority who remained silent and magnifying the few who cheered. How many of those same leaders, 12 months on, cheered themselves when Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency blew up thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon, killing and injuring not just the Hezbollah operatives carrying them but the civilians around them in the market or at a funeral?

Too many.

Too many people have responded to Oct. 7 and its aftermath by retreating to familiar corners where their preconceptions are never challenged. Too many people have spent this year of grief and rage shouting past each other rather than creating space to pose tough questions — and listen to the answers. Too many have treated difficult discussions as dangerous rather than sit in the discomfort of complexity.

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While we cannot control what happens to us, our responses do affect what might happen next. That’s why the long view is so crucial.

Did you take off your Jewish star after Oct. 7 or put a sign in your lawn? Did that sign say “I stand with Israel” or “United against antisemitism”?

When you overheard people questioning whether Hamas committed sexual violence, did you speak up? What about when you heard people questioning the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza?

How have you allocated your tzedakah? Where are you getting your news about the war? What are you telling your children about it?

Each of these responses is a choice. We should make them with curiosity and with care.

Israel was right to respond with overwhelming force in Gaza after the brutal, dehumanizing assault of Oct. 7. But the response that was appropriate last October is not appropriate now, and has not been appropriate for many months. Israel’s response today should be guided by a single-minded focus: Bring home the hostages. That means ending the fighting in Gaza and withdrawing Israeli forces from the territory, including the Philadelphi corridor along its border with Egypt. Washington and the world, then, must respond by preventing Hamas from reviving its terror activities and oppressive reign.

Israel was also right to respond last month to a year of unceasing rocket fire on its northern communities by pulverizing Hezbollah strongholds and assassinating the terror group’s heinous leader, Hassan Nasrallah. But it would be a mistake to reoccupy southern Lebanon or otherwise expand that front now.

And Israel was, crucially, right in April to respond to the unprecedented direct attack from Iran with only limited, targeted, symbolic strikes. It must similarly show restraint again in responding to the barrage of ballistic missiles Tehran sent last week rather than spark all-out war.

That attack, terrifying as it was, revealed critical realities about Israel’s strengths and weaknesses. For even as Israeli and U.S. defense systems thwarted 99% of Iran’s 200 missiles, two Palestinian gunmen killed seven Israeli civilians at a light rail station in the center of Tel Aviv.

The existential threat to Israel’s survival is not the mullahs of Iran or their proxies. It’s the Palestinian conflict. And unfair as it may be, that conflict is Israel’s to solve because her enemies, though suffering disproportionately from it, are led by heartless dictators who benefit from its continuation.

My friend and colleague Rob Eshman wrote a column in November suggesting that people who disagree about Israel-Palestine should start any conversation by asking each other, “What do you want?” My answer: For Israel to be a Jewish and democratic state, safe and secure, with a sovereign Palestine next door. This guides my responses to what happens — in the Middle East and here at home.

One of my first responses to the horrors of Oct. 7 was “ Everything I thought I knew about Israel and Gaza was wrong .” None of us could ever have imagined thousands of Hamas terrorists breaching the high-tech border fence to rape and pillage and murder and kidnap, I wrote on Oct. 9. Who could have dreamed that Israel’s army and government would take so long to respond?

Revisiting the column on the cusp of this grim anniversary, I see we were also wrong, back then, to consider the attacks a fundamental paradigm shift in the conflict. They were an anomaly. The last few weeks have proved the prowess of Israel’s intelligence and military forces. And so Israel, and her supporters, must respond from a position of strength. With integrity, humility, empathy and a long-term view.

In that column a year ago, I said that “I was not wrong about one important thing: The status quo is clearly not sustainable.” This feels even truer today. The world has made it clear that it will not tolerate an Israel that endlessly occupies the West Bank and pummels Gaza. The looming alternatives are equally unpalatable for the vast majority of American Jews and plenty of Israelis as well.

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On the one hand, an apartheid “greater Israel” run by right-wing extremists, alienating Western allies, dividing the country and perpetually in active war on multiple fronts. On the other, a single, binational state “from the river to the sea,” whose majority, given the demographics, will inevitably be Palestinian, making this the third time in history when a Jewish homeland lasted but a fleeting moment.

We cannot control what happens to us. But we do choose how to respond.

American Jews should not succumb to hyperbolic comparisons of this moment to 1930s Germany, but acknowledge our privilege and prosperity. We must call out antisemitism where we see it, but also reckon with real, legitimate criticism of Israel’s actions rather than attribute every slight to Jew hatred. We can stand up against boycotts and cancellations of Zionists and Jews — and also of anti-Zionists and Muslims.

We should wrestle with complexity, and sit in the discomfort of our broken world.

We do not know what will happen on this sad and scary yahrzeit of the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. We can, though, respond with humility and understanding, with questions and patience, with strength and character. Our future depends on it.

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