This week I wrote and re-wrote a YLE article to describe the complex humanitarian emergency unfolding due to Hamas’s attacks and counteracts. A dire public health crisis is unfolding front and center. I have written at least a dozen drafts. Had many conversations with Jewish and Palestinian friends gracious enough to provide constructive feedback. I’ve stayed up many nights. My copy editor is about to wring my neck. My toddlers keep knocking on my office door.
I don't know what your copy editor is telling you, but you haven't mentioned the words "Israeli atrocities". These words belong right alongside the words "Hamas terrorism". Perhaps I am emboldened to say these words because I am Jewish, and it is more difficult to call me antisemitic.
Hi Josh - thanks for speaking out. I am also of Jewish ancestry. I urge anyone who feels as Katelyn seems to feel to learn about the conditions endured by Palestinians over the past 56 years. Many highly educated Jewish people I know are also largely ignorant of the details of this history. Every major human rights organization in the world has condemned the Israeli occupation. The ongoing human rights violations are deep, wide, and well-documented. I suggest starting here: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/11/the-occupation-of-water/. This is not to excuse the violence of Hamas, but that violence did not come out of nowhere.
I honor that there are a range of orientations to this catastrophic situation, but to claim that Hamas is holding Gaza hostage is really aggregious. I felt sick reading that.
As I’m sure you also know, there’s always “self-hating Jew.”
Did you notice how this post was the mirror image of the Harvard pro-Palestinian statement? There, Hamas had no free will; it was all Israel’s fault; here, it’s all Hamas’ fault. False binaries are a mental plague—and definitely lab-leaked.
Thanks for your comment. Speaking up when it’s hard is what matters.
Focusing on twenty-odd trucks after two weeks for 2.3m people, at least half of whom are children, who have been under “total siege”—no food, water, fuel, medicine, anesthesia, et al, ramping up from the “starvation diet” of eighteen years of “normal siege”—who are officially considered “human animals” of whom “[none] are innocent” as hope instead of the sick insult it is doesn’t help in any way except letting ourselves off the hook.
Because we are jointly responsible for this.
So I’m not too interested in our collective emotional state right now—we, in our comfy homes worrying about our “cost of care” (for whom?)—except insofar as the memory of one genocide is being cynically abused to permit another. I’m focused on doing all I can to stop US-backed collective punishment and genocide.
Never again. No matter who the victims or perpetrators are.
Hamas is holding the Gazans hostage? Um... that is a complete misstatement. I am no apologist for Hamas, which unfortunately I need to say, because every time someone tries to contextualize their atrocities others make accusations that one is justifying terrorism. Not at all. It is a horrific, horrific humanitarian crisis, where both sides are currently committing war crimes, and the only ultimate solution (after a cease fire) would be for everyone in the region to have equal political and human rights. That means, for example, no apartheid laws, no two sets of roads, no checkpoints, no open air prison in Gaza. The fascist government of Israel seems hell-bent on the genocide of a people they describe as animals. Not in my name!
Katelyn, I hear you saying "I can't do this justice right now so I'm not going to write about it." You don't have to immediately have all the answers. But I wonder whether choosing to highlight only the horrific violence done by Hamas, and thereby minimizing decades of brutal occupation, is actually a move that aligns with your values.
You're a violence epidemiologist, right? What on earth did you mean by "conditions fed with neglect for years from within?" The Israeli government, funded by the US, has maintained a system of apartheid and held 2,000,000 people hostage in Gaza for decades. They control whether Gazans have access to water, food, fuel, and medicine. They use racist language that refers to Palestinians as animals. Israel, with the explicit support of western governments, including yours and mine, is poised to erase Palestine -- to kill or forcibly move every Palestinian from their lands, and to rename Palestine as if it has always been Israel. This is not neglect. This is a slow genocide that is now accelerating. I am terrified for what this will mean for the world if it is not stopped. If millions of people do not speak out against the occupation of Palestine.
How conveniently you appear to ignore the explicit Hamas declaration of founding principle: “to exterminate all Jews.” The Palestinian people need to effectively separate themselves from that line of thinking; otherwise, they are complicit.
And, no, Israel is not blameless in all that has happened.
But, Americans cannot speak from history to assert that we have an effective countermeasure. Outward physical bondage was replaced with economic, social and political bondage of formerly enslaved people and their descendants that persists to this day and is being reinvigorated. If we can overcome that log in our eye, only then might we be in a position to offer constructive suggestions. At least, our President is conveying recognition of things that we fouled and perpetrated in reacting to 9/11.
This is so familiar: in order to receive humane treatment, the Palestinian people must FIRST prove to the world that they are not all Jew-hating terrorists. Do you not see how racist that is? Do you need to be told that Hamas does not speak for all Palestinians? There, I’ve told you.
To be clear, I am not suggesting that the US step in and “fix” this. LOL. My main hope regarding US involvement is that the US government stops funding Israel’s annihilation of Palestine. That Israel will lose access to drones, combat vehicles, fighter jets and bombs made by General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman—all of whom saw their stocks rise as soon as Israel began its latest bombardment of Palestine.
And somehow you don’t think your suggested approach would not fulfill Hamas’ declared mission?
Safe homelands for both people’s seems like a better option but that does not appear to be something the world wants right now. Least of all, the immediate belligerents.
Brian, I'm so glad you don't speak for the world! Despite atrocious leadership, Palestinian and Jewish groups, internationally and in Israel and Palestine have been working side by side for decades to end the occupation and achieve justice and peace.
There is no lasting safety or dignity in being a violent, occupying force. If your security depends upon apartheid and the dehumanization of millions of people, then no amount of bombs will ever make you safe.
Israel was never meant to make Jews safe. Israel was created in order to protect British and then American interests in the region. Powerful western governments have weaponized Jewish trauma in order to protect their interests, at the expense of Palestinians AND Jews. Biden has publicly acknowledged this, more than once: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2HZs-v0PR44
It would seem that a precondition for good public health is peace. Without that, our once lofty goals are reduced to sifting through rubble, tending to broken bodies families and human spirits, and fleeing the next atrocity. It might be why writing this post was so difficult, in addition to the emotional toll that terrorism and war take, even from afar, though immeasurably worse for those at ground zero. Public health as I understand it deals with population level disease, hygiene, epidemiology, and prevention. War destroys all that and more.
I thought Biden’s address last night was excellent, too. Listen to it as just an American for a moment, regardless of political party.
There's a famous scene in the TV series MASH when a surgeon says war is worse than Hell. The Chaplain asks, how do you figure that? "Father, who is in Hell?" "Sinners, I believe." "Exactly: there are no innocents in Hell."
Thank you. As always. Showing the grappling and thought and heart matters too. And yes, presence, presence, as you showed in the heart of COVID, particularly for our babies, and now again. Presence and wisdom. Thank you.
Your "failure" to write find the words to describe the horror that afflicts everyone in the region is eloquent indeed. Words fail us all, even a talented communicator like you. There is no easy way to paint the picture of the pain and suffering of children and families on both sides. There is no easy narrative that helps us see things in black and white. We should focus, as you did, on our shared humanity and on ending the horror. Thank you
It is WITHOUT QUESTION that Jews deserve to feel safe from harm and prejudice. That SAFETY is a basic human right. That anti-semitism, especially as it has increased in the wake of Trump's presidency, is EVERYONE'S problem.
All we are saying is: NO ONE'S liberation comes at the cost of someone else's oppression. That shouldn't be controversial??? Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN have been sounding the alarm and publishing reports about the inhumane conditions Palestinians have been living in for 70+ years, including not being allowed to collect rain water without a "permit" from the Israeli government (source: "The Occupation of Water" report published by Amnesty International on 11/29/2017). But these facts don't matter to people. The constant gaslighting is so exhausting.
As appalled as I am by the Hammas attack, I find odd how those of us in the WEIRD nations (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) believe that because we can’t see the civilian deaths we've caused by bombs & missiles in our 20 yrs war in the SWA, that they are less horrific than what happened in Israel. Brown University’s Watson Center “cost of war” project keeps a running tallyi. An interesting chart:
46k in Afghanistan, around 200k in Iraq. Since the US military asiduously avoids tallying civilian deaths for fear of the public backlash, we’ll never know hiw many can be attributed to us or to the “other guy.”
In remote killing, if you can’t smell the breath of your victim, I guess that they don’t count.
Thank you. What you have done is no failure, but rather a clear statement of what it means to be humans confronted with the worst we have within us. It seems to me that what we have done over the course of our time on earth as Homo sapiens sapiens, is to pile trauma on top of trauma, while rarely, if ever, achieving compassionate resolution of any of the traumatic events. Payback, revenge, demonization of the other...these are our particular talents that can enable us to commit atrocities with what appears to be clear conscience. And we ignore the data that shows what happens to people, even trained soldiers, when they kill. My favorite hymn from churchgoing days was "Turn back, o man, forswear thy foolish ways." Thank you again, for speaking to the unspeakable.
I don't know what your copy editor is telling you, but you haven't mentioned the words "Israeli atrocities". These words belong right alongside the words "Hamas terrorism". Perhaps I am emboldened to say these words because I am Jewish, and it is more difficult to call me antisemitic.
Hi Josh - thanks for speaking out. I am also of Jewish ancestry. I urge anyone who feels as Katelyn seems to feel to learn about the conditions endured by Palestinians over the past 56 years. Many highly educated Jewish people I know are also largely ignorant of the details of this history. Every major human rights organization in the world has condemned the Israeli occupation. The ongoing human rights violations are deep, wide, and well-documented. I suggest starting here: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/11/the-occupation-of-water/. This is not to excuse the violence of Hamas, but that violence did not come out of nowhere.
I honor that there are a range of orientations to this catastrophic situation, but to claim that Hamas is holding Gaza hostage is really aggregious. I felt sick reading that.
As I’m sure you also know, there’s always “self-hating Jew.”
Did you notice how this post was the mirror image of the Harvard pro-Palestinian statement? There, Hamas had no free will; it was all Israel’s fault; here, it’s all Hamas’ fault. False binaries are a mental plague—and definitely lab-leaked.
Thanks for your comment. Speaking up when it’s hard is what matters.
What you DID write helps us all.. you are a special human.. thank you..
A vicious Hamas pogrom is being met with Israeli collective punishment and genocide with full US backing. Seventeen words.
More could be added, such as this by a Jewish Israeli scholar of the Holocaust and genocide: https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide
It’s not so tongue-tyingly hard.
Focusing on twenty-odd trucks after two weeks for 2.3m people, at least half of whom are children, who have been under “total siege”—no food, water, fuel, medicine, anesthesia, et al, ramping up from the “starvation diet” of eighteen years of “normal siege”—who are officially considered “human animals” of whom “[none] are innocent” as hope instead of the sick insult it is doesn’t help in any way except letting ourselves off the hook.
Because we are jointly responsible for this.
So I’m not too interested in our collective emotional state right now—we, in our comfy homes worrying about our “cost of care” (for whom?)—except insofar as the memory of one genocide is being cynically abused to permit another. I’m focused on doing all I can to stop US-backed collective punishment and genocide.
Never again. No matter who the victims or perpetrators are.
Harsh words, but not one of them untrue. “Never again” means “never again for anyone.”
And the strategy is now officially permanent total siege: https://www.ft.com/content/d583f2eb-44f3-48cc-9910-619eac68dcef
Doug - that is an excellent article.
More here: https://opiniojuris.org/2023/10/18/public-statement-scholars-warn-of-potential-genocide-in-gaza/
Signed by hundreds including Israeli Jewish scholars.
Hamas is holding the Gazans hostage? Um... that is a complete misstatement. I am no apologist for Hamas, which unfortunately I need to say, because every time someone tries to contextualize their atrocities others make accusations that one is justifying terrorism. Not at all. It is a horrific, horrific humanitarian crisis, where both sides are currently committing war crimes, and the only ultimate solution (after a cease fire) would be for everyone in the region to have equal political and human rights. That means, for example, no apartheid laws, no two sets of roads, no checkpoints, no open air prison in Gaza. The fascist government of Israel seems hell-bent on the genocide of a people they describe as animals. Not in my name!
Katelyn, I hear you saying "I can't do this justice right now so I'm not going to write about it." You don't have to immediately have all the answers. But I wonder whether choosing to highlight only the horrific violence done by Hamas, and thereby minimizing decades of brutal occupation, is actually a move that aligns with your values.
You're a violence epidemiologist, right? What on earth did you mean by "conditions fed with neglect for years from within?" The Israeli government, funded by the US, has maintained a system of apartheid and held 2,000,000 people hostage in Gaza for decades. They control whether Gazans have access to water, food, fuel, and medicine. They use racist language that refers to Palestinians as animals. Israel, with the explicit support of western governments, including yours and mine, is poised to erase Palestine -- to kill or forcibly move every Palestinian from their lands, and to rename Palestine as if it has always been Israel. This is not neglect. This is a slow genocide that is now accelerating. I am terrified for what this will mean for the world if it is not stopped. If millions of people do not speak out against the occupation of Palestine.
How conveniently you appear to ignore the explicit Hamas declaration of founding principle: “to exterminate all Jews.” The Palestinian people need to effectively separate themselves from that line of thinking; otherwise, they are complicit.
And, no, Israel is not blameless in all that has happened.
But, Americans cannot speak from history to assert that we have an effective countermeasure. Outward physical bondage was replaced with economic, social and political bondage of formerly enslaved people and their descendants that persists to this day and is being reinvigorated. If we can overcome that log in our eye, only then might we be in a position to offer constructive suggestions. At least, our President is conveying recognition of things that we fouled and perpetrated in reacting to 9/11.
This is so familiar: in order to receive humane treatment, the Palestinian people must FIRST prove to the world that they are not all Jew-hating terrorists. Do you not see how racist that is? Do you need to be told that Hamas does not speak for all Palestinians? There, I’ve told you.
To be clear, I am not suggesting that the US step in and “fix” this. LOL. My main hope regarding US involvement is that the US government stops funding Israel’s annihilation of Palestine. That Israel will lose access to drones, combat vehicles, fighter jets and bombs made by General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman—all of whom saw their stocks rise as soon as Israel began its latest bombardment of Palestine.
And somehow you don’t think your suggested approach would not fulfill Hamas’ declared mission?
Safe homelands for both people’s seems like a better option but that does not appear to be something the world wants right now. Least of all, the immediate belligerents.
Brian, I'm so glad you don't speak for the world! Despite atrocious leadership, Palestinian and Jewish groups, internationally and in Israel and Palestine have been working side by side for decades to end the occupation and achieve justice and peace.
There is no lasting safety or dignity in being a violent, occupying force. If your security depends upon apartheid and the dehumanization of millions of people, then no amount of bombs will ever make you safe.
Israel was never meant to make Jews safe. Israel was created in order to protect British and then American interests in the region. Powerful western governments have weaponized Jewish trauma in order to protect their interests, at the expense of Palestinians AND Jews. Biden has publicly acknowledged this, more than once: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2HZs-v0PR44
Thank you. We are all speechless.
It would seem that a precondition for good public health is peace. Without that, our once lofty goals are reduced to sifting through rubble, tending to broken bodies families and human spirits, and fleeing the next atrocity. It might be why writing this post was so difficult, in addition to the emotional toll that terrorism and war take, even from afar, though immeasurably worse for those at ground zero. Public health as I understand it deals with population level disease, hygiene, epidemiology, and prevention. War destroys all that and more.
I thought Biden’s address last night was excellent, too. Listen to it as just an American for a moment, regardless of political party.
There's a famous scene in the TV series MASH when a surgeon says war is worse than Hell. The Chaplain asks, how do you figure that? "Father, who is in Hell?" "Sinners, I believe." "Exactly: there are no innocents in Hell."
Thank you. As always. Showing the grappling and thought and heart matters too. And yes, presence, presence, as you showed in the heart of COVID, particularly for our babies, and now again. Presence and wisdom. Thank you.
Your "failure" to write find the words to describe the horror that afflicts everyone in the region is eloquent indeed. Words fail us all, even a talented communicator like you. There is no easy way to paint the picture of the pain and suffering of children and families on both sides. There is no easy narrative that helps us see things in black and white. We should focus, as you did, on our shared humanity and on ending the horror. Thank you
It is WITHOUT QUESTION that Jews deserve to feel safe from harm and prejudice. That SAFETY is a basic human right. That anti-semitism, especially as it has increased in the wake of Trump's presidency, is EVERYONE'S problem.
All we are saying is: NO ONE'S liberation comes at the cost of someone else's oppression. That shouldn't be controversial??? Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN have been sounding the alarm and publishing reports about the inhumane conditions Palestinians have been living in for 70+ years, including not being allowed to collect rain water without a "permit" from the Israeli government (source: "The Occupation of Water" report published by Amnesty International on 11/29/2017). But these facts don't matter to people. The constant gaslighting is so exhausting.
It is exhausting. Also deeply disappointing.
As appalled as I am by the Hammas attack, I find odd how those of us in the WEIRD nations (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) believe that because we can’t see the civilian deaths we've caused by bombs & missiles in our 20 yrs war in the SWA, that they are less horrific than what happened in Israel. Brown University’s Watson Center “cost of war” project keeps a running tallyi. An interesting chart:
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/WarDeathToll
46k in Afghanistan, around 200k in Iraq. Since the US military asiduously avoids tallying civilian deaths for fear of the public backlash, we’ll never know hiw many can be attributed to us or to the “other guy.”
In remote killing, if you can’t smell the breath of your victim, I guess that they don’t count.
There are no words to describe the sorrow but you have come close. So appreciated! Thank you!
Thank you. What you have done is no failure, but rather a clear statement of what it means to be humans confronted with the worst we have within us. It seems to me that what we have done over the course of our time on earth as Homo sapiens sapiens, is to pile trauma on top of trauma, while rarely, if ever, achieving compassionate resolution of any of the traumatic events. Payback, revenge, demonization of the other...these are our particular talents that can enable us to commit atrocities with what appears to be clear conscience. And we ignore the data that shows what happens to people, even trained soldiers, when they kill. My favorite hymn from churchgoing days was "Turn back, o man, forswear thy foolish ways." Thank you again, for speaking to the unspeakable.
Thank you very much for all you have written!
You've done a great service to us.
Thank you.