The terrorist attacks on Israelis – launched by Hamas from Gaza – were horrifying. Civilians were killed and maimed, a rain of rockets, villages sacked, hundreds dead or taken hostage.
The response is likely to be worse. Taken wholly by surprise, Israel’s military immediately responded. Airstrikes have killed and wounded hundreds of Palestinian civilians. Even as he announced a “complete siege” of Gaza, cutting off electricity and all access to the outside world, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu told Palestinians in Gaza to “leave now” because Israel is going to “turn all Hamas hiding places into rubble.” But the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza have no way to leave.
Terror feeds fear, and fear feeds violence. Americans have experienced the terrible costs of that vicious cycle over the last decades. After the terrorist attack on 9/11, the US declared a “war on terror,” invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and spent some $8 trillion and thousands of lives striking back. Yet the violent response ended with the Taliban in charge of Afghanistan, chaos in Iraq, a spread of terrorist violence across the world, the US besmirched by its use of torture, and more.
In response to the terror attack on Saturday, President Biden affirmed US support for Israel and repositioned a US aircraft strike force in the Mediterranean.
What is needed is for the US to be far more active diplomatically than militarily. The violent response already underway will not produce peace. An eye for an eye simply leaves the combatants blind, disfigured, and ugly.
Desperately needed is a peace offensive, not a war offensive. The US should join with others in calling for a ceasefire, a release of all hostages, and the beginning of negotiations to deal with the underlying conditions that fuel the violence.
The Hamas attack is a heinous act of terror aimed at civilians. It is also a sign of desperation. The Netanyahu government – the most extreme right coalition in Israeli history – has brutally declared its plans to deny Palestinians independence. The conditions in Gaza – 2.3 million people, half unemployed, trapped in one of the most densely populated spots on the planet – condemn its residents to misery. There is no justification for the Hamas terror attacks. There is no justification for the brutal Israeli occupation, its decades of building settlements over the objections of the world community, its confiscations, waves of settler violence, and more.
They that sow the wind, the Bible teaches, they shall reap the whirlwind. After decades, it does not matter who did the first sowing. What matters now is to try to stop the cycle of violence and address the underlying conditions that might lead to peace.
Can peace triumph over violence? Fifty years ago, Israel was caught off guard as the Egyptians launched what became known as the Yom Kippur War.
Israel recovered and defeated its enemies on the battlefield. US diplomacy – most significantly under Jimmy Carter – helped carve out the 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt.
As I have said for over 50 years, Israel has the right to security. Palestinians have the right to freedom. Israeli security and Palestinian freedom are two sides of the same coin. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians will achieve those ends through violence. That leads only to more death, more hatred, and more power to the worst forces on both sides. What is needed is leadership that will design a path to peace out of the horror, not a path for more military force and more horror.
Israel and Palestine are on the other side of the world; but they are also in our communities. Chicago, New York, and other cities witnessed demonstrations of Israeli and Palestinian supporters in the wake of the violence. We have a stake—often very personal – in peace in that holy region.
Rage and fear fuel calls for more violence. But this is a time for leadership – and the US must lead in the effort to create a just and durable peace out of this horror. Without that, there will be no victory, only more violence and more innocents killed.
You can write to the Rev. Jesse Jackson in care of this newspaper or by email at jjackson@rainbowpush.org. Follow him on Twitter @RevJJackson.
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