Dear Hadi,
Watching the Israel-Palestine conflict unfold, I find myself in deep confusion.
I have several close Jewish friends in my circle that I hold dear.
When news of the Hamas attack first emerged, I reached out to express my heartfelt sympathies, hoping to stand by them during a challenging time.
Now, I see the indiscriminate killing of people in Gaza by Israeli forces that far exceeds the brutality of what Hamas did.
I don’t understand why my Jewish friends don’t see that. I totally reject the brutality of Hamas, and I think any fair-minded person would reject the violence that the Israeli military is unleashing on Gaza.
I am nervous about how I can engage in a conversation with my Jewish friends about this painful situation in a way that respects their perspective while expressing my feelings and anger at the Israeli government.
Dear Struggling to Navigate,
Thank you very much for your question.
The dilemma you described is as complex as this situation is tragic. The issue is very raw and very laden with emotion on all sides.
Therefore, there are no easy answers.
Anything we say to you, or anything you say to anyone else, is likely to be met with these raw emotions rather than by logic. Vociferous denunciations will abound from both sides.
From those sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, we or you will, in their opinion, likely not have said enough and may be branded as appeasers who have abandoned the cause and forsaken innocent men, women, and children when they are most in need.
From those sympathetic to the Israeli calls, the charge will be that we are sympathizing with terrorists and helping fuel fanatic antisemitic rhetoric and behavior.
How is this to be navigated?
As we said, there are really no good answers.
However, we will offer two pieces of concrete advice to guide your responses and help you frame discussions:
Firstly, the best thing we can say to you is that our allegiance is, first and foremost, to the law of God and the Divine ethics revealed to guide human behavior.
This should apply to all of us, whether Muslims, Christians, or Jews.
The side we should all be on is the side of Divine ethics.
It is these divine ethics that should be used as the yardstick for judgment, and they are something that we should hold well above political affiliations.
We are not saying that there will not be or should not be anger, but the anger should be righteous, motivated by the tragedies that occur whenever God’s law is violated.
Likewise, we are not saying there will not be war, but it should be a just war to correct these violations.
For us as Muslims, the encapsulation of these divine ethics are found, among other places, in the following verses in Surat al-Maidah (5:32 and 5:45):
مِنْ أَجْلِ ذَٰلِكَ كَتَبْنَا عَلَىٰ بَنِىٓ إِسْرَٰٓءِيلَ أَنَّهُۥ مَن قَتَلَ نَفْسًۢا بِغَيْرِ نَفْسٍ أَوْ فَسَادٍ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ فَكَأَنَّمَا قَتَلَ ٱلنَّاسَ جَمِيعًا وَمَنْ أَحْيَاهَا فَكَأَنَّمَآ أَحْيَا ٱلنَّاسَ جَمِيعًا وَلَقَدْ جَآءَتْهُمْ رُسُلُنَا بِٱلْبَيِّنَـٰتِ ثُمَّ إِنَّ كَثِيرًا مِّنْهُم بَعْدَ ذَٰلِكَ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ لَمُسْرِفُونَ
Because of this did We ordain unto the children of Israel that if anyone slays a human being-unless it be [in punishment] for murder or for spreading corruption on earth-it shall be as though he had slain all mankind; whereas, if anyone saves a life, it shall be as though he had saved the lives of all mankind. And, indeed, there came unto them Our apostles with all evidence of the truth: yet, behold, notwithstanding all this, many of them go on committing all manner of excesses on earth. (5:32)
وَكَتَبْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ فِيهَآ أَنَّ ٱلنَّفْسَ بِٱلنَّفْسِ وَٱلْعَيْنَ بِٱلْعَيْنِ وَٱلْأَنفَ بِٱلْأَنفِ وَٱلْأُذُنَ بِٱلْأُذُنِ وَٱلسِّنَّ بِٱلسِّنِّ وَٱلْجُرُوحَ قِصَاصٌ فَمَن تَصَدَّقَ بِهِۦ فَهُوَ كَفَّارَةٌ لَّهُۥ وَمَن لَّمْ يَحْكُم بِمَآ أَنزَلَ ٱللَّهُ فَأُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ هُمُ ٱلظَّـٰلِمُونَ
And We ordained for them in that [Torah]: A life for a life, and an eye for an eye, and a nose for a nose, and an ear for an ear, and a tooth for a tooth, and a [similar] retribution for wounds; but he who shall forgo it out of charity will atone thereby for some of his past sins. And they who do not judge in accordance with what God has revealed - they, they are the evildoers! (5:45)
As we can see, these universal divine laws apply to all People of the Book.
Therefore, the long history of injustice endured by the Palestinian people still cannot justify surprise attacks by Hamas that lead to the murder of innocent civilians.
In Islam, war has a set of ethics and rules which should not be violated.
In other verses, the Quran directly stipulates that the injustice of a people towards us should not goad us to injustice.
This likewise applies equally.
Clearly, the Israeli response has been grossly disproportionate in both numerical and moral terms.
The people of Gaza should not be collectively punished for something they did not do.
Looking at the law of “an eye for an eye,” the question to be posed now is how many innocent Palestinian lives need to be lost to compensate for the atrocities of Hamas, whether the motives are vengeance, justice, or deterrence.
If the answer from those you are talking to is something like “There are no innocent Palestinians,” then the discussion cannot be continued.
Therefore, in a nutshell, our first piece of advice is to let scripture, whether from the Quran, Bible, or Torah, speak for you and to remind whoever is willing to listen that this is the best of speech, and it is what is worth listening to and heeding.
The second piece of advice is that it may be easier, more convincing, and less personal to arouse bad feelings to let more objective or informed third parties do the talking.
Therefore, rather than trying to make specific points, you can instead have a list of articles, references, or videos that you can forward and ask people to read or watch.
The discussion with your Jewish (or Arab) friends can then be framed around critiquing what you have heard from third parties.
Those third parties can transmit the message you want to transmit, but by doing things this way, your relationships and friendships may experience less strain.
In this way, you can still, by choosing the appropriate things to forward, get across the points you want and follow the dictates of your conscience, but perhaps in a less confrontational fashion.
As an example, you can check out a video discussion conducted by Salam Al-Marayati, the Director of MPAC (the Muslim Public Affairs Council), with, among others, former Congressman Jim Moran. Here is the link:
Palestine: Why It's Important for America | MPAC - YouTube
Please check it out and see if it suits your purposes and makes the points you want to make.
We wish you the best of luck and continue our prayers for peace and justice.
In peace,