The Self-Destructive Fire of Zeal
Shemini, 5784
In the aftermath of October 7th, numerous Israelis were displaced from their homes, or otherwise affected by the massacre and ensuing war, and could not easily get meals or food for themselves. Seeing this, the food charity World Central Kitchen, or WCK, swooped in to help deliver meals to those in need throughout Israel. By late October, the charity had posted that it delivered over 200,000 meals to places like Sderot, Be’ersheva, the Golan Heights, and more. By early November, that number had doubled to 540,000. Meanwhile, WCK had also ramped up its efforts to provide meals in the Gaza strip. As it was explicitly non-political, the Israeli government preferred working with WCK to the UNRWA, which it has long mistrusted--in some cases rightly--as being tied up with Hamas; and the IDF promised to coordinate with WCK and provide its workers security. To date, WCK claims to have provided over 43 million meals to Palestinians since the war broke out.
On Monday, a clearly marked WCK convoy driving through a conflict-free humanitarian corridor was struck multiple times by an Israeli airstrike. After the first airstrike hit their car, the aid workers evacuated and got into another car that also was hit. They moved into a third car, and the final hit killed them. All 7 aid workers, the only people in the convoy, were killed.
The reaction has been expected. Benjamin Netanyahu called the incident “tragic” and “unintentional,” the IDF spokesman expressed his condolences, the WCK CEO called the attack “unforgivable,” the heads of nations where the aid workers were citizens demanded explanations, international newspapers that had begun the war by supporting Israel began calling for it to end, and IDF officials lamented an increasing culture of shooting first and asking later. And WCK pulled out of Gaza. The people of Gaza, already at risk of starvation and famine, will have even less food available.
How did we get here? Not just to the death of seven aid workers, a tragedy to be sure, but to overall magnitude of this war? How many Palestinians have died so far? 30,000 dead in 180 days, according to the UN, which relies on the Hamas-run Ministry of Health. I would look to Israeli statistics, but Israel does not count dead Palestinian civilians. The IDF claims that 12,000 Hamas fighters have been killed. By our best knowledge, which is imperfect, if we take these numbers into account, 30,000 Palestinians have died (and some Israeli experts claim that final count will be more) and that 12,000 of those were members of Hamas, then that is 18,000 civilians. 18,000. A study by Yagil Levy in Ha’aretz put the civilian death toll at 61%, assuming that every single male between 18 and 60 who died was working for Hamas, an impossible assumption. And where are our hostages? 134 still remain in captivity. Has all this death and destruction freed them? And where is the destruction of Hamas, the goal of this whole offensive? Well, they have regrouped. They’re back in the north of the Gaza strip again, not long after Israel declared that it had succeeded in the north. No civilian should die in war, let alone more civilians than soldiers at a nearly 2:1 ratio, but what has that even achieved? Nothing but blood. And then what? What happens next?
I want to see the hostages released. I want to see them home with their families. What has this war got us so far? Slightly more than 200 hostages were taken captive on October 7th. Negotiations brought 81 Israelis home, along with 24 from Thailand and the Philippines. The military action of the war has so far rescued three. Three additional hostages were killed by the IDF while holding a white flag, trying to escape. How has this war helped the hostages?
I want to see Hamas gone. Back in November, there was a siege of Al-Shifa hospital, in the north of the Gaza strip, because the IDF said it was being used as a command center. After the raid, the IDF declared they had eliminated the Hamas presence there. Then again, just weeks ago in March, the IDF discovered that Hamas was once again using the hospital as a command center, and besieged it for around 2 weeks. Once again, the IDF has declared victory. And now I am skeptical. Will we see Hamas return in another 4 months? The north of the strip was supposed to be completely free of any Hamas presence, but it simply returned, despite IDF presence. Wars don’t destroy terrorist cells. We just have to look at our own American history, and quest to destroy the Taliban, and see who is running Afghanistan today.
On October 8th, I was terrified, sad, I was frightened, and I hoped that resolution would be swift and effective. That Israel would quickly go in and save the hostages. That Israel would prove to the world that it could destroy Hamas with a minimal loss of human life, that it would demonstrate restraint, discipline, and surgical precision. And as the months have dragged on, I have lost that hope. The refrain I constantly hear is how Israel just needs to keep going until total victory. How things are going, there is no such thing as a total victory. Not the way this war is being fought. The hostages are not coming back, Israelis are reckoning with unfathomable trauma, Hamas is not getting destroyed, Palestinian civilians are dying at incomprehensible rates, and the world has turned against Israel. These things will hold true, and will accelerate, if the war continues at its current course.
I am a diaspora Jew. I don’t vote in Israeli elections, and despite my love of Israel, I am not an Israeli citizen. I am not fully a part of the Israeli Jewish community. But I am a part of the American Jewish community, and I have seen some things about how we, American Jews, are reacting that disturbs me. I have seen how zealous some people can be. How convinced they are that in the pursuit of noble aims, anything is permissible. I have heard people say “Well, but the aid workers could have been giving food to Hamas,” or “its war, people die, too bad.” When the three hostages were killed by our own people, I heard people say, “it is war, mistakes happen.” As the death toll has mounted, I have heard people say “civilians die. They should have left.” Left and gone where? When the IDF gave them 24 hours to evacuate, there was nowhere else to go. This is the same attitude that has reportedly led to some IDF commanders on the ground sanctioning the deaths of 20, or even up to 100, civilians to take out 1 Hamas target. This is the same attitude that has led senior IDF officials to complain that their soldiers are behaving recklessly, taking videos of themselves looting Palestinian homes and posing with stolen underwear and posting it on TikTok, or opening fire on crowds based on the mere suspicion of Hamas presence. This zeal, where we say the goal we are working toward is good, is how we excuse the worst behaviors.
In the E-News this week, I wrote about Nadav and Avihu, Aharon’s sons, how they committed a hillul Hashem, a desecration of God’s name, and were killed for it. But what is truly tragic about their deaths is that they were convinced they were doing what God wanted. They were bringing a sacrifice. They were full of zeal for God. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t the way that God commanded it, or that God didn’t even want it. They were convinced they were going to honor God. And they ended up consumed in holy fire, the fires of their zeal. We too, are in danger of zealously pursuing something God does not want. Yes, God commands, morality commands, the return of the hostages. But I cannot imagine that God wants the current level of death and destruction in Gaza. I cannot imagine that God would prefer the death of innocent children to rescuing hostages taken from their homes.
How we act is important. How we talk is important. I wish that this war ended yesterday. I pray that it ends today. And even if you do not agree with me or my beliefs, I beg of you, to think not just of the importance of returning the hostages and destroying Hamas, but of how those objectives are achieved. To be aware that when we talk of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, we are thinking of 2 million of human beings, a minority of whom are members of Hamas, 47% of whom are children. To know that, between, Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, there are 7 million Jews and 7 million non-Jews, and that none of them are going anywhere. Israel is not going anywhere. Palestinians are not going anywhere. Even after October 7th, after this war, we must learn to live with one another. Or we risk, no matter how righteous our cause, being consumed by fires of our zeal.
