Explaining Palestinian-Jewish heritage to my 2-month-old daughter - opinion

Unlike your mother, who came from a Jewish father and a Palestinian mother, you were born a Jew. Unlike your mother, who seldom experienced antisemitism, you have experienced it from birth.

Dear Alma,

Your life had exactly 11 days of peace before you heard your first siren.

From the day I decided to become a single mother until the day of your birth, I’ve written you hundreds of letters. Some are about the happiness of bringing you – a new life – into this world, but one too many are about fear and guilt: the guilt of raising you alone, the grief of letting go of an idyllic family, and the fear of not being enough.

The aftermath of October 7 slapped me in the face and shattered the luxury of dwelling on doubt. Romanticism regarding your upbringing was replaced with realism. The world I thought I would be raising you in was a lie, I told myself.

But with all the difficult things that might be coming your way, on October 8 I knew I had already done something right in your life: bringing you into the world in Israel.

Following the most horrific attack on Judaism since the Holocaust, I have witnessed Israel exploding in fervor for life instead of nationalism. At this time, when our government completely failed us, it was civilians who took the initiative to donate blood, fund raise, and procure supplies for the displaced families of the South and the responding reserve units. The whole country mourned as if each person we had lost was blood-related. Indeed, it felt like they were.

Alma, while the sirens sounded and we were all locked inside our homes as terrorists roamed the streets, we had close friends, family, colleagues, and acquaintances, some of whom I had met only once, offering to help us and make sure we were okay. They had the empathy to understand how this might feel with a newborn.

At that time, when we were all in distress, people were not fending for themselves, they were looking after each other. I felt at ease and proud that the vast majority blamed Hamas and not the Palestinians.

To Israelis, it was obvious that the response to hostilities would be to live, not to conquer. To rescue our family. To secure our existence. Not to annihilate Gaza. If this war had been one of revenge and/or conquest, it would have ended on October 8.

The tenet of Judaism “When you save a life, you save a world” was palpable. These are values that very few outsiders have grasped

Not choosing one side in the Israel-Hamas war

While wisdom brings depth and direction to life, unfortunately you cannot always win an argument with facts; sometimes learning when to yield brings about a better resolution. This conflict lasted 75 years too many, inflicting indescribable mutual pain. It no longer matters who threw the first stone. From the river to the sea, several peoples live and they’re not going anywhere.

Choosing one side means the extermination of the other, and I refuse to do that or normalize that thought. But for peace, there’s no space for fundamentalism. Not Jewish. Not Muslim. Not Christian.

I see the destruction and death and am mortified. Wisdom, however, prevents me from calling for a ceasefire, even if every cell in my body screams for one.

Why? Because when you have to choose between ceasefire or existence, there’s something unequivocally wrong.

I believe Hamas – every word they have stated. I believe them when they say they won’t stop until Israel and the Jews have been wiped off the face of the Earth. If someone threatens to kill you, should you not fight for your survival?

Hamas is not fighting for peace or land. Hamas is fighting for the extermination of all Israelis regardless of ethnicity or religion, as well as the extermination of all Diaspora Jews – and they always have.

HOWEVER, MY love, even though Israelis are panicked about polls suggesting that over 70% of Palestinians support Hamas, it is wisdom that helps me understand that polls are merely a snapshot in time; that Palestinians too are a people under total distress, a product of Israeli defense and decades of corrupt oppressive leadership and abusive indoctrination.

One of the worst abuses I can think of is sentencing a child to a life of hate and violence.

Alma, unlike your half-Jewish, half-Palestinian mother, you don’t come from a mixed household. You probably won’t experience the nuances of two different cultures. But all your ancestors were good, moral, and loving human beings.

 I want you to remember that Germany did not remain under the grip of the Nazis. Remember also that the Arab nations are rapidly advancing the Abraham Accords, when 75 years ago they swore to destroy Israel. Nothing is static in this world.

I want peace. Our survival depends on the success of Palestine in thriving and building a future, not one fixated on destroying a country. Whether or not the Palestinians find it just, as of 1948 Israel has existed and has won all the wars that were waged against it.

At some point, Palestinians will have to accept that Israel is the lesser woe compared to their 75 years of horrible leadership. At some point, Israel will have to acknowledge that allowing tensions with Islamists to continue, instead of finding a way to assist moderate/secular Palestinians, is a dangerous policy. Israel must also acknowledge that allowing the expansion of settlements only puts us in more danger and perpetuates this conflict.

And when I say “us,” I mean the Jewish and Palestinian people.

And finally, the rest of the world has to acknowledge they failed Israelis and Palestinians. October 7 clearly showed us a world that overestimates Israeli intelligence and underestimates Palestinian capabilities.

They failed Palestinians by allowing international organizations to fund education based on hate and misinformation and to enable the perpetuation of their refugee status. They failed Israel by adopting narratives that single them out as the source of Palestinian pain and by maintaining an obvious bias, keeping the “us vs them” paradox, blocking the possibility of intercultural bridges and conflict resolution.

ALMA, ON October 5, we had a beautiful naming ceremony, and on October 7 a war exploded.

On October 16, one of my closest friends wrote on her Instagram, “What Hamas did is terrorism, what Israel is doing is genocide.” It was then that I realized that your path would be very different from mine. Unlike your mother, who came from a Jewish father and a Palestinian mother, your religion was set at birth. You were born a Jew.

Unlike your mother who rarely experienced antisemitism, you are experiencing it from birth.

Alma, my friend’s outrage is real and justified, but it is misguided to think it is genocide. My dear friend is a beautiful soul whom I admire. The deaths of the innocent, whether intended or not, are tragic. Though “collateral damage,” each number is a life that ceases and leaves behind immeasurable pain among their loved ones. Each body that is hurt is a life that won’t have a chance for normalcy in the future; each scar is a lifelong sentence to remember the war.

It’s unbearable. I share the outrage, but I do not share my friend’s language and the analysis that is formed from such language. Even though she would never justify the acts of Hamas, the trendy analysis and language du jour she has adopted are designed to subconsciously do so. Even though she is not an antisemite, the language and analysis adopted will make her one.

Her post triggered so much fear because by design, even though she was unaware, it was set to create irreparable and dangerous hatred.

Genocide. Colonialists. Apartheid. Oppressors. This narrative and language are not only inaccurate but also deepen the breach between Palestine and Israel and increase hatred toward Jews. This language is perfectly tailored to dehumanize, demonize, and delegitimize Israel and the Jewish people’s trauma, while not making the Palestinians in any way responsible for finding common ground and a solution to the ongoing conflict.

Moreover, such inflammatory dialect analyzes the conflict through the eyes of the West – white vs brown, oppressor vs oppressed, and the dangerous us vs them paradox – all absolutisms with no space for reconciliation and resolution.

YOU SEE, Alma, it is impossible for me to envision peace with Hamas, as their rhetoric is evil and their aim is real.

The pro-Palestinian side that has adopted such language and narrative feels the same way toward Israel. It is impossible to negotiate with evil. It’s morally deplorable to make a deal with the devil. So it’s even more reprehensible to defend the devil. And those who eliminate evil from the Earth are heroes.

The propaganda was convincing enough for my friend to think of the country I chose to call home as genocidal. With this logic, my actions as a Zionist, including your birth, became an act of genocide, apartheid, and colonialism.

My love, the sad truth is that the antisemitic element of the anti-Zionist movement couldn’t be more apparent. Instead of experiencing a yearning for peace, we’ve experienced an outburst of antisemitism, proving once again that there is no differentiation between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.

Otherwise, why did the tiny Jewish community of Santa Cruz, Bolivia – 11,771 kilometers away from Israel – fear an attack to the point they had to cancel their Shabbat services? Why are protesters chanting “Gas the Jews’’ in front of the Sydney Opera House? Why did British Airways delay showing the Jewish comedy series Hapless on flights?

The world did not rise and ask Hamas to surrender and return hostages to avoid Israel’s right to defense. Instead, educated people justified indefensible acts of rape, mutilation, infanticide, kidnapping, and burning people alive. As one can properly distinguish Hamas from Palestinians, many are unable to distinguish Israelis from what they have determined as evil.

In their eyes, Israel has no right to defend itself and should allow its citizens to be killed. There is no peace without being pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, unless the goal is to achieve peace by committing the genocide of one or the other.

I’ve written you hundreds of letters, and this one has been the hardest to write. As I write, I finally accept the emotional toll this war has taken on my psyche. It has been as much a psychological war as it has been a physical one. 

The writer is an entrepreneur and corporate strategist who has served as CEO of a number of companies in Latin America and Israel.