Recognizing Palestinian pain does not negate Israeli suffering - comment

On Wednesday evening, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum released a video showing female IDF observers being kidnapped from their Nahal Oz base into the Gaza Strip on October 7.

The hostages’ families made the courageous choice to make the video public. 

“Look them in the eyes,” the forum urged. “This video is a sharp indictment of the national failure – the lawlessness regarding the hostages for the past 229 days.”

The forum noted that the video reveals the violent and humiliating treatment the women endured on the day of their abduction and captures the immense fear in their eyes.

To see our Israeli hostages suffering, to see their arms bound, the blood and dirt coating their bodies, is nauseating; it is more sickening than words can say.

Their torturous state is undeniable. It is unquestionable. 

But so is that of so many of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

One does not negate the other.

There is suffering on both sides

The Palestinian people have lost families. Everyone has lost someone. Their houses are destroyed, their futures unclear. 

They are starving as Hamas steals food deliveries. They know the IDF is about to attack and cannot leave under threat by the terrorist organizations. They feel cornered and alone.

Every individual’s hardships, regardless of their affiliation, is a tragedy. Acknowledging the pain of the Gazan people is a matter of human compassion and empathy, which doesn’t diminish the recognition of Israel’s hardships, nor does it suggest that the reason for Israel’s ongoing fight in Gaza is unjustified.

Many of the families of hostages, despite the tremendous and unimaginable suffering they have experienced, have expressed similar sentiments.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the mother of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, told Fox News just last week that there is “suffering on both sides.”

She said, “There are 132 innocent civilians taken hostage from Israel on October 7, suffering in captivity, and there are hundreds of thousands of uninvolved Gazan civilians suffering greatly. Many people struggle to recognize both of these parallel truths.”

Mai Albini Peri, the grandson of Chaim Peri, who has been held hostage by Hamas since October 7, told The Jerusalem Post’s Eve Young last month that he has empathy for Gazans who are terribly miserable.

“They physically don’t have homes to live in because we blew everything up. Children there don’t have food,” he said.

“I don’t think you have to be such an enlightened and pure person to recognize suffering,” Peri said. 

“People make it about sides. You are with them, or you are with us. ‘What? You think the people in Gaza are suffering? Are the people in Israel not suffering?’” His words ring true. 

As a people, it is vital that we avoid the oversimplification that comes with what-about-isms and recognize, instead, the complex human costs involved.

When we fight a war against Hamas, we operate inside the Gaza Strip alongside children – who are educated by UNRWA, true, but children nevertheless – and people convinced of Hamas’s justification – cruel in mindset, yes, but people nevertheless.

If you turn a blind eye when a pile of bodies racks up on enemy land, how do you expect them to recognize the same on your territory?

The counter-argument to this, often seen on the Israeli side, is that this torment is caused by Hamas. This is true to an extent; Israel operates against Hamas, and although the methodology is questionable, the motive is true, and Hamas is hoarding supplies brought in for humanitarian aid.

That being said, we cannot ignore the fact that the IDF has left destruction in its path. That does not make it wholly wrong, but it is undeniable.

This is why, when the pro-Palestinian side – and yes, I am insisting on not using the term “anti-Israel” in this case – looks over at the Israeli side, it views any Israeli denial of Palestinian suffering as the enemy coming to pillage and later denying its actions.

Maintaining morality 

It is through recognition of the other side’s suffering that we can maintain morality, even when Israel is in such a difficult position militarily, one foot in, one foot out.

Let us take the case of Ms. Rachel, for example. Ms. Rachel is a widely popular baby and toddler YouTuber who makes videos that most English-speaking babies today, including my own son, have watched religiously. Her Songs for Littles have gotten stuck in many a parent’s head.

She launched a campaign last week on Cameo, an app where one can purchase a video message from a celebrity, where she raised money for Save the Children’s Emergency Fund. In the announcement of her campaign, she mentioned Gazan children and their suffering.

The pro-Israel crowd lost their minds.

“I am really saddened to see that Jewish life does not seem like something that is important for her,” one Instagram user said in a video that has now gone viral, just as an example.

This, in response to her donating money to an organization vetted by some of Israel’s top security systems as a trustworthy donor that goes directly to the Gazans in need – and not to Hamas.

When Ms. Rachel announced the campaign and the ensuing backlash followed, she published a clarification, saying, “Children should never experience the horrors of war – nor be killed, injured or taken hostage.”

While my editors would gladly have added an Oxford comma to her words, I would not change a thing because the meaning is clear: She has been forced to come forward to clarify that her support for starving, unwell children does not mean that “Jewish life does not seem like something that is important for her.”

If you attempt to cancel every single person who cares about children’s lives, you’ll be left with very few allies indeed. 

The writer is deputy editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post.