Humanitarian aid to Gaza: When misplaced compassion turns to cruelty - opinion

Over the Independence Day holiday a tweet by Barak Ravid angered Jews all over the world. Ravid posted a video that he described showing. “Israeli right-wing activists blocked aid trucks which were on their way to Gaza today at the Tarqumiya Checkpoint in the West Bank.” Reactions to the blocking of aid trucks from anti-Zionist activists were obviously fast and furious. Israelis were accused (again) of everything from terrorism to genocide.

The anger expressed by Zionist Jews was surprising. It was shocking to read comments of a rabbi who wrote that seeing the aid trucks blocked causes him to question his faith in God, and another Zionist actually write that these Jews should have their names and all memory wiped out – a phrase normally reserved for evil people the likes of Haman and Hitler. Many of the angry reactions of fellow Zionists were over the top and uncalled for in this circumstance.

The aid trucks should not be stopped and that anyone doing so should be arrested and if sentenced should be given whatever the Israeli judicial system normally sentences Israelis who block highways. The blocking of these aid trucks reflects a disastrously poor image of Israel to our friends, especially in the Senate and House of Representatives. Anyone who has lobbied their member of Congress or senator since the start of the war has heard the following from an elected official, “I support Israel’s right to defeat Hamas and do whatever it takes, but Israel needs to improve on the delivery of humanitarian aid.”

Through State Department and media reports, congressional staff and members are hearing – irrespective of the veracity of the reports – that Israel isn’t doing enough to get aid to the innocent Palestinians caught up in the war in Gaza. Images and videos of Jews blocking aid trucks exacerbates the poor reputation Israel has in delivering aid and causes Israel’s supporters to criticize it instead of spending time and resources on helping Israel.

The State of Israel and her people purport to be the moral light onto the nations. Israel constantly talks about its army being the most moral army in the world. The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) division regularly releases the numbers of aid trucks it allows through to Gaza everyday as a demonstration of the IDF’s morality. These images contradict that impression and desecrates God’s name by having people think poorly of Jews who it seems want poor and innocent Palestinians to starve to death.

IT IS due to the poor image of Israel being reflected to Israel’s supporters and the hypocrisy of the most moral nation in the world blocking aid to poor people that should cause all Zionists to object to the protesters who block the trucks bringing aid to Gaza. It is important to highlight that the aid trucks shouldn’t be sent in the first place, and the frustration of the protesters who object to the trucks passing through Israel to Gaza is completely understandable.

It is obvious to anyone with a social media account and has been following this war that immediately after these trucks pass into Gaza and the IDF is no longer escorting the trucks, that Hamas arrives, steals the trucks, and hijacks the aid. With thousands of trucks crossing a week, tons of food delivered on each truck, there is only one explanation why the people of Gaza are still having trouble feeding themselves – the food and humanitarian aid is being diverted by Hamas and not getting to the average Palestinian. The food and supplies being sent to Gaza are not helping noncombatant Palestinians, they are strengthening Hamas and Palestinian terrorists. Denial of this point is denial of reality.

How can Jewish teachings be applied to this?

The Talmud includes a teaching of King David, “There are three characteristics that distinguish the Jewish People: they are merciful, bashful, and do many great acts of kindness.” This lesson is the ideal many Jews have in mind when objecting to the blocking of humanitarian aid. As one foreign government official said to me, “How can any Jew think that blocking a truck full of humanitarian aid is consistent with the Jewish value of bring merciful and kind?!”

Jewish tradition doesn’t direct Jews to act solely out of a feeling of mercy, but to utilize wisdom to apply mercy appropriately. Another well-known teaching of our sages instructs, “He who becomes compassionate to the cruel will ultimately become cruel to the compassionate.” Misplaced mercy tends to backfire and hurt those that most need the help. It is the wise Jew’s responsibility to discern of their mercy is beneficial to the world order or will cause evil to spread and chaos to ensue.

Supplying humanitarian aid to Palestinian noncombatants in Gaza seems the compassionate and merciful step for Israel to take during war. As wise people Zionists must recognize the aid isn’t going to reach the hands of Palestinian noncombatants and is resupplying our enemy – something which should not be allowed to happen. Expressing compassion can seem like the right thing to do in this case – until you pay a shiva call to a soldier who died in a firefight with an enemy who should’ve been starved into surrender months ago. Will the siblings and parents of that soldier find the sending of food trucks known to be being taken by Hamas compassionate or is it exactly the situation our rabbis warned about when they said misplaced compassion becomes cruel to the compassionate?

The protesters need to be arrested tried for the disturbances they cause – just as all the protesters who blocked highways during judicial reform were arrested and tried for the disturbances they caused. Their actions are giving Israel a black eye in the very hallways Zionists need to appear pristine to the world. The humanitarian aid trucks need to be allowed to enter Gaza unhindered and with their supplies intact.

At the same time, Israel and the global community needs to devise a distribution system that ensures the aid gets to those who need it and not to Hamas henchmen. Any anger that is triggered by seeing these pictures shouldn’t be directed at Jews, but at those allowing the aid to be stolen. Food being withheld from those who need it is by far the bigger problem.

The writer, a Zionist educator at institutions around the world, recently published a new book, Zionism Today.