Compassion for the Palestinians

Answering the question most asked of those trying to explain Israel's position on the Hamas War

It seems that these days, almost every pro-Israel speaker is asked, “Don’t you feel compassion for the Palestinians?” Compassion has two meanings. 1: A deep awareness of and sympathy for another’s suffering; 2: The humane quality of understanding the suffering of others and wanting to do something about it.

So my answer to this question, and the answer of every Israeli I know, is: I feel sorry that they are in a difficult situation, but I feel no compassion.

How can we be “so cruel?” Here it is.

Personal History

I was a senior in college the spring of 1967. My birthday in early March marked the end of my youth. The night of my birthday, my roommate hosted a party for me. Among those invited and those who crashed the party were two Syrian advertising students. Toward the end of the party I asked these two, who were both slightly drunk, why they were studying advertising when Syria had only a primitive economy. They told me that Americans called it advertising, but they called it propaganda. They said that they had spent 6 months in a propaganda school in Egypt, which was at that time united with Syria as the United Arab Republic under Gamal Abdul Nasser. They said that they were paid $15,000 a year—for comparison, my salary at my first job after graduation was $5,200 a year—to educate students about the “truth” about the middle east and to learn advanced propaganda techniques, and that there were two students from their program at every college and university in the USA. Two statements have stuck in my mind to this day:

(1)   “Americans think short, we Arabs think long. It may take 100 years, but we will defeat you with propaganda, not arms.”

(2)   “It is a point of honor among Arabs never to tell the truth to an enemy.”

They were drunk, so I believe they spoke the truth.

That spring, the radio was full of UN hearings about Israel, and I listened as much as my study schedule permitted.

I spent the June week of the 6-Day War taking my college senior year final exams, listening to war news on the radio, and (after I had chewed my fingernails to the quick) embroidering a tablecloth. The news was full of Arab triumphs, including that Tel Aviv had been bombed to rubble. Virtually all the news turned out to be false; Tel Aviv had been untouched.

After graduation I worked for 6 months to save money.  I also spent time reviewing the history of Israel. In the spring of 1968 I went to Israel to a Hebrew-language work/study program.

A Brief History of Israel Prior to 1967

1.     Both Mormon traveler Orson Hyde (in 1840) and writer Mark Twain (in 1869) visited the area called Palestine. Both reported that the land was mostly deserted and a wasteland. According to recent revisionist academics, this is all misinterpreted. However, the truth is that the Turks had deforested the land, using the trees for railway construction and for fuel for the trains’ steam engines. Topsoil had washed from the mountains into the valleys, leaving behind rocky slopes. The eroded material dammed streams, causing swamps to form. The swamps became deathtraps from malaria.

2.     In 1907 Jews began reforesting the land, planting trees on the denuded hills. In 1922 they began draining the swamps. Thousands of Jews died from malaria until the land was reclaimed and malaria conquered. In 1939 American conservationist Walter Clay Lowdermilk, a non-Jew, wrote about his fact-finding mission to the land and the amazing ways that the Jews were reclaiming it. Notably, hundreds of articles in recent years about these feats of land reclamation focus on how Israel destroyed nature’s swamps etc. etc. This is the same playbook Muslims are using when they claim they are indigenous to the area that had been the Jewish homeland for 3,000 years before the start of Islam: Israel is castigated for having returned land to the way it was before the natural consequences of Arab overgrazing and poor Ottoman land management destroyed it.

Panorama of Jerusalem, where E. Jerusalem is today. Wikimedia Commons

3.     In 1929 there were Arab riots, with a total of 102 Jewish deaths documented. In Hebron in August of that year, 68 unarmed Jews were killed. There, as in the October 7 massacre, Arabs used their knowledge of the Jews, and not only murdered but mutilated and worse.^[i]

4.     According to an article published by The History News Network, “The defenseless Jews [in Hebron] were variously beheaded, castrated, their breasts and fingers sliced off, and in some cases their eyes plucked from their sockets.  Infant or adult, man or woman—it mattered not.”^[ii]  Sound familiar? The October 7 massacre was not unique, it was a repeat.

5.     Following massive Arab riots in 1936-39,[iii] 80 percent of the land promised to the Jews was instead given to the Arabs, including land that had been made productive by the money contributed by Jews in Europe, Canada and the USA, and the labor and deaths of Jews. Israel was given the desolate Negev desert, some of the once-swampy land, and a neck of low land, 9 miles wide at the narrowest, with much higher land controlled by the Arabs to the east.

6.     Interestingly, for the 1936-39 riots I was able to find a death count for Arabs—more than 5,000 killed, 15,000 wounded, and 5,600 imprisoned.[iv] Britain was in charge and did nothing to stop the riots so it is doubtful they would have imprisoned so many; Jews had no power; and I was unable to find information on who jailed those 5,600 Arabs, making that total suspicious. I was unable to find any mention of deaths or imprisonment of Jews for that period.

7.     Immediately after the United Nations granted Israel its independence, the brand-new country was invaded by armies from surrounding countries: Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Egypt. For the complete story, see Israel’s War of Independence (1947-1949).

8.     Life was not easy following independence. The new nation was trying to resettle Holocaust survivors who had lived through years of terror of their own. Additionally, the Arab nations which had been home to Jews for millenia threw out the Jews, in most cases prohibiting them from taking anything except a small suitcase. The Jews had mostly been businessmen—shop keepers and manufacturers. They were members of the middle class in many places. They lost everything. Most went to Israel; there was nowhere else for them to go. And all of them needed to be absorbed. More Jews were made homeless than Arabs, although the UN set up UNRWA to help the Arabs and did nothing for the Jews. But, again with the financial support of the Jews of the Americas (the Jews of Europe having been decimated by Hitler’s Final Solution) and the generosity of the Jews already living in the land, the refugees were settled and became full citizens, along with the Christian and Arab minorities who had remained in the land during the War for Independence.

Jewish children in Beit Lid (Israel) Refugee Camp, 1950. Seymour Katcoff, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

9.     Terror did not end with the end of the war.

This extremely brief recounting of history brings us up to the aftermath of the 6-Day War.

Things I remember from when I was living in Israel, 1968-1969

I arrived in Israel in early April, 1968, less than a year after the 6-Day War. I went to a kibbutz near the Jordanian border, where I worked half days and studied Hebrew half days. After my study program was completed I moved first to Carmiel and then to Tel Aviv. In Tel Aviv I found a job. I read the Jerusalem Post on a regular basis and I heard the news discussed by my coworkers.

1.     When the Israeli soldiers went into the West Bank during and after the 6-Day War, they were shocked at the living conditions. First, there were 20-year old UNRWA refugee camps, teeming with people who lived in homes that had been built with the expectation that they were temporary. After 20 years, they were worse than dilapidated. Second, many villages had neither electricity nor running water. Sewage ran in the streets.

2.     There was little education beyond the elementary level, and textbooks, provided by UNRWA, were filled with anti-Semitic and anti-Israel material. I was able to handle an elementary school math book, taken from a camp by a soldier who was a member of my kibbutz. Almost all the illustrations were of dead Israeli men, women, and children, or of the Jews being killed or buried. Although I couldn’t read the Arabic, the pictures and numbers in the word problems made it clear: if there are ten dead Israeli children and Arabs kill three more, how many are dead?

3.     Israel planned to build villages to replace the refugee camps. The UN refused permission, ending the plan. UNRWA, supported by donations from across the world, deliberately kept the Arabs living in inhumane conditions.

4.     Since then, Israel has provided running water, electricity, medical care, and schools in the whole area. Israel built the first Arabic-language university in the region. The standard of living for those Arabs not living in UN-controlled refugee camps improved dramatically.

5.     These improvements were paid for by Israeli taxes, which meant that the Jews and others living in Israel proper suffered financially.

6.     The Israelis I knew believed that by providing a much better life for the Arabs, the Arabs would settle down and become good neighbors. With UNRWA’s mission being to help them “return home,” this did not happen. I believe UNRWA is largely responsible for the present unrest because for 75 years it has fed and nurtured the belief that, unlike refugees from every other regional conflict, and contrary to the mission of the UN’s refugee resettlement agency, UNHCR, the Palestinians had the right to return home.

7.     In 1967, following the 6^-Day War, the UN adopted Resolution 242. This would have forced Israel to retreat from all the land it had won. By any other interpretation of international law Israel has legal right to the land because it had been gained fairly in a defensive, not offensive, war. To implement 242, the Arabs would have had to recognize Israel’s right to “live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.” The Arabs rejected it.

8.     Instead, the Arabs began attacking Israelis and killing civilians. Bombs were put in dolls and other toys which were set under shrubbery and benches near schools and playgrounds in the hopes that Israeli children would pick them up and be blown to dust. Suicide bombers blew themselves up in restaurants, shopping malls, and buses, especially in Jerusalem. I briefly shared a room on the kibbutz with a woman who had been a few meters away from the Tel Aviv bus depot when it was blown up in September, 1968. She was not physically wounded but she was splattered by blood and body parts. She woke every night screaming from nightmares. She returned to her family in South Africa.

9.     The Palestinians have been given other opportunities to have their own country. They have rejected all of them because they want all of Israel and will not be satisfied with just part. I, along with all the Israelis I know and probably most of the rest, think they will probably accept statehood if it is granted unilaterally, as is presently being discussed in Europe and the USA. They will then most likely use their new legitimacy to increase terror and eventually to start another, deadlier war in an attempt to destroy Israel and annihilate the Jews.

Compassion for the Palestinians Today? Thanks but No Thanks

1.     Palestinian “civilians” from Gaza who worked in the homes and farm fields of the kibbutzim that were destroyed on October 7 gave Hamas details of the homes and properties of their employers. This detailed knowledge of home layout, security, and more was why the terrorists were able to be so successful, so quickly, in their destruction.

2.     Other Palestinians—men, women, and children—mobbed the kibbutzim after the terrorists finished their work and looted, carrying away whatever they found that hadn’t been destroyed.

3.     Several of the freed hostages were kept in the homes of “civilians,” where they were fed only rarely, forced to sit still and beaten if they squirmed, not allowed to bathe, and in some cases worse. So: are these people, actively supporting and working in concert with Hamas, civilians? Only by a very broad definition.

4.     As they fled their homes, these Gaza refugees passed through other cities. Were they helped by the residents who were still safely in their homes? If so, we heard nothing about it. In fact, there have been pictures purported to be of refugees sitting looking dejected and hungry, when behind them is a thriving, crowded market with bins full of fruits and vegetables. Why should I feel compassion for people whose own compatriots do not?

5.     It is impossible to know how realistic the Hamas figures of the death toll are. One thing for sure: we were told 500 were killed when an Israeli missile exploded in a hospital, when it was proved beyond doubt that the missile had been shot by Hamas and landed in a parking lot, with no casualties.

6.     It is hard to feel sorry for children who say their greatest ambition is to be a suicide bomber or to stab Jews to death, and there are “man in the street” videos that have recorded this. These videos are hard to find using google, which has for years given pro-Israeli news extremely low priority. However, Time found one report worth publishing.

7.     This is not a war between two standing armies for political purposes, with civilians on both sides who just want to live in peace. This is a war with two sides: (1) civilians who want to live in peace, run by a government that has been pressured for 75 years by the Western powers to compromise (not to say roll over and play dead), and (2) a citizenry with schools that teach hate and people who actively participate in the destruction of Israeli communities and people.

8.     The Israeli army is named the IDF or Israel Defense Forces because it is a defensive force. It has never attacked without great provocation. On the other side, Palestinians of both sexes from the age of 8 up have waged a relentless war against Israel and Israeli civilians. A few weeks ago two boys who appeared to be 8 years old approached a group of Israeli soldiers in Gaza, watched them for a few moments, and rode off. Shortly thereafter the Israelis were ambushed by a group of terrorists who apparently knew how many Israelis there were and with what they were armed. Three Israelis were killed. And on February 5 a 14-year old boy was killed by soldiers in a suburb of Jerusalem when he pulled a knife and attempted to stab a soldier guarding the entrance to the town.

Now that you have read a bit of the history of Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians, put yourself in our shoes. Would you have compassion for these people?

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[i] Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/place/Palestine/The-Arab-Revolt, accessed Feb. 2, 2024.

[ii] Black, E., Remembering the Jewish Massacres in Mandate Palestine. History News Network, © 2024, https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/134601 , accessed Feb. 2, 2024.

[iii] Britannica, op. cit.

[iv] Britannica, op.cit.