Living in Gaza is a nightmare. Now it's Israel's nightmare, too.

No discussion of Hamas's war crimes is complete without discussing Israel's own war crimes and international law violations against Palestinians. But the author recalls a more hopeful time.

In June 1999, I spent about 10 days in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, on assignment for Science magazine. My task was to write a series of articles about “Archaeology in the Holy Land,” most of which were published in the journal in January 2000 (that’s how long it took to do additional research, write the half dozen stories, and have the articles edited.) I did manage to get one of the articles into Science very quickly, about the Philistines, focused on an archaeological dig near Ashkelon—just a handful of miles north of where Hamas carried out its massacre of Israeli civilians last weekend.

This was only my second visit to Israel, and my first to the West Bank and Gaza. But in many ways, my timing could not have been better. The Oslo accords had been signed in 1993, and the agreement provided for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the West Bank beginning around June 1999. That process had just begun when I got there. The feeling of hope in the air, on the part of most Palestinians and Israelis, was palpable. While the Palestinians were not getting everything they wanted or thought they should have, all but the most militant and extreme were excited that at long last they were going to get a state; and most Israelis, while they might still be nervous about security issues, had accepted that there would be a two-state solution and that peace between the two sides might at long last be possible.

Thus all my memories from that trip are suffused with that profound feeling of hope in the air, which I, as Jew who had long been critical of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, breathed in deeply along with everyone around me. I spent most of the time based in Jerusalem, at the American Colony Hotel, where secret meetings between Palestinians and Israelis had taken place for years. The hotel was neutral territory, and archaeologists from the West Bank and East Jerusalem who could not enter into Israel proper were able to have dinner or a drink with me without a problem.

I remember telling a cousin in Los Angeles, a very observant Jew, that I was staying at the American Colony. “But that’s a goyim hotel!” he objected, suggesting that I should have been staying somewhere in Jewish West Jerusalem, where two of his sons, also my cousins, were living with their families.

Of course I didn’t spend all my time holding court at the hotel bar. My research for the story took me all over the West Bank and Israel, visiting archaeological sites, and also to Gaza. Because “Israeli” cars were not insured for travel in the West Bank and “Arab” cars were not insured for travel in Israel, I kept two rental cars in the parking lot of the American Colony Hotel. My editor, who was already alarmed at the impressive amount of Science’s money I was spending on this trip, seemed very dubious about this, but he seemed to accept—based on my track record as the journal’s Paris correspondent—that it would be worth it in the end.

American Colony Hotel/ magister/ Wikimedia Commons

So many memories. Swimming in the Dead Sea, sunset on the Sea of Galilee, strolling the Mediterranean boardwalk in Tel Aviv, eating falafels in Haifa, watching out for stray Syrian troops on the Golan Heights, exploring the Crusader ruins at Acre, having coffee with an archaeologist in Ramallah, and of course, wandering the streets of Jerusalem’s Old City (and forgetting to wear a Yarmulke at the so-called Wailing Wall. People looked at me strangely but did not say anything.)

Oh, and doing my work for Science, of course. One morning, walking down the Nablus Road from the hotel to Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate, I stopped in a local shop to buy some cassettes for my tape recorder. Once I had made my purchase, the Arab shop owner ran around in front of the corner and took both of my hands in his, thanking me profusely. I was taken aback at first. I then realized, in my naïveté, that it must have been a rare event for a Jew to enter his shop and buy something. He must have thought, as did I, that a new day was dawning.

Even at the checkpoints that even back then severely restricted Palestinian movements, there was a new spirit. I often saw and heard Israeli soldiers chatting and joking with Palestinians, as if they were new friends and not old enemies.

I spent a full day in Gaza, mostly meeting with Gazan archaeological officials. It was only then, with the occupation supposedly nearing an end, that the Palestinians were able to mount their own archaeological digs and research. One of my articles—based on visits to the West Bank and Gaza—was all about those new research opportunities.

I had tea with Moain Sadek, then head of the Palestinian Department of Antiquities' operations in Gaza. Sadek, a burly guy with a bushy mustache, interpreted Palestine’s archaeology in just the opposite way that Israeli archaeologists did: As proof that the Palestinians also had roots in the region going back thousands of years, a wee bit before the Jews got there. (I discussed those issues in one article about Biblical archaeology and how reliable the Bible was to the history of the Israelites, entitled “Baedeker’s Guide, or Just Plain Trouble?”)

(My apologies that all of the Science stories are behind a paywall; I hope those interested in reading them might be able to access them their library, their university, or elsewhere.)

Sadek launched into a long discourse about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. I think he knew I was Jewish, because I more or less look it. “So,” he said, “God gave all of this land to the Jews, as long as they stuck to certain conditions. The problem is, they didn’t fulfill the conditions!”

As a secular, anti-Zionist Jew, this struck me as very funny, although I was determined not to laugh. But my smile was so very wide that he began to grin in delight. I remember that glorious grin today, and always will. With humor, a Jew and a Palestinian were bridging all kinds of terrible history.

With all my heart and soul, I wish I could have stayed back there in the past, nearly a quarter of a century ago. But as those reading this will probably know, the “peace process” broke down soon afterwards, all that hope was destroyed, and the Second Intifada—which was worse that the First and lasted a number of years—began. Some blame Palestinian intransigence, some blame Ariel Sharon’s deliberately provocative visit to the al-Aqsa mosque, some say it was foolish to think that the two supposedly mortal enemies would ever be able to agree on anything.

Now, in 2023, we have arrived at the worst moment in the history of these two peoples fighting over the same piece of land, at least since 1948 or 1967 or whenever you want to mark present history. Whatever my personal views might be, please don’t expect me, at this time, to take sides in this space. Hamas launched a brutal, murderous attack on Israelis that was a war crime by all definitions of the term; Israel is now doing its best to destroy as much of Gaza as it can, pretending that it is trying to avoid civilian casualties but engaging in its own murderous war crimes, as it has done so many times before.

When I learned of the Hamas attacks, my first thought was to recall that old 1960s slogan, whose author I have never been able to identify: “The oppressor has no right to criticize the tactics of the oppressed.” I confess, my first instinct was to think the Israelis had it coming after everything they had done to the Palestinians, including the blockade of Gaza and the 56 year occupation of the West Bank. And just as Israel is constantly proclaiming its right to defend itself, I strongly believe that the Palestinians have the right to resist a brutal occupation, just as the Ukrainians have the right to try to kick Russia out of their country.

But I am a moral person, and war crimes—which are clearly and unambiguously defined by international law—can never be justified.

In my attempts over the past days to come to grips with all aspects of the current conflict, I have benefitted greatly from the commentaries of journalists in Israel, Palestine, and Gaza itself, as well as political scientists and activists around the world. I have no intention of repeating what they have said here, but I do want to link below to some articles I have found particularly helpful. Yet one thought keeps occurring to me, and it is this.

Everyone loves the John Lennon song “Imagine,” but few want to do much imagining in real life. Imagine if Israel, instead of striking back at Hamas and killing thousands of Gazan civilians as it is doing now and has done so many times before, said instead, “Okay, you’ve gotten back at us for everything we have done to you. Now let’s sit down and find a way to end the blockade of Gaza and end your attacks on us.”

But who has the courage to do that? Certainly not Israeli leaders, certainly not President Biden (who has given the green light to Israeli war crimes) or the European Union. Maybe the children of today, in Israel and Palestine, will find that courage, once they have grown up—if they get to grow up.

“Terror and counter-terror” by Timothy Snyder (particularly good on the way that Israel’s reaction to the attacks gives Hamas exactly what they wanted and planned for.)

“Gaza’s shock attack has terrified Israelis. It should also unveil the context” by Haggai Matar, executive director of the essential +972 Magazine, run by Israeli and Palestinian journalists.

“American Jews Have Abandoned Gaza—And The Truth” by Peter Beinart, now editor at large of Jewish Currents. Several years old but still essential context for the current conflict.

“In Gaza and Israel, side with the child over the gun,” by Naomi Klein (the real Naomi Klein, not the imposter Naomi Wolf.)

“US opinion divided amid battle for narrative over Hamas attack on Israel” by Chris McGreal. A more balanced treatment than you will find in most U.S. media.

“Why Hamas Attacked—and Why Israel Was Taken by Surprise,” an interview with former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk. Very insightful analysis from an establishment figure.

“How Netanyahu Undermined Israel’s Security” by Mairav Zonszein, a Tel Aviv-based analyst for the International Crisis Group. Zonszein, a fierce critic of Israel treatment of the Palestinians, provides Israelis with a moral compass in this piece, if they want to use it.