Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. –Isaiah, 1:17

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “mighty vengeance” has far exceeded Israel’s right to defend itself. The fact that Jews suffered genocide of the worst kind does not give Israel licence to wage such a massive and sustained collective punishment of the Palestinians.

This war cannot destroy Hamas, and will most likely swell its ranks unless Israel can come to see the folly of the unjust order it maintains.

Since Hamas foresaw a disproportionate response by Israel, and even promised more attacks like October 7, what sense did it make to oblige the worst elements of Hamas? It is easy to imagine that there is not a single Gazan youth who does not harbor rage against Israelis by now. We had every reason to fear this from the outset.

If we valued Palestinian lives equally with Israeli lives, these considerations would have informed our policy; we would have leveraged our military aid to Israel from the start.

But in Washington, Palestinian blood is cheap. The Israel lobby has made sure of that. Our commitment to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge has left Israel in no hurry to negotiate a political solution with the Palestinians. Instead, Israeli leaders have assumed they can contain Palestinian discontent indefinitely, and respond disproportionately to perceived provocations by Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

Israelis will only know security when Palestinians know the same. Israel must retreat to the 1967 “Green Line”, by which it will still retain 78% of historic Palestine. It must begin to abandon all Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and end its  war and blockade of Gaza. The IDF must leave Gaza, to be replaced in the immediate by an Arab peacekeeping force.

Surely, Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians–who comprised the great majority of the original population of Palestine– would offend the prophets of old.