When it Feels Like Words Don't Matter

Thinking about living in a moment when some minds are closed

I’ve always believed in the importance of communication and the power of words. I’ve prided myself on reaching out to people with whom I disagree profoundly and attempting to exchange views. I always approach even the most difficult conversations with the premise that the person I’m dealing with sincerely believes they are advocating for their position out of conviction and that they are arguing in good faith. The only thing I demand in return is that my interlocutors make the same assumptions about me.

The war has been hard on such conversations, but I’ve continued to try to have them. I have an old acquaintance, who was one of my teachers fifty years ago when I was finishing high school. We reconnected a few years ago. He remains a member of what I call the anti-imperialist left, which means he is skeptical about everything the Americans do in the world. Fifty years ago I was enraged about the United States war in Vietnam and very much on the same page as he was.

After the Vietnam war ended I looked at what happened in Vietnam and Cambodia when America went home. Remembering the things that had made the adolescent me angry at the Americans, I realized that things had gotten worse for the Vietnamese and other peoples of the area when the Americans left. I felt like my youthful enthusiasm had been abused for a bad cause.

Many people I knew shifted their political views from radical to more conservative over time. But plenty of others didn’t. I never quite understood the people who remained on the left. They always seemed to find a reason to keep the focus of blame on America, on NATO, and more and more over the decades, on Israel.

Perhaps I was more alert to the hypocrisy of this position, because I saw when I was still a teenager, that people on the far left who opposed to the war in Vietnam were perfectly OK glorifying a figure like President Gamal Nasser of Egypt. Nasser was the founder of the military dictatorship that still runs the country today, and which shifted its loyalty under Nasser’s successor, Anwar Sadat to the American camp and made peace with Israel. Back then, Nasser was close with the Soviet Union which had helped him build up his armed forces. This prepared him for the attempt in 1967, in conjunction with Syria and Jordan, to obliterate Israel. This didn’t stop people at the time from touting him as a socialist leader.

In any case, my former teacher and I have sparred over Israel on Facebook in recent years and managed to conduct a civil debate. Since the beginning of the war we have gone back and forth, but it seems hard for him to believe that my arguments aren’t part of some orchestrated campaign by Israel to fool the world. I, in turn, am baffled by his capacity to dismiss what I consider to be obvious arguments justifying what Israel is doing in the war. These same views are broadly held in the Jewish community which, in consequence, feels that the world has abandoned us.

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I wrote earlier about my decision to break off contact with an antizionist who had crossed the line into promoting October 7th denial. Even offering counter arguments on his web site was no longer possible because my very presence there, even as a ferocious critic, was legitimizing his promotion of hatred and lying propaganda. Conversation was no longer possible because I no longer believed in the good faith of my interlocutor.

I’ve been watching other people, particularly left wing Jews who are strongly critical of Israel. Some seem to have gone silent and I wonder if they are rethinking their positions. Perhaps this is wishful thinking on my part.

Others have tried to stick to their anti-Israel positions while also denouncing Hamas and somehow pretending that Israel’s behaviour can be characterized as something other than a war against Hamas. For these people, the path forward starts with an immediate ceasefire, but there is never any other plan to rein in Hamas.

It’s disappointing to see that the Canadian government has committed itself to abiding by the decision of the ICJ on the bogus charges of genocide that have been brought against Israel. This is in spite of the statement that Canada does not “support the premise” behind the charges. Regardless of equivocation by its government, Canadian Jews will continue to stand with Israel.

Image: Postcard from JewDaikaby Jizky Ravel

The need to reach out to those who don’t understand Israel’s plight seems less important at the moment than bolstering the solidarity of our own community under the pressure of all the vilification being directed at Israel and Zionism. Israel is fighting a war of necessity against the many enemies devoted to its destruction and in response to the horror of the atrocities committed on October 7. Right now, sustaining the solidarity necessary to support Israel’s existential struggle, and getting the word out on how the world looks from the mainstream Jewish point of view, is more important than building bridges with those who do not stand with us in this hour of peril.

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Canadian Zionist Forum is Going to Israel

In two weeks, I will be leaving Ottawa and relocating to Ashkelon for the month of February. My aim is to do volunteer work and report here on what I see and on the people I meet. I hope you will continue reading and share this publication with people you know who may be interested.

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