More violence can’t be the solution

Opinion

Many things can simultaneously be true, even when it’s contentious to say so.

Even two years after the fact, the terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 was horrendous in the extreme, demonstrating a level of cruelty — both in its planning and in its delivery — that will be impossible for any rational person to forgive or ever forget.

It was an attack designed to not only torture and kill Israelis in their homes and at a music festival, but to deliver maximum torment to the families and friends left behind — not to mention the torment of hostages still held by Hamas.

Simply put, the truth of the breadth of that deliberate cruelty is clear.

But that’s not the only truth.

The truth about Israel’s swift and harsh retribution for Hamas’s attack is equally clear — that it has gone on for too long, been too unrestrained and has killed and injured too many non-combatants, while destroying the homes of countless tens of thousands more, to be seen any longer as a simple response to such a horrific terror attack.

And the reaction to the Oct. 7 attack, and Israel’s response, continues to ripple outwards.

Antisemitic violence is rising in many parts of the world — from a backdrop of rising antisemitic graffiti in Winnipeg to the latest knife attack at a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur.

There has been a startling increase in anti- semitic graffiti here, even with a strong effort by Winnipeg’s Jewish community to erase it as soon as it appears. “It is amazing how much is out there,” Jeff Lieberman, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg, told the Free Press. “The Jewish people here have never felt this much antisemitism. It is shocking what is happening now. A lot of people are affected and get triggered by it.”

Across Canada, there has been a call by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs for the federal government to provide additional security for Canadian synagogues after the Manchester attack and others. Canada’s Jews are deserving of our support and protection, just as they were on that horrific day on Oct. 7, 2023. It is not fair for Canadian Jews to live in fear because of the actions of a foreign state — yet, that is happening.

Hamas was wrong on Oct. 7, 2023, and still holds significant responsibility for failing to directly and honestly negotiate for peace, while Palestinians continue to pay for Hamas’s actions with their homes and lives in the ongoing war.

The hostages — and the remains of hostages being held strictly as Hamas bargaining chips — need to come home.

But also wrong is the collective punishment now being meted out to everyone in Gaza.

We have to be clear-eyed and say the war in Gaza has to end, and that we cannot accept people — Jews or Palestinians — being attacked as a misguided punishment for the actions of others.

A collective punishment against Jews everywhere — for the way the State of Israel is prosecuting a war in Gaza that it seemingly never wants to end — is wrong.

It is just as true that Palestinians deserve to have their continuing plight addressed by the world — just as every Jew is not responsible for the actions of the State of Israel, every Palestinian is not responsible for the horrendous actions of Hamas, particularly the evil attack that, two years ago, began this round of brutality and counter-brutality.

As the anniversary of the attack arrives, a peace plan being imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump seems to be moving forward.

It’s obvious that more violence will not be the solution.