Revelation Chapter 8, verse 1: And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.
This silence, as Israel prepares its next steps in the eradication of Hamas, may end today or it may last a few days. Some thoughts come in this dread filled quiet.
I’m in London, 2,200+ miles from Tel Aviv and Gaza, but based on experience covering conflicts and the diplomacy around them, I can think of three possible reasons why the invasion has not begun:
First, you can’t fast forward reality and the logisitical preparations for the scale of Israel’s intended invasion of Gaza unfold in real time, not movie time.
Second, and this is more a hope than an educated guess, Israel’s government is working back-channels in the hope of getting all or a signficant number of its 126 hostages released by Hamas.
Third, despite the public show of support the Biden administration has privately made clear its own redlines in how the Israelis conduct their operation. You don’t send your Secretary of State AND Secretary of Defense on a tour of the region just for show. Anthony Blinken and Lloyd Austin’s views will have to be digested as Israel’s war planning continues
The situation could be entirely different by the time you read this but at 12:30 p.m. in London on Monday the 16th of October, 2023, that is a reasonable guess.
Another thought:
In this moment of quiet, with the seventh seal broken, what should the role of the Diasporas be?
In the 17 years since Hamas was elected to govern Gaza, there have been regular flare ups between it and Israel, some more intense than others. When they are sufficiently violent that the British press goes en masse to cover the story there is a ritualized response in the Jewish and Palestinian communities and their supporters living here.
They work themselves into a frenzy in social media. Twitter was launched a few months after Hamas’s election victory and has proved the perfect forum for performing their support. The real world effect of these often manic demonstrations is vandalism, verbal intimidation, and suspicion of one side by partisans of the other.
When the flare-up comes to an end, usually with parts of Gaza bombed and many people dead, the twitter conversation moves on. The situation remains unchanged in the region and in London. For my community, anti-semitic incidents decline until the next round of violence.
As a journalist I feel despair at the moralizing tone of some of my colleagues’ reports, even as I share their framing of the story as Israel responding with disproportionate force to Hamas’s provocations of rocket fire and deadly acts of terror.
As a Jew I feel despair at the speed with which too many in my community go into panic mode and see anti-Semitism everywhere.
Diaspora Jews live in a secure and safe environment, especially in Britain (less so in France to be sure) perhaps it is an obligation in these moments to stay calm and use the safety and security in which we live to help Israelis, in their own heightened states of emotion, to see things in perspective.
I cannot speak for the Palestinian diaspora.
As for those who are not part of either group but who use social media to loudly proclaim their support for the maximalist positions of one side or the other: It is not your blood that is being shed in the region or in the violent incidents that happen in Europe or the US. Your children will not endure hatred because of actions far away from where you live. You inhabit a greater state of calm and security than people from the diasporas. Rather than provoke intransigence from those you support, use your blessed situation to calm your side down.
Over the last 17 years I have tried to bring this sensibility to professional discussions on-air, in conversations with Muslim friends, and, less successfully in twitter interactions. It is not always easy and it causes tensions with some of my fellow Jews and also with supporters of the Palestinian cause.
It may seem a very small thing but these calm contacts are necessary because when other crises erupt in the region, for example the Syrian civil war and the rise of Da’esh/ISIS, there is still connection enough between us to show solidarity with their fight against the Assad dictatorship and the throat-slitting death cult that for a year and a half looked like it would hijack Islam and all Arab political development.
The current situation is exponentially worse than the previous fighting between Hamas and Israel. For those of us in the Diasporas the emotions generated are more intense and despairing and it is a lot harder to observe the unfolding catastrophe with the clarity safety affords.
Certainly for me the tense calm in this silent half-hour—not literal time but Biblical time—reminds me that I am here not there, and must continue to use my safety to see for those in the region—blinded with pain and rage—a way out of their calamity. A calamity that threatens to engulf Israel, Palestine and perhaps the entire region; a catastrophe that could cut the worn threads that still connect us.
(Bible Study for Atheists and has been a periodic feature of FRDH, First Rough Draft of History, podcast since I started it seven years ago. You can listen to them here)
Glad to help
Thanks Michael, for calming me down a bit. ‘Tis appreciated.