April 2, 2024: A Crime or a Mistake?

WOL protests synagogue; Are swastikas progressive?; Iranians celebrate Israeli strike

---

---

The Big Story

Israeli officials have apologized for—and promised an investigation into—a series of drone strikes that killed seven international aid workers from World Central Kitchen in central Gaza on Monday. 

The convoy, which WCK leaders said had coordinated its movements with the IDF and was traveling in a “de-conflicted zone” after dropping off an aid shipment, appears to have been targeted by mistake, leading to the deaths of Australian, British, and Polish staffers, as well as American Palestinian and Canadian Palestinian dual nationals. A Tuesday report in Haaretz, which cited IDF sources, said that the “war room” of the IDF unit responsible for security on the route ordered three drone strikes on the convoy in the mistaken belief that an “armed man” was traveling in one of the vehicles. One of Haaretz’s defense sources expressed frustration with “units in the field” deciding to “launch attacks without any preparation.” 

The governments of Australia, Cyprus, Poland, and Spain have all demanded explanations from Israel, while Britain on Tuesday summoned the Israeli ambassador. The head of WCK, celebrity Spanish American chef José Andrés, denounced the incident in a Monday X post, calling on Israel to “stop killing civilians and aid workers” and “stop using food as a weapon.” The organization also announced a temporary halt to its operations in Gaza on Tuesday—a PR blow to Israel, which had been encouraging WCK’s participation in relief efforts, viewing it as a more trustworthy partner than UNRWA and other U.N. organizations. A March Haaretz article on the organization, for instance, noted that WCK “has established enough credibility in Israel for authorities to view the group as being trustworthy and even-handed”—despite Andrés’ repeated social media criticisms of Israel and the group’s refusal to publicize its efforts to provide food to Israelis as well as Gazans. The United Arab Emirates, which provides funding for WCK, announced Tuesday that it was pausing its cooperation with the U.S.-backed maritime aid corridor until Israel provides assurances that aid workers will be protected.

Israeli officials, for their part, have apologized for the strikes and pledged to investigate how they came about. IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari expressed his “sincerest condolences” to the WCK and promised a transparent and independent investigation. Netanyahu also acknowledged Israeli responsibility, describing the incident as a “tragic case of our forces unintentionally hitting innocent people in the Gaza Strip.” 

On social media, however, the response has been predictably unhinged, with widespread allegations that Israel was deliberately targeting or murdering international aid workers—not only from the usual Hamas-sympathizing suspects, but also from people who should know better. The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum, for instance, likened the incident to the behavior of Russian forces during the Syrian Civil War:

Compact magazine founder and editor Sohrab Ahmari, meanwhile, posted, “Absolutely horrifying action by the IDF. There’s no relativizing or rationalizing this.” 

Of course, strikes on misidentified targets— against both civilians and U.S. and allied forces—were a semi-regular occurrence during the initial stages of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, including an incident in which U.S. A-10s attacked a convoy of British armored personnel carriers and one in which U.S. F-14s bombed a convoy of Kurdish fighters and U.S. Special Forces, killing 23 and wounding 80, including several employees of the BBC. Was it “relativizing or rationalizing” to point out that these strikes were the products of tragic errors in a warzone rather than a diabolical plot by the Americans to kill their own and allied troops? No. But then again, critics of the U.S. war effort couldn’t rely on popular tropes about Americans being bloodthirsty savages and murderers, which is not the case for critics of Israel.

While we won’t know exactly what went wrong until the Israelis complete their investigation, Tablet staff writer Armin Rosen noted on X that the WCK tragedy and the successful Israeli strike on Iranian commanders in Damascus, Syria, on Monday were flip sides of the same coin—namely, the reliance on precision air power as a nominally more humane alternative to a traditional ground occupation:

To which we’d add: The longer the current conflict drags on without a decisive outcome, the more likely tragedies such as this one will become. 

IN THE BACK PAGES: It’s time for American Jews to act a little more Israeli, argues Diana Fersko

---

The Rest

→Last night, Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck, New Jersey, hosted an event for members of Zaka, an Israeli volunteer first-responder group that helped to find and identify the bodies of many of those massacred on Oct. 7. Due in part to QAnon-level conspiracy theories saying that Zaka helped fabricate evidence of Hamas’ sexual assaults against Israel women, and due in part to plain old Jew-hatred, the event was protested by New York City-area Islamo-leftist radical groups, including American Muslims for Palestine—a front group for Hamas-linked charities shuttered during the Holy Land Foundation prosecutions—and Within Our Lifetime, a fiscal sponsorship of the Tides-funded WESPAC Foundation, which, as a 501(c)(3), receives tax preferences from the U.S. federal government. As our former president might say, they weren’t sending their best:  

In case you’re having trouble hearing that, here’s a rough transcript: “High-grade dog food, that’s what you mothafuckas are. Without America funding? High-grade dog food. Come put that on my cheek, faggot. Come put it on my cheek, you know what I’m saying? And when the Black folks come out here, ya’ll really fucked.”

More than a thousand people showed up in support of the event, which went ahead as planned. A group of pro-Israel protesters even broke into an impromptu rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” to drown out Arabic chanting from the Within Our Lifetime crowd:

The unanswered question, though, is why a demonstration like this—in a district represented by a Jewish Democrat, Josh Gottheimer—was allowed to go forward in the first place. 

→Elsewhere on the American left, celebrated millennial communist Malcolm Harris was discovering that, if you think about it, swastikas on synagogues can be progressive:

It may be darkly funny now, but just wait until he’s secretary of education in the Omar administration. 

→An Israeli negotiating team left Cairo on Tuesday after putting together an updated proposal for a new hostage deal with Hamas. In a statement, the Israeli prime minister’s office praised the “effective mediation of Egypt” but said that it “expects the mediators to act more forcefully against Hamas to move the negotiations forward”—language that appeared to be a veiled criticism of Qatar. We’re no fans of Qatar, but we also wonder if it’s really the root of the problem here. As we reported last month, the emir of Qatar proposed expelling Hamas from Doha in an Oct. 13 meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, but Blinken declined to take him up on the offer. CNN reported last month, citing U.S. officials, that Blinken told the Qataris at a March 5 meeting that Hamas must deliver on a cease-fire deal or “risk getting kicked out” of Doha. A March 14 story in The Times of Israel, however, reported that “Qatar would be prepared to expel Hamas leaders if asked by the U.S.” and that “no such request has been made.” 

→Meanwhile, in Iran: 

That video, shared by former State Department adviser Gabriel Noronha on X, shows unidentified Iranians toasting the IDF for assassinating Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the senior commander of the Quds Force in the Levant, in an airstrike in Damascus on Monday. 

→Quote of the Day, Part I: 

The press has been gutted. The bureaus have shrunk, and into that vacuum have come ideological voices. Now Human Rights Watch gives you a report, in English, and you write a story based on that report. And you end up serving as the media arm of the hard left, the world of NGOs.

That’s from an interview in TheWrap with Matti Friedman, a former reporter and editor in the Jerusalem bureau of the Associated Press. When asked by the interviewer, Sharon Waxman (also a former Jerusalem correspondent, for Reuters), about Americans’ biggest misconception about the war, Friedman answered, “Americans think this is a story about inequality. And about their own inequality. They graft their politics onto this conflict.” But in fact, Friedman said, “this is a story about the rise of radical Islam.”

Read the interview here: https://www.thewrap.com/media-and-why-changed-perceptions-of-israel/ 

And read Friedman’s original 2014 Tablet essay on the subject, discussed in the interview, here: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/israel-insider-guide 

→George Soros has purchased a $400 million stake in Audacy, the second-largest owner of radio stations in the United States. According to a report in Yahoo Finance, the transaction, which was first reported in February, will give Soros a 40% stake in the company—short of a majority, but likely the largest single stake, giving his fund effective control of the company. Audacy owns 227 major radio stations across the country, including in swing-state capitals such as Atlanta. The purchase, which saw Soros buying up Audacy’s debt after the company declared bankruptcy, is the billionaire’s second major media purchase this election cycle—he also acquired an undisclosed stake in Vice Media after the company declared bankruptcy in May 2023. 

→Quote of the Day, Part II: 

Chavez Rodriguez was adamant that “the president doesn’t talk about shutting down the border” and is “not advocating for shutting down the border,” saying instead that “what people want to see is order and humanity in our immigration system.”

That’s Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, speaking to The Washington Post in a profile published Monday. In January, in an official White House statement, President Biden praised the immigration bill negotiated by a trio of senators for giving him “a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed,” promising to use that authority “the day I sign the bill into law.” When the bill failed, Biden announced that “between now and November, the American people are going to know that the only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends.”

---

TODAY IN TABLET: 

The Indigenous Sovereignty Movement Called Zionism, by Joseph and Laralyn Riverwind

Indigenous people and tribes unite in Jerusalem to recognize the historic successes of the Jewish state

---

SCROLL TIP LINE: Have a lead on a story or something going on in your workplace, school, congregation, or social scene that  you want to tell us about? Send your tips, comments, questions, and suggestions to scroll@tabletmag.com.

---

American Jews Should Become a Little More Israeli

Instead of playing defense, we should learn how to stand up for ourselves better

By Diana Fersko

On Dec. 4, I attended a special session at the United Nations called “Hear Our Voices—Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in the Oct. 7 Attack.” The session was intended to bring awareness to Hamas’ use of rape and sexual violence against Jewish women and girls and to shame the institutions who remained unconscionably silent in condemning this violence.

I thought I had a reasonable understanding of what the session would be like. I didn’t. I thought, having studied the Shoah at length, that I was well versed in descriptions of violence against Jews. I wasn’t. Instead, at this U.N. session, I heard about acts of brutality against Jewish women that were beyond the scope of my mind, ghastly and depraved acts that were 100% new to me.

At one point, the organizers showed a video. Immediately, instinctively, I looked down. Yes, I was there to hear testimony, but I wasn’t ready to see a video. I just couldn’t watch whatever it was going to be, so I lowered my head and covered my eyes. But at one point during the video, I glanced up, in front of me were two of my dear friends, both Israeli women. Rather than burying their heads as I had done, they were not only watching the video, they both had their phones out, recording the video—presumably so that others could watch as well.

That was one of the many moments since Oct. 7 when I realized that American Jews, myself included, have a long way to go in understanding what it is going to take to stand up for ourselves. I had tried to hide from the horror, but my Israeli friends knew better. They understood that to stand up for ourselves, we would have to go to horribly uncomfortable places. They understood more deeply and more quickly than Jewish Americans about the denialism, the traumatic invalidation, and the blatant antisemitism that was on its way to Jewish people around the globe.

I’m a rabbi. I’m the author of a book on antisemitism. I was raised in an active Jewish home. So, I thought I knew how to speak up for myself and for the Jewish people. But that moment at the U.N. taught me that even I didn’t know how to do those things well enough. It was one of many moments since Oct. 7 when I decided to really fight antisemitism in the United States, I needed to try to become a little bit Israeli. Maybe you should, too.

***

My Israelification began months before the U.N. session. Like many American Jews, on Oct. 8, I found myself emotionally paralyzed. I was frozen, in shock and disbelief. I could not believe that Hamas had penetrated the border. I could not believe that they had murdered over 1,200 civilians. I could not believe the barbarism or the kidnapping. I could not believe I was witnessing a pogrom. I couldn’t really move except to cry. I sat there, stunned, barely able to make a sound. But while I was processing, the Israelis in my community were acting. My phone filled with WhatsApp notifications. Ding: Someone’s nephew needed a Kevlar vest. Ding: Can you house a reservist on his way back to Israel? Ding: Does anyone have access to large quantities of boots? All day long from Oct. 8 until today, Israelis have shown me the way.

It’s not that American Jews haven’t been standing up for ourselves. We have. Since Oct. 7, I’ve traveled to Jewish communities across the country and the outrage and action has been inspiring. Letter-writing, sign-holding, traveling to Israel, traveling to Washington, giving donations to certain institutions and withholding donations from others, attending school board meetings and curriculum discussions, battling on social media—the Jewish American community is activated in a way I’ve never seen. So yes, Jewish Americans are in this fight.

But still, this process of Israeli drift has pushed me to consider just how much Jewish Americans might have to change our mindset in order to fight this evil.

Here’s what I mean. In a widely circulated commercial about antisemitism, a suburban Jewish mother and daughter leave their house only to see a swastika with the words “No Jews” spray-painted on their garage. The mother and daughter get in their car and leave, and their presumably non-Jewish neighbor ends up painting over the vandalism by the time they come home. The mother gets out of her car and exchanges a knowing nod of appreciation with her neighbor. I understood the commercial to be about inspiring allyship. Thank you, non-Jewish neighbor for recognizing that something was wrong and taking action to stop it. Thank you for being a good and decent person. Thank you for being an upstander and a friend. We need much much, more of this, I thought.

So I was surprised when my friend, who is Israeli, had a completely different take on the commercial. Not only didn’t the story resonate with him, it seemed a little bit off. “Not what I want to see,” he muttered. “She doesn’t know how to use a paintbrush? She can’t take care of herself? She’s going to sit and wait and hope someone else steps in. She should show her daughter the swastika and they should paint it over together.” Where I saw others supporting Jews as a positive message, he saw that American Jews don’t yet get the message that aggressively standing up for ourselves, perhaps more often than not by ourselves, is a necessary step in fighting antisemitism.

I think I understand his feelings, because American Jews are playing defense a lot lately. I should know, going around the country in these past few months I’ve also addressed non-Jewish audiences—some of which are quite hostile toward me. When I speak to that type of audience, I hear myself participating in a kind of defensive dance, a strange ritual of self-humiliation where I try to disprove the conspiracy theory of antisemitism.

Not all Jews are rich, I tell people. I explain that about 20% of Jewish New Yorkers live below the poverty line. On the one hand I’m trying to show that the conspiracy theory about us is factually incorrect. But on the other, what if most Jews were rich? Would that mean that we actually were controlling the world? That the conspiracy theory of antisemitism was true?

Not all Jews are white, I tell people. I explain that about 70% of Jews in Israel certainly aren’t from European descent. On the one hand, I’m trying to explain to people that Jews have lived around the globe for centuries and that we are beautifully diverse. But on the other hand, what if we were all light-skinned? Would that make Jews guilty of racism or oppression? Would that “prove” the conspiracy theory? Or at least validate it?

And worst of all, we are genocide survivors, I tell people. I explain that 6 million Jews were murdered in living memory, including 1 million children. On the one hand, I’m trying to teach Jewish history. I am fighting for facts. A significant percentage of millennials believe that 2 million or 3 million Jews were murdered in the Shoah rather than 6 million. It’s my obligation to fight against these falsehoods. But on the other hand, am I also begging people not to hate us by reminding them we are victims?

Jewish Americans around the country are doing a similarly defensive dance: defending a war, defending a state, defending Zionism, defending Jewish existence in universities, on boards, in justice work, and in civil society. Defending the existence of Jews itself.

All this defense leads me to a core philosophical question: What would it look like if American Jews decided to play philosophical offense? The conspiracy theories of antisemitism aren’t true; rather they are a series of boundaryless lies. But we will also never be able to prove they are wholly false because they are not driven by rationale or reason. So, what if instead of defensively saying what we aren’t, we took a different approach and we chose to assertively say what we are?

It might look something like this: Jews are experts in civil disagreement—we have thousands of years of lived experience and documented evidence of how to argue with respect and how to engage in meaningful debate. We can help to heal the brokenness of public discourse with this knowledge. Jews possess ancient wisdom about justice. Amos, Micah, Isaiah—these are the voices to which we could be turning. Jews know about the value of work-life balance, the dangers of over-reliance on technology, the importance of face-to-face connection—God explained these things to us through the gift of Shabbat long ago. Jews have lived experiences to share that could help others understand current events—about immigration, refugeeism, persecution, and survivorship. Jews love to dance around the Torah, to braid bread, and to ask questions. We have so much to offer, to teach, and to share. Maybe we should start telling people about these things and countless others rather than defending ourselves against a cruel and unyielding conspiracy theory.