I told my wife the other day that I was having trouble supporting Israel’s war in Gaza as strongly as I felt I should. Jewish leaders in America, my own rabbis, and even friends make the case that Israel has a right to defend itself, but that tends to be the whole of the argument. I don’t disagree with them one bit, but seeing the destruction Israel is wreaking on civilians, it’s hard to avoid feeling that maybe this is not the most effective way to achieve long-term security, or the most moral.
Then I encountered the anti-Israel protestors in Grand Central Terminal last night on my commute home. Holding signs and shouting slogans to the effect of “Stop Israel’s massacre of Palestinians,” I felt something shift inside me, and suddenly I wanted to challenge them, to remind them of the hundreds of Hamas rockets reigning down on Israeli cities, to ask them what would happen if Mexican missiles were hitting El Paso multiple times every day.
In one of his recent blog posts on the war, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield challenges us to think beyond slogans when considering this incredibly complicated situation. That admonition was on my mind when I grew angry both at the pro-Israel boosters in my community and the anti-Israel activists on my commute. I used to envy people for whom the world was so black-and-white that everything could be reduced to a one-sentence statement of belief. Now I pity them, at best.

Among most American Jews, the very suggestion that Israel is in the wrong is considered tantamount to anti-Semitism or self-hatred–when those very views are routinely voiced in Israel by Jewish Israelis and considered mainstream there (minority and left-wing, perhaps, but not out of bounds). Amongst the American political left, the suggestion that Israel should fight fire with fire is considered equally blasphemous, regardless of the provocation that led to the assault.
The world is too complicated for this narrow-minded sloganeering. During a recent vacation to New Orleans, I noticed signs around the city that read, “Think that you might be wrong.” I never did figure out what those signs were referring to. But in response to Rabbi Hirschfield’s question, “What will bring peace?” my answer, admittedly quixotic, is that maybe, just maybe, we can all take a moment and dare to believe we might be wrong.