What Does It Mean to Stand With Israel?
As the harrowing news broke this past weekend of an attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israeli civilians, variations on one particular phrase found their way, over and over, into statements by politicians and organizations: “Stand With Israel.” This was particularly salient from liberal and progressive American Jewish groups that have, over the past year, grown increasingly critical of the Israeli government, both for its proposed judicial overhaul and for Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, or at least for the inclusion of far-right politicians in its governing coalition. The statements this weekend were overwhelmingly not critical. They expressed straightforward support for Israel.
This was, for Israel, an unprecedented attack on its civilians. Hamas managed to burst through from Gaza and cross Israel’s border. Hamas militants then proceeded to kill and take captive civilians. Hamas has killed, as of this writing, more than 900 Israelis, including 260 young adults at a music festival. The militants took children hostage. And I can understand why many of the initial statements did not, for example, also acknowledge how many Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in recent years, or that Israel controls two of Gaza’s three land borders, or that 2023 was already the deadliest year on record for Palestinian children in the West Bank, or that members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government encouraged settler violence against Palestinians. This weekend, issuing statements, people were shocked or mourning or both. Especially for people who are not politicians or public figures or organizers, the phrase “Stand With Israel” is a message of sympathy and support, an extension of empathy for victims.
But for those who are politicians and public figures and organizers, the phrase implies a public policy position and statement of intent. It’s an announcement that they mean to stand with Israel. But what does that actually mean?
This war is not primarily about Americans. But so long as leaders in both American and American Jewish politics are putting out statements that they stand with Israel, and as the fallout from the attack continues, as the death toll from both Hamas’ attack and Israeli retaliation continues to rise, perhaps it is worth unpacking: What does it mean to stand with Israel?
Netanyahu, who has been charged with fraud, breach of trust, and accepting bribes in three different scandals, agreed to have far-right Itamar Ben-Gvir in his governing coalition, and to place him in the role of national security minister, despite his long history of provocations against Palestinians, which he has continued in his current role. Does standing with Israel mean standing with both men? Pentagon press secretary Jack Kirby said that now was not the time to review the Israeli leaders’ intelligence failure but to “support Israel.” But couldn’t one see the two as interlinked? That it’s necessary to understand how Netanyahu’s government failed to stop this from happening? Does standing with Israel include granting its government freedom from its most basic responsibilities?
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday, “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel; everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.” There are 2 million people in Gaza. Half of them are children. Does standing with Israel mean standing with the choice to deprive the people living in Gaza, who cannot leave Gaza, of electricity and food? As I write this, Israel’s response operations have killed at least 830 people and injured another 4,250. According to Defense for Children Palestine, that number includes at least 33 children; the Gaza Ministry of Health put the number of children killed by the strikes at 91. Are people being called on to stand with that?
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who was arrested in 2005 on suspicion of organizing violent nationalist activity and is a booster of West Bank settlements and an opponent of Palestinian statehood, said, the evening of the attack, “We have to be cruel now and not consider the captives overmuch.” If it turns out that that informs government policy—if the Israeli government pursues maximum cruelty on Palestinians at the expense of Israeli hostages’ lives and the tenets of international law—is supporting such a policy a prerequisite for standing with Israel? Will Americans, Jewish and not, now say that to stand with Israel is to support and defend being cruel?
But there was also other commentary coming out of Israel on the day of Hamas’ attack, other positions with which one can stand. On Saturday, Haggai Matar, an Israeli journalist with +972, wrote, while “sitting at home in Tel Aviv, trying to figure out how to protect my family in a house with no shelter or safe room,” that Israel has to change course with respect to its treatment of Palestinians, that “it is not in spite of the horror that we have to change course—it is exactly because of it.”
The next day, the prominent Israeli outlet Haaretz published its editorial under the headline “Netanyahu Bears Responsibility for This Israel-Gaza War.” The editorial read: “The prime minister … completely failed to identify the dangers he was consciously leading Israel into when establishing a government of annexation and dispossession, when appointing Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir to key positions, while embracing a foreign policy that openly ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians.”
Ofer Cassif, a member of the Knesset and the leftist Hadash coalition, said Sunday, “We condemn and oppose any assault on innocent civilians. But in contrast to the Israeli government that means that we oppose any assault on Palestinian civilians as well. We must analyze those terrible incidents [the attacks] in the right context—and that is the ongoing occupation.”
Breaking the Silence, a group of Israeli veterans “aimed at raising awareness to the dire consequences of prolonged military occupation,” told its readers on social media that the IDF was preoccupied with protecting settlers in the West Bank because “our country decided—decades ago—that it’s willing to forfeit the security of its citizens in our towns and cities, in favor of maintaining control over an occupied civilian population of millions, all for the sake of a settler-messianic agenda.”
On Monday, B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, put out a statement condemning not only Hamas’ attack, but also the killing of Palestinian civilians. Standing Together, which describes itself as “the largest grassroots Jewish-Arab Movement in Israel-Palestine,” offered, in a post on X, “We must not buy into the illusion that security can be achieved through military action. There is no future here—for any of us—without ending the occupation and guaranteeing independence, freedom, and security for both nations.”
It takes real moral courage to do that. To hold your country to account while it is reeling. These outlets, organizations, and individuals showed that courage and called on their government to take accountability and, first and foremost, consider the inherent dignity of all human life. That’s a step Hamas rejects and refused, but as horrific as the attacks were, it is a step some Israelis are still pressing their government to take. Perhaps, having made their initial statements, liberal and progressive American politicians, individuals, and groups, Jewish and not, that have declared their intent to stand with Israel can also announce that they mean to stand with those trying to make Israel stand taller.
