Milwaukee supporters of Israel, Palestinians both see horror, but from far different perspectives

Milwaukee-area Muslim leaders joined with several Palestinian and antiwar groups — even an anti-Zionist Jewish organization — in calling Israel's bombardment of Gaza a "genocide" and vowing not to vote for politicians who have spoken in support of Israel.

Just as the groups were announcing their coalition "to counter the false narrative" about the Israel-Hamas war, the highest-ranking official of Israel in the Midwest emphasized the horrific nature of the atrocities Hamas fighters carried out in its attack on Israeli towns last week, saying it was Israel's equivalent of 9/11.

The two perspectives represent fury from people who see the war in vastly different historical contexts.

The president of the Milwaukee Muslim Women's Coalition, Janan Najeeb, said in frustration that news outlets and elected officials have had a "complete disregard" for the history and suffering of the Palestinian people, instead focusing on Israeli casualties.

Meanwhile, the Chicago-based Israeli official, Yinam Cohen, who is the consul general of Israel to the Midwest, said: "We have seen an orchestrated terror attack in scale and scope that we have never seen before. We are now in a defining moment in the history of our country."

Both Najeeb and Cohen used strong language in discussing the crisis Thursday. Najeeb spoke of "war crimes against an unarmed civilian population" and the United States government assenting to "genocide." Cohen used words like "massacred," "butchered," and "slaughtered" in describing to the Journal Sentinel how Hamas attacked Israeli towns and a music festival.

A week of killings, terror

On Oct. 7, Hamas fighters killed more than 1,300 people in Israel, including 247 soldiers, and took some 150 people as hostages. Cohen described the attacks, in which fighters killed Israeli families in their homes, cars and at bus stops, as worse than ISIS's actions, referring to the brutal Islamist terror group. Hamas shot babies point-blank in their cribs and "entire families were massacred together," he said.

Both the U.S. and European Union have designated Hamas a terrorist group.

Israel declared war on Hamas in retaliation and vowed a complete siege of Gaza, one of the world's most densely populated pieces of land, with more than 2 million people in a 140-square-mile strip. The Gaza Health Ministry said Friday that 1,799 people have been killed in the territory.

Israel cut off food, water and fuel to Gaza, and airstrikes have intensified in recent days. Israel said roughly 1,500 Hamas militants were killed inside Israel, and that hundreds of the dead in Gaza are Hamas members.

Israel’s military has warned 1.1 million people living in northern Gaza to evacuate their homes, amid signs Israel is set to ramp up its retaliatory offensive.

Cohen thanked President Joe Biden for condemning the assault as an act of terrorism and for saying the U.S. would stand with Israel. "The moral clarity of President Biden is really the compass for every American and for the free world for what should be done right now," he said.

More: Milwaukee Jewish community finds 'power in being together' as they grieve, process Israel-Hamas war

More: Milwaukee protesters say Palestinian lives don't get as much respect as Israeli lives

Pro-Palestinian speakers upset at being ignored

All of that rings hollow for Palestinian supporters.

"Israel's apartheid system and colonization and military occupation over Palestinians, with full support of the U.S. government, are the source of all of this violence," said Lorraine Halinka Malcoe of Jewish Voice for Peace. She is also a public health professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Othman Atta, director of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, Wisconsin's largest mosque, asserted that the Palestinian people have a right to resist because Israel has been their oppressor. Residents of Gaza have been "confined to this inhospitable enclave," he said.

"I will state clearly that we are against the killing of any civilians anywhere. However I will also state clearly any people who live under occupation or who have been attacked by a colonial or other power, according to international laws and conventions, have a right to resist that occupation," he said.

The coalition that gathered Thursday was made up of the Muslim Women's Coalition, the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, Jewish Voice for Peace — Milwaukee, a number of Palestinian student groups, antiwar and peace advocacy groups, socialist organizations and more.

Speakers called for a halt to military aid to Israel. They said they were concerned that safe places in Gaza were dwindling, and that as Israel bombs Gaza, they were killing civilians as well as Hamas militants.

The speakers also expressed disappointment in U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, both Democrats, and the Milwaukee Bucks organization, all of whom spoke in support of Israel after Hamas' attack. Moore and Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, also a Democrat, were among the politicians who attended the Jewish community's gathering earlier this week.

"This is absolutely unacceptable," Najeeb said.

Najeeb said many in the Muslim community are "looking for another candidate" for upcoming elections as they can't in good conscience vote for "someone that endorses the genocide of a people."

"It's shameful," Najeeb said, that none of the local politicians the Muslim community has worked with closely for years has reached out to the community since the attack.

For some, it's personal

For those with family connections in the region, decisions are being made that not long ago, would have been unthinkable. A Brookfield man whose 66-year-old sister was killed Monday by an Israeli airstrike said his 80 to 90 relatives in Gaza are now displaced from their homes.

They have split up across the narrow strip of territory in the hope that if a bomb falls, the entire family will not be killed.

Mohammad Hamad, an engineer, said it has been difficult not to be able to help bury his sister, Faheemah Jameel Hamad, who worked as a speech therapist, special education teacher and school principal in Gaza. She was a mother of three and grandmother of five.

"She was the pillar of the house," he said.

Among the missing people in Israel are Americans from two Chicago-area families, Cohen said. They are the only Americans from the Midwest known to be unaccounted for so far, and it was not clear as of Thursday whether they had been killed or kidnapped by Hamas. More than 500 bodies in Israel were still unidentified, Cohen said. The U.S. said 27 Americans were killed in Hamas' attacks.

As troops geared up for a possible ground invasion of Gaza, Israeli soldiers across the U.S. have been flying to Israel to join the fight. That includes "tens, if not hundreds," of Israelis from the Midwest, Cohen said.

More: Milwaukee Jewish, Palestinian leaders react to Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza

Asked about the deaths of civilians by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza and the unfolding humanitarian crisis in the blockaded territory, Cohen said Hamas' attack that killed 1,300 Israelis would be proportionally equivalent to 40,000 Americans being killed in one day.

"This is the biggest tragedy in the history of Israel, and it really saddens me that some people still choose, at this time, to support Hamas. This is morally twisted," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Palestinian, Israeli officials outraged over war in Gaza