War Day #202 Throwback Thursday to War Day #21, Zugzwang
Thursday, April 25, Pesach: Throwback to War Day #21, Friday, October 27
It is astounding and disturbing how some of these earlier posts (this one from October 27, soon after the war began) have, like good Tom Lehrer songs, retained their relevance so long afterwards.
Again, we are at an impasse, with no easy route forward. Again, though we perhaps bought a few days goodwill because of the ferocious Iran attack, about which I will be writing next week, the world condemns us. Again it seems that antisemitism is in danger of becoming the trend of this decade.
Our ethical loneliness is that much stronger now.
And just yesterday Hamas released a video of kidnapped 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, in a manipulative game of psychological torture, since we still know so very little about his condition and his future.
How can it be that our zugzwang of six months ago has brought us to the same place?
Dayenu.
War Day #21, Friday, October 27
Zugzwang (German):
A situation in chess (and life) in which a move must be made, but every possible move will make your situation worse.
We are in deep zugzwang.
Apparently we are about to reenact the 1948 fight for Israel’s existence. The Arab world wants a do-over.
And much of the world seems to have forgotten why and how Israel - post Holocaust, after the death of six million - was created in the first place. Or maybe they also simply want a do-over. They’ve certainly managed to forget what happened three weeks ago.
We are fading from the front pages. Life goes on, people have lives.
(Other people.)
Here’s where we are:
Hamas invaded Israel and tortured babies.
Hamas is still firing missiles.
Hamas isn’t returning kidnapped civilians.
Hamas is preventing Gazan civilians from evacuating, using them as a human shield. Hamas is celebrating.
And the world calls on Israel to cease firing?
Yehuda Kurtzer talks about ethical loneliness: When someone is first made a victim of violence, and then suffers a secondary injustice of not being heard or believed.
That is where Israel is now, ethically lonely, astounded that the world is already not understanding and after five minutes of sympathy is back to supporting the bad guys, still in shock over the loss of life and brutality, still incredulous that the Israeli response is what is being called genocide, not the Hamas slaughter-fest. We are on an existential precipice.
It is a lonely precipice on which to balance.
I am so very grateful for the friends reaching out to tell me we are not alone here.
But when we hear about world reaction, we feel pretty alone.
This Shabbat in Israel we set the clocks back one hour.
If only we could turn them back three weeks.
Shabbat Shalom.