10 | DECEMBER 14 • 2023 J
N
guest column
A Letter from the Front
I
write this from Gaza,
where I proudly protect
my homeland as a medic
while fully understanding the
pain of my Palestinian col-
leagues.
I lost a friend
on the first day
of the war, and
my pain in this
war is twofold:
first, it’s about
the thousands of
Israeli families
who have had their worlds
shattered simply for being
Jewish in acts of horror and
deaths of Jews on a scale not
seen since the Holocaust.
Additionally, as someone who
has been working for coex-
istence for two decades, my
heart breaks for the human
stories of those uninvolved in
the fighting and those hurt
by it.
All my Palestinian friends
have cut ties with me, except
one from Gaza, who updates
me that everything is OK with
her family. This letter explains
why I believe in protecting my
country and for coexistence,
and it is for those open to a
potentially new perspective.
FACTUAL GAPS
From a deep understanding
of the conflict, the first issue
is the significant factual gaps.
One of my Palestinian friends,
who was still in touch at the
beginning of the fighting,
told me we were lying about
Hamas murdering babies and
raping women before killing
them. There are photos, and
I’ve heard firsthand testimo-
nies. Their bodies were found
in positions that left no room
for doubt. When I asked him
what his claim was based on,
he said that even President Joe
Biden retracted his statement
about the murder of babies.
When I asked for a source,
he directed me to a Palestinian
site I wasn’t familiar with. He
said no when I asked if he
had seen any corroboration
from any Western objective
source. Even the BBC, one
of Israel’s most prominent
critics, didn’t report this. He
agreed that it might be a mis-
report, but what about the
millions of Palestinians who
haven’t spoken to an Israeli?
They violently attacked the
Israeli embassy in Jordan after
another incorrect report of
Israel bombing a hospital.
What American progres-
sives struggle to understand is
that their narratives are based
on at least disputable facts and
on a culture that is unrelated
to the Middle East. During a
visit to Gaza, we passed by an
elementary school where we
found antisemitic textbooks
that educate hatred against
Jews from a young age, as seen
in the pictures.
Palestinian history fits bet-
ter in the TikTok era. Hence,
it wins. White versus black,
strong versus weak, oppres-
sors versus the oppressed,
even when it has nothing to
do with reality. Israel is indeed
strong; it’s not true that it’s
white (a significant part was
expelled from Arab countries
in 1948; my wife would have
been Iraqi if she had been
born a few decades earlier)
and surveys have shown that
Israelis have no interest in
ruling over anyone, as long
as their security is guaran-
teed. In mighty America and
peaceful Europe, it’s hard to
understand that small Israel,
surrounded by 22 Arab coun-
tries, would be annihilated if
it were weak.
The factual gap creates the
second issue, which is a lack
of understanding of the dif-
ference between a war against
Hamas and a war against the
Palestinian people. Hamas
hasn’t been elected for 17
years, and my Palestinian
friends in Gaza are more
afraid of it than of the Israeli
army, even if they won’t admit
it.
They can’t even admit they
know me because they would
be suspected of collaborating
and normalizing relations
with Israelis. In other words,
the ruling culture, led by
Hamas, isn’t even willing to
acknowledge the existence
of Jews in Israel. It has prov-
en execution capabilities in
killing Jews, and its leaders
have stated and said they will
continue to do so. Can you
imagine your sister or daugh-
ter being raped and murdered
just because she’s Jewish?
What would you do?
The main reason mentioned
globally to stop the fighting
is that innocent civilians are
killed, and this is the third
important point. I’ve seen
firsthand the efforts to avoid
that; what would you do if
someone was shooting at you
from a hospital? Second —
we can assume the data is
inaccurate. It’s reported by
an organization whose moral
compass is raping women
before murdering them and
by another organization
whose umbrella organization
appointed — no joke — Iran
as the head of the UN Human
Rights Council.
But even if you believe
the data, it’s impossible to
fight an organization hid-
ing behind civilians without
harming civilians. Every
civilian harmed is terrible,
but blaming Israel is based on
either misunderstanding at
best or supporting the armed
Palestinian struggle under
the guise of defending human
rights.
And the last argument is
that none of this would have
happened “if you weren’t
occupying.” First of all, in
2005, and I was there as well,
Israel completely left Gaza.
The assumption that the
Middle East would be peace-
ful without the Israeli occupa-
tion, as defined by Palestinian
elements, is incorrect when
looking at history. Even before
Israel’s establishment, there
were riots in which Jews were
killed, and the Palestinians
were offered a state numerous
times and declined. But who
cares about history in the
TikTok age?
It’s hard to understand
this complex conflict deeply
just from TikTok videos. My
father and my grandfather had
to fight and lose friends, and
so did I. I hope that my chil-
dren — and the children of
my Palestinian friends — will
have a different fate.
Yair Nativ lives in Netanya, Israel, with
his wife, Nava, and 2-year-old son.
He was — as were 350,000 others —
called up to serve in the reserves.
PURELY COMMENTARY
Yair Nativ
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