British Jewish anti-occupation activists blocked the walkways into the Foreign Office in London on Wednesday to demand a cease-fire. Photo by Guy Smallman/Getty Images)

Carly Pildis November 2, 2023

I have some questions for my colleagues on the left.

We’ve worked together for years. We’ve had happy hours and coffees, and taken our kids on playdates. We’ve worked to pass bills and elect public servants together. We have marched together, celebrated and mourned together. 

We have carefully avoided the subject of Israel, and when we have discussed it, we have set firm boundaries to assure our friendships weren’t destroyed. 

Now we can avoid it no longer. 

Many of you are demanding a cease-fire. I can understand why. 

I too mourn the loss of innocent life, especially the children. The loss of entire families in Gaza fills me with grief. I have supported peace my whole life. 

But I am not ready to advocate for a cease-fire. And I have some questions for you about why you think you should.

I am struck by the fact that while calls for a cease-fire are loud, few seem to have any clarity about what conditions a cease-fire should require. Hamas’ record with cease-fires is less than reassuring: Just weeks ago Hamas broke a cease-fire in order to launch a horrific attack on Israeli civilians during a national holiday. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said that a cease-fire would be a “gift” to Hamas, as they would only use it to rebuild and repair their capacity to launch attacks. And senior Hamas officials have openly said they aim to repeat these terror attacks “over and over” until “Israel is destroyed.”

Whatever you think of Israel’s actions, it is unreasonable and unjust to ask Israel to unilaterally disarm after being victims of the deadliest day of violence against Jews since the Holocaust — especially in the face of such threats. 

Have you so quickly forgotten that Hamas launched this war by massacring close to 1,400 Israelis in an unprovoked attack that targeted innocent civilians? Hamas massacred children in their beds, slaughtered music lovers at a celebration of peace, used rape as a weapon of war, and kidnapped at least one elderly Holocaust survivor to use as a hostage, as well as dozens of children.

Don’t Israeli victims of terror deserve justice too? Isn’t the least we can give them a pledge to do everything we can to ensure no one else suffers atrocities at Hamas’ hands — a pledge that a cease-fire with Hamas might make difficult to uphold?

So: What concession would you argue must Hamas face in order to secure a cease-fire, both in acknowledgment of the horror they’ve inflicted on Israel, and to ensure the group would actually observe such an agreement? Would you demand Hamas surrender? Agree to extradite its leadership to stand trial? Free hostages taken from Israel? Hold elections — a basic democratic responsibility it has refused to fulfill time and again?

If Israel agrees to a cease-fire, will my friends on the left finally hold Hamas accountable on the international stage — for their crimes against Israelis and Palestinians alike? 

I’ll remind you that you repeatedly chant that “Palestinian lives matter” — but where have your voices been as Hamas has executed and tortured Palestinians, set Palestinians up to be used as human shields, and used a fortune in international aid money to fund weapons to use against Israel rather than basic humanitarian systems for the territory they govern? Will your call for care for Palestinian lives finally include accountability for the terror group that has destroyed so many of them?

Or do Palestinian lives only matter to you when you can dehumanize Jews?

Perhaps most importantly: How will you reckon with Israel’s clear need to defend itself — a need more apparent now than any time in recent decades?

For the past 20 years parts of the American left have decried every single Israeli security measure as unjust and racist. Every wall is apartheid, every fence is oppression, every checkpoint is racism. Israel’s blockade, enacted after Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza strip in 2007, creates an “open-air prison.” I must have heard that phrase a thousand times, and I still have no idea what it means. Even the Iron Dome, which does not harm Palestinians and saves Israeli lives, you wanted to defund.

Remember when you assured me that those rockets were just falling in fields and would never do real harm? You were wrong. Not only have the rockets gotten worse, but we now know Hamas can and will launch mass atrocities against Israel. If you oppose every attempt to keep Israelis safe, you are sending the message that Jewish blood is cheap — and encouraging groups like Hamas, which explicitly treat it as such.

The fact that cease-fire calls have focused almost exclusively on Israel shows me that there is a deep antisemitic rot within the left that has conditioned people to view Jewish lives as less important. American leftists have minimized Israeli losses, dehumanized Israelis, endorsed violence and inflamed the conflict with outlandish rhetoric for years. You wanted to “globalize the intifada.” Every time you yelled these things you damaged efforts to build peace.

You have used your rhetoric to erase the existence of Mizrahi Jews, Ethiopian Jews and other Jews of color to claim that Israel is an entirely white state populated by European colonizers. You ignored Jews’ clear claims of indigenousness to the Levant and claimed we were “settler colonialists.” You justified terrorism and worked to demonize Zionism. 

When your rhetoric sounds exactly like that of far-right white nationalists, doesn’t that disturb you? From hate crimes in London to violent intimidation at Cooper Union, you have helped to make Jews less safe: Early data shows a 388% increase in incidents of antisemitism since Oct. 7. 

American Jews have been a critical part of a strong vibrant left throughout American history. We were at the forefront of the labor movement, marched for civil rights, stood at Stonewall, fought for women’s rights, gay marriage, and much more. I am deeply grateful to those on the left, from elected officials to activists to writers, who have awakened to antisemitism and are standing tall against it. I am deeply grateful to President Biden, who has declined calls for a cease-fire and said he supports a “pause” to provide time to free prisoners, and the leaders across Congress who have stood strong with Israel and stood against rising antisemitism. 

I am grateful for those pushing Israel to be the most just and moral it can be, in good faith.

The left is meant to prioritize justice, equality and dignity. You cannot be the left if you endorse authoritarianism, terrorism, and brutality. There should be no space on the left for those attempting to justify, excuse or “contextualize” Hamas’ attack on Israel.

We are stronger together when we fight hate, poverty, cruelty and systemic injustice and oppression. If you look at Jewish children and see combatants that do not deserve defending, your progressive principles are lacking. If your desire to end hate stops when you see a Star of David, you are abandoning those principles to stand with the same bigots we are supposed to fight together. If you cannot allow the horrors of the Simchat Torah massacre to change your perspective, than it is not the pro-Israel Jew who no longer belongs on left. It’s you. 

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