Tens of thousands died; hear from survivors before you vote in 30 days
At 6:29am, the music stopped. As described by survivors, the sun was about to rise over an ongoing dance festival in the Levant.
- Millennia earlier, indigenous Semitic tribes had become Jews, and later groups became Muslim Arabs. During the ruptures of the twentieth century, the League of Nations mandated that the British administer the area deemed “Palestine” with the goal of creating a national home for indigenous Semitic tribes. For nearly three decades, Britain governed Palestine with Arabic and Hebrew as official languages alongside English, until in 1947 the United Nations responded to the Holocaust by voting to formally allocate the territory to a majority Jewish polity alongside a majority Muslim Arab polity.
Thousands had gathered from dozens of countries that Saturday a year ago, to honor the themes of unity and love by literally dancing from darkness into dawn in the beautiful Negev desert. The dancers were happy, unencumbered, and unaware of the violence about to unfold.
- Israel’s creation was not unusually messy by the standards of the twentieth century. Syria, Iraq, and Jordan, for instance, were carved out of the Ottoman Empire, triggering ethnic violence and “cleansing” among Assyrians, Kurds, Druze, Sunnis, and Shiites. The creation of India and Pakistan in 1947 out of the former British Raj displaced over 15 million people, with ensuing Hindu-Muslim violence killing at least one million innocents. Ethnic violence also characterized the emergence of Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia in the 1990s (out of the Ottoman husk of Yugoslavia). In that context, Israel’s formation was considered restrained, especially given that six out of 16 million Jews had just been murdered in the Holocaust.
When the music stopped at 6:29, violence erupted. Survivors describe fleeing on foot into the cactus scrub, where they were hunted for hours with guns and grenades, helpless as they watched their friends taken, killed and raped.
History could have turned differently many times, allowing Israel and Palestine to co-exist peacefully like so many other states. Leaders chose otherwise. When Israel accepted the UN mandate, Arab leaders massed armies to wipe out the Jewish state. After Israel repulsed the attacks, terrorists attacked civilian noncombatants such as Israeli athletes in the 1972 Olympics. Extremism among Jews also kept war alive, such as in 1995 when war hero and peacemaker Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by ultranationalist Israeli settler Yigal Amir for the crime of making peace with Palestinians. Powerful Arabs refused to live alongside Jews, and increasingly powerful Israelis refused to live alongside Palestinians.
The butchery at the festival was committed by the terrorist group Hamas.
- Hamas formed in 1987 with the explicit goal of sabotaging peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. The group’s tactics flow from a religious ideology that considers casualties as martyrdom. For example, when Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh learned in April that three of his sons had died in the conflict, he expressed gratitude, calling their deaths an “honor.” This mindset led to planning for October 7 that would maximize both Arab and Israeli deaths to weaken the Jewish nation.
Hamas targeted the dancers that morning not only because they stood in stark contrast to the region’s ancient hatreds, but also to use them as pawns in a campaign of hostage-taking, mass murder, sexual violence, and mutilation. And the people of Gaza, whom the Hamas terrorists claim to represent? They look back at the year with shock and incomprehensible sorrow, and today stand at grave risk of disease and starvation.
- Documents show that Hamas planned for this precise outcome. They filmed themselves committing war crimes to encourage copycats, triggering a global surge in antisemitic attacks. Hamas also shocked Israel into total war, at which point Hamas committed further war crimes by using civilians – including hostages and children – as “human shields” to win a propaganda war against Israel as a nation.
In seeking total war, Hamas benefited greatly from their nominal enemy, Israeli prime minister Bibi Netanyahu. The International Criminal Court at The Hague has initiated investigations into both Bibi and Hamas; since neither Jews nor the Arabs have any path to total victory in Palestine, international law demands peace and compromise.
- Bibi spent 14 years boosting Hamas to intentionally weaken the prospects for peace, including specifically using prisoner exchanges to create the conditions that made the Nova dancers such valuable targets for Hamas. Bibi became even more aligned with ultranationalist and anti-Arab Jews in 2022, when corruption charges forced him to turn to the most far-right government partners in Israel’s history. Right up until October 7 itself, Bibi continued diplomatically and financially supporting Hamas in Gaza while essentially moving to annex the West Bank against international law. This makes him the ideological heir of Yigal Amir, who preferred a dead Yitzak Rabin to a live peace process.
The villains of the Levant sadly have American allies in their pursuit of total war at the expense of civilians. These warmongers support Donald Trump, so also support Jill Stein to splinter Muslim and Arab American opposition to Trump. Sadly, a faction of the antisemitic far left has captured attention with dramatic acts on college campuses. These activists have a specific purity test: they demand a “ceasefire,” which would leave the region’s Jews and Arabs no closer to peace or safety than during the “ceasefire” that was broken a year ago at 6:29am. My Oakland Corps colleague Chibundu Nnake, an alumnus of Bernie Sanders for President, is speaking out among the progressive left against the warmongering Putin-backed Jill Stein in Michigan.
- As an antifascist Jew fighting against Trumpism, I felt physically sickened to see crowds of nominal allies marching and waving signs that these obviously innocent children died not because of Hamas or Bibi or history at its most broad, but rather specifically because they were murdered by Israel and Jews as rich “oppressors.” Historically, my relatives have absorbed disproportionate blame for the deaths of innocent children, so these movements frighten me.
Fortunately, voters in this election do not need to listen to the extremists. If we would like to consult the survivors in the Levant as we consider Jill Stein, Donald Trump, and Kamala Harris – well, we can just ask them.
- At Oakland Corps, we elevate the voices of those who speak up for the strength of Kamala Harris in the face of pro-Trump social pressure or worse. We started with rebellious Americans in right-leaning America (Kamala supporters among Republicans, cops, veterans, white Evangelical Christians, etc.), but courage is also required to speak up for Kamala in some far-left communities.
For months, volunteers have been gathering testimonials from courageous Arab and Palestinian voices on the ground in the Levant. These videos have been compiled and translated in voice-over by volunteer Muslim and Arab American voters here in the US, who had been targeted by Jill Stein propaganda and are speaking out in outrage.
It’s not just Arab voices asking for peace; Jewish survivors also seek peace over revenge. A few weeks ago, I met Ron Segev and Millet Ben Haim, survivors of the October 7 attack. Despite what they endured, they spoke quietly yet firmly in favor of reconciliation. They gave me a necklace, engraved with the Star of David, the date “Oct 7, 2023,” and the words, “We will dance again.” I accepted it, though I don’t wear it—it feels too much like borrowed courage. Their resilience and hope for peace inspire me and many others involved in the Jews for Kamala movement.
Please take a moment to watch and hear these voices, and please share them with others if you feel so moved. The choice we make in this election matters not only for us but for people across the world.
