On the Anniversary of October 7

On the anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israelis, this is what I want to say the most.

So many people will be afraid to say anything on this day because the conflict is between two marginalized, historically oppressed groups, and the trauma lies deep on both sides. But the Israeli government’s wholesale slaughter of Palestinians is simply morally wrong, and we need to say so.

“Nobody’s Free Until Everybody’s Free,” — Fannie Lou Hamer

If the freedom of one group of people depends on the oppression of another group of people, none of them are free. None of them live in peace and security.

This is what Apartheid taught us. This is what Jim Crow taught us. Maintaining oppression demands constant violence.

The situation in Israel demonstrates oppression math: Israelis suffered the highest death toll of a terrorist attack in their history, and since then, hostages have been killed by Hamas and the IDF. We don’t know how many of the remaining hostages may be alive.

When I hear the parents of hostages plead for a plan to release their loved ones, my heart aches with sympathy.

In retaliation, the Israeli government has massacred tens of thousands of Palestinians, an estimated death toll above 40,000 — over 37 Palestinian deaths for each Israeli death. Overwhelmingly, the IDF has killed civilians — elders, children, and pregnant women among them.

I hear Palestinian voices less often. Sometimes I hear voices of Gazans on my radio, despairing that there’s nowhere to go that is safe. Sometimes I hear from people in my own community, worried about their families in Palestine, wondering if they are safe or even still alive.

When they speak, I feel a sympathetic terror.

Those of us with genocides in our history remember our parents or our grandparents telling us: “We knew if we stayed we would be killed. But we knew if we left, we might still be killed.” We inherited this fear. It was so all-encompassing that it got written into our genes: “They don’t care what we have or haven’t done. Our ‘crime’ is who we are, and they will kill us for it.”

I suspected that trauma changed us genetically before science proved it, because I had nightmares where I felt, vividly, how my grandparents must have felt. The fear stayed in my chest and in my mind after I woke up.

As Ta-Nehisi Coates points out in his latest book, The Message, past oppression does not exempt us from becoming oppressors. In the Armenian American community, I have seen plenty of racism, sexism, and homo- and transphobia, as well as scorn and hatred for immigrants.

As Coates put it bluntly in an interview: “Hurt people hurt people.”

Audre Lorde wrote, “The Master’s tools will never dismantle the Master’s house.” You cannot use the tools of oppression to end oppression.

Netanyahu and the Israeli government have chosen to take up the tools of oppression. This doesn’t just harm Palestinians — although Palestinians suffer the most from it — but it also harms Israelis.

The families of hostages are suffering. Ordinary Israelis are threatened by Netanyahu’s widening war. Generations of Palestinians will take the lesson from unjust and wildly disproportionate retribution against them that “the only language Israelis understand is force,” which will continue to threaten Israeli safety and security.

And the worst part of it is that Netanyahu has unleashed this regional war that has killed tens of thousands in a year and could kill tens of thousands more just to save his own ass from prosecution, because the longer he holds onto office, the longer he delays the legal consequences waiting for him the moment he is no longer Prime Minister.

We cannot talk today about the deaths, pain, fear, and suffering of Israelis without also talking about the deaths, pain, fear, and suffering of Palestinians and, now, Lebanese.

The Israeli government refuses to acknowledge that the fate of Israel is intimately bound up with the fate of Palestinians.

Israel exists, and all nations must accept it.

Palestinians exist, and Palestine is their home, and Israel must accept that, too.

The only way forward is negotiating co-existence where EVERYONE has the same rights. This isn’t some naïve, pie-in-the-sky idea. It’s literally the only realistic path to safety, security, and peace for all. It’s a brass tacks, real-world solution that will take long, hard work to accomplish.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu is charging ahead in the wrong direction, with even more horrific consequences in the future if no one stops him.

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