Diana Wichtel considers what to say about the Israel-Hamas war

A temporary memorial art installation on the National Mall in Washington DC during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war to mourn the number of deaths, call for a safe return of hostages, and call for a ceasefire to safeguard people in Israel and Gaza from further violence. Photo / Getty Images

OPINION

Diana Wichtel reflects on a letter to a friend.

In past years, I’ve gone to some remarkable concerts. They commemorate Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass”, the 1938 November pogrom against Jews co-ordinated by the Nazis in Germany, Austria and Sudetenland. The concerts, presented by the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand and Victoria University’s New Zealand School of Music, have honoured musicians who made art in extremis, such as those who smuggled music out of ghettos and camps.

This year, the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht, this concert against forgetting was postponed because of the times. Instead, a small event, location to be advised. Security, which I expect at any event where Jewish people gather, was tighter. The programme included a talk by historian Giacomo Lichtner: “Remembering Kristallnacht after October 7.” Few in that room would have been untouched in some way by both pogroms. There was a minute’s silence for all affected and the innocent civilians of Israel and Gaza. Cellist Inbal Megiddo played a beautiful Kaddish.

The talk included the poem, Shema, by Italian Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi. “Consider whether this is a man … Who dies at a yes or a no”; “Consider whether this is a woman, without hair or name”. It urges making remembering active.

Consider. I’ve been doing little else, because talking about the events of the last weeks has felt impossible. But things come to find you. A letter from a friend seemed to require being conscripted to one side or the other in a war over people’s words. I felt I had to lay my few inadequate cards on the table. “I’m struggling with grief and anxiety over all of this, as are many people. I am trying to refrain from judgment of a lot of what is being said by those on both ‘sides’ who are probably similarly struggling,” I replied. “I refuse to accept the binary terms of the argument at a time when people are grieving for those they know who have been killed or taken hostage or are in a place of real immediate danger.”

I tried to explain why I haven’t signed open letters. “I cannot put my name to anything that doesn’t call seeking out and murdering babies, kidnapping children, killing and mutilating innocent people and broadcasting it what it is. I don’t want to live in a world where rape is considered a justifiable means of resistance. I won’t sign anything that backs keeping the killing going.” I’ve fought the erasure of my father’s family, murdered by the Nazis. I can’t sign anything that minimises or erases the atrocities of 7/10. I can’t sign anything that doesn’t address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

I am for ceasefire, the release of hostages, the safety and freedom of Palestinians, the safety and freedom of Israelis. “I’m against Hamas and Netanyahu’s government,” I wrote (I’m leaving out the expletives). “I am for the people on the ground I know and know of, working together, Palestinians and Israelis, for peace.” I wondered if some of my friendships would survive these times.

Others are wondering, too. There’s a piece by Yuval Idan on Medium titled To my Western leftist friends, from your leftist Israeli friend. “I’m writing this out of immense pain and grief, from my own perspective as an anti-occupation Israeli,” Idan writes. The pain is for Israel, Gaza and the silence about 7/10 from many on her own “side”. “Palestinians directly affected by this showed us grace during this awful time, knowing that our fates are tied together, while you chose to tell us that this is just how the cookie crumbles.”

It’s a long, anguished piece. I don’t need to agree with it all to feel her loneliness. She concludes with a refusal of the war of words and silences. “You won’t make us choose between our life and safety and the life and safety of the people in Gaza, or anywhere else in Israel or Palestine,” she writes. “We know that peace and justice are possible, we will be safe, and Palestinians will be safe. We will find a way, together. We have no other choice.”