October 7 may prove to be the equivalent of the natural disasters that seem to come more frequently around the world with ever-more destructive force - extraordinary in its ferocity, but less an aberration than a harbinger of a new normal. I desperately hope this is not the case, but I worry that it is.
For the past two weeks, I’ve been thinking about an essay I started writing in early 2020. I never published it or even really edited it, as it was quickly overtaken by the end of the Trump impeachment (#1) and the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Maybe it’s just my mind trying to distract me from the almost unspeakable horror of what exactly happened on October 7 - the reality of Jewish communities literally wiped off the map of Southern Israel with shocking brutality, the wrenching personal accounts now coming out1 - but I’m searching for a way to see all of this within a larger context.2 It’s a pessimistic framework, to be sure, but at least it’s something.
Part of what I argued back in 2020 is that the status quo was unsustainable and that it would take more and more effort, resources, and luck to maintain it. That turned out to be true, but I don’t think I was especially prescient.
October 7 may be an inflection point - a bubble bursting that will result in a totally fresh way of approaching the situation.3
But October 7 may prove to be the equivalent of the natural disasters that seem to come more frequently around the world with ever-more destructive force - extraordinary in its ferocity, but less an aberration than a harbinger of a new normal. I desperately hope this is not the case, but I worry that it is.
The essay is below. I’d love to know what you all think.
For all the rhetoric from President Trump about bringing peace by ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the reality of his proposal is actually much closer to the status quo I recently saw first-hand.
I joined a cohort of North American Modern Orthodox rabbis led by Robert Wexler and the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace for a week around Israel and the Palestinian territories. The trip was a whirlwind of tours and meetings in and around Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Gush Etzion, Hebron, and Ramallah with influential and thoughtful politicians, religious leaders, NGO and UN officials, activists, negotiators, and analysts.
In contrast to the ebullient tone from the East Room, none of the Israelis we spoke to felt that peace is on the horizon in the near term - but most argued that the conflict is “manageable.”
General Yaakov Amidror, former National Security Advisor, told us that Israel can easily maintain the status quo until the opportunity again arises for bilateral negotiations. We also discussed, with Micah Goodman, his proposals for Israel to unilaterally “shrink” the conflict by improving Palestinian living conditions and local autonomy without creating additional security risks.
From several negotiators and analysts, we heard that the very modality of attempting to reach a grand, final resolution to the conflict is a relic from the post-Cold War period, when people sensed the “end of history” was upon them. These days, members of a more jaded generation believe in more limited, but flexible arrangements and negotiations as part of a dynamic reality, not a means to an ultimate conclusion.
The Trump plan, essentially pledges of international investment in Palestinian territory, Israeli sovereignty over territories already under Israeli de facto control, and putting off establishing a Palestinan semi-state until a time and situation of Israel’s choosing, fits neatly into this rubric. It is essentially an endorsement of the status quo - Israeli management of the conflict.
However, the equilibrium will be harder and harder to maintain in the future, according to still other officials we met, including Nickolay Mladenov, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, and Matthias Schmale, UNRWA Gaza Director of Operations. They both described political and humanitarian situations that are slowly but steadily deteriorating.
Trump’s announcement may well mark the end of the Oslo framework, within which both sides understood, more or less, what a negotiated, mutually beneficial settlement would look like - as well as how critical that settlement would be to their respective national ambitions. Twenty years later, we seem resigned to a dynamic that, though currently tolerable (more so, of course, for Israelis than Palestinians), will require higher and higher costs to remain stable.
This dynamic sounds uncannily similar to the overall failure of the developed world to respond to another multi-faceted, complex problem - climate change. Dale Jamison, NYU Professor of Environmental Studies and Philosophy, reflects in his “Reason In A Dark Time” on the structural reasons that the challenge has proven to be intractable. After a series of ambitious international accords aimed at accomplishing what we knew had to be done, we seem resigned to managing a steadily worsening and increasingly costly status quo.
Jamison first points to the difficulty in justifying in economics terms a massive investment to prevent calamity 200 years hence, as opposed to waiting for a future generation to make a somewhat more expensive investment later. For one thing, a yet-unknown future technology might solve the entire problem much more efficiently than anything we can do now.
Alternatively, there is often resistance to making massive investments largely on behalf of strangers - and most developed nations may be able to mitigate the worst local effects of climate change more cheaply than massively reordering their entire economies to help poorer nations.
These two arguments map neatly to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is less appetite for the significant concessions necessary on either side so long as there is a belief that an unknown future circumstance - a visionary new leader or revolutionary new solution - may generate a windfall.4
At the same time, Israelis seem ready to decide that coping with the repercussions of annexing much of the West Bank, paying the increased costs as the overall situation deteriorates, may ultimately be preferable than the deeper concessions needed for a mutually beneficial settlement. By this analogy, of course, most of the ongoing cost of inaction will likely be paid by Palestinians, much as the most devastating consequences of inaction on climate change will be felt primarily by the global South and underdeveloped countries.
Jamison also describes how climate change challenges our conceptions of morality and responsibility. For example, he contrasts “Jack steals Jill’s bicycle” with what he feels to be a fair comparison to climate change: “Acting independently, Jack and a large number of unacquainted people set in motion a chain of events that causes a large number of future people who will live in a different part of the world from ever having bicycles.” In other words, climate change is driven by people living normal lives in the world presented to them.
It may seem unfair to accuse each of us of liability in what is essentially a crime against humanity for not giving up cars, gas-heated homes, truck-supplied grocery stores, and relatively unextravagant ways of life. And yet, by not doing all of that, we are complicit, even active participants in just that. We are simply not wired to see the world in those terms, and therefore we do not - and nothing happens, even as our environment deteriorates around us.
In short, the Trump Administration's scuttling of the Oslo framework is of a piece with its withdrawal from the Paris Accords. Both moves are essentially choosing to manage inevitably worsening situations instead of recommitting to the hard work necessary - though far from guaranteed - to improve them.
As we flew home from Tel Aviv, I considered the responsibility of everyone on my flight for the wildfires ravaging Australia, just one particularly dramatic illustration of the increasing cost of climate inaction. We each returned to our proudly Zionist congregations and communities - and I wonder how much liability we each deserve for the inaction celebrated at the White House, along with the escalating costs both to Israel’s security and its identity as a Jewish and democratic state.
Dara Horn contextualizes October 7 within the experience of Jewish history in her NYT op-ed, but I was looking for something else.
Thomas Friedman’s 2003 “bubble-bursting” analysis is probably worth revisiting in this context.
Indeed, at least as of three years ago (or even three weeks ago), the patience of the Israeli Right seems to have paid off.
Quite prescient observations. Thank you
while i know that this isn't the perfect answer to such complicated issues, you do remind me to do everything in my power right where i am, right now. of course we need to look at the larger picture but so many of us feel powerless on a global or even national level. but can i do positive things in m own community? you bet i can. staring here, starting now. thank you for the inspiration that i needed today.