Three weeks have passed since Hamas launched its barbaric and diabolical attack on Israeli civilians. For many of us, the grief and preoccupation have been hard to shake.

A volatile part of the world is now aflame. Israel has retaliated largely from the air against Hamas’ base in Gaza. A ground incursion is almost inevitable before much longer.

In many parts of the world, far removed from the immediate violence, the war is largely rhetorical, but with red-hot hatred aplenty. As is too often our wont these days, one-dimensional, black-and-white thinking is the rage while nuance, perspective and complexity are casualties.

Seemingly everyone has felt the need to weigh in, even when they, too, often have very little to say. One college or university president after another has been heard from with stunning vacuousness. We can only hope their content-free statements are not indicative of what constitutes learning in their halls. 

The president of Indiana University could only bring herself to offer, “IU is heartbroken over the horrific violence that has occurred over the past few days.” Wow, bold stuff, insightful, really sticking your neck out there to assign responsibility.

From the University of Rochester, before they were forced to clarify and clarify again: “The recent escalations within Israel and the Gaza Strip and the ensuing violence have drawn the world’s attention and reminded us of the precious value of peace.”

The interim president of Stanford, a hot mess of a school in more than one respect these days, boldly asserted that the university was “deeply saddened and horrified by the death and human suffering.” Later, the university said, “Stanford as an institution does not take positions on geopolitical issues and news events,” despite the university having issued precisely such statements on the Paris climate change conference and in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd.

And let’s not even get started with the hash Harvard made of this by way of flimsy comments, conspicuous, inartful backtracking and a donor revolt.

It turns out that mind-numbing equivocation is not so easy. Better to keep your mouth shut if you have nothing to say or speak at least some elemental truths if you choose to talk. 

This ought not be so difficult. Even the most passionate, pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist should be able to muster some condemnation of what Hamas perpetrated as heinous and heartless. Or is killing grandmas, beheading babies and taking whole families hostage okay for the greater good?

Similarly, even a pro-Israeli Jew should step up and acknowledge that Palestinians have received the short end of the stick, and that the country’s current leadership has cynically given settlers a free pass and allowed Palestinian grievances to multiply by way of unnecessarily harsh treatment.

Easy answers are in short supply, especially in this part of the world, which serves as the birthplace to so many major religions. It is no accident that the Middle East has defied workable solutions and long-term order virtually since the advent of civilization. At its core, this is a land feud dating back millennia.

No fair-minded person argues that Palestinians lack legitimate complaints. By the same token, it requires very dark blinders to contend that Israel is out of line in defending itself and taking necessary military steps to ward off future attacks.

Not only is Israel a sovereign nation with the right, even the obligation, to protect its citizens, but it is also a close ally of the United States and the only functional, albeit imperfect, democracy in that part of the world.

The slaughter let loose by Hamas on Oct. 7 cut a deep wound not only in Israel but across the Jewish diaspora. It evoked frightening echoes of pogroms from generations past and of the Holocaust that led to Israel’s creation.

Many commentators have compared 10/7 in Israel to America’s 9/11. But the scale of Israel’s suffering was vastly greater. Israel’s death toll of roughly 1,400 relative to its modest population is equivalent to the U.S. having lost well over 40,000 people in the attacks on the Trade Towers and the Pentagon, instead of the 3,000 who perished on that fateful day.

Yet, instead of sympathy and support across much of the world, Israel has received ambiguous evasion at best (see American college campuses) and outright hatred from far too many quarters.

The centuries-old poison of antisemitism with its many tropes has been given license to again rear its despicable head.

From New York to Miami to Boston to London, what other explanation is there for riotous crowds ripping down pictures of Israeli hostages? Where is the collective outrage at the uptick in swastikas being painted on Jewish institutions and private homes?

Will the president of Harvard or Stanford chime in now that the New York City police department has advised Jews to avoid large swaths of Brooklyn on this Shabbat?

When riotous crowds shout about Palestine “from the river to the sea,” is that not tantamount to calling for Israel to be completely wiped from the map?

And what is to be made of the Palestinian cause when too many who espouse it glorify or excuse Hamas as heroic figures instead of murderous thugs who effectively imprison their own people in Gaza?

It has only been in the last year or two that I came to an important realization about Israel. Namely, that its culture and political dynamics, even the tiny sliver of land on which it sits, cannot be understood through a standard-issue American lens.

To make sense of Israel is to comprehend its origins, it very different demography and its menacing, historically antagonistic neighbors on all sides.

Hamas, effectively a subsidiary of Iran, attacked and now Israel is retaliating. Even if a modicum of intelligent restraint is exercised, this will get uglier before it gets better. There will be tragic losses on all sides, including among many innocents.

If there is to be any hope found among the gloom, it lies in the shock therapy that this body blow and now this war are providing to Israel’s stuck political system. The view here, wishful indeed, is that Israel may emerge from this vileness finally prepared to kick Bibi Netanyahu and his self-serving excesses to the curb, and to return to a more mature, centrist approach to its own politics.

If moderate voices are to regain currency in Israel, we can only pray that they are met by moderate, pragmatic agents speaking for Palestinians. The eradication of Hamas will be a step toward that end.

Eric Sondermann is a Colorado-based independent political commentator. He writes regularly for Colorado Politics and the Gazette newspapers. Reach him at?EWS@EricSondermann.com; follow him at @EricSondermann