Worrying about exactly how many Israelis were killed on October 7, or exactly how many Palestinians have been killed since, is a bit like debating whether the Holocaust killed six million, seven, or only five. Let’s just say that ’39 to ’45 were bad years, that October 7 was a bad day for Israelis, and every day since has been a bad one for Palestinians. A year from now there’ll be as many Israelis as there were on October 6, and as many Palestinians as there were on October 6. So from the perspective of the disinterested demographer, what’s the big deal? Well, I suppose, one could ask the same question about the Holocaust. After all, there are as many Jews in the world today as there were in 1939.
    What’s wrong with this reasoning is that it assumes people are fungible. But they’re not. My father, my sister, my daughter … They can’t simply be replaced. What could possibly count as ‘reparations’? And it’s that that makes the current conflict so intractable. It’s the conviction that after the events of October 7 and their aftermath, Israelis and Palestinians couldn’t possibly live together. And it’s because of that conviction that both sides have to demand that theirs be “from the river to the sea”.
    I’m of the view that they’re mistaken. History is replete with peoples who were once two – or in some cases more than two – becoming one, notwithstanding the atrocities each once visited upon the other.
    We’re told at Genesis 11:1-9 that God divided us, linguistically but probably tribally as well, so we couldn’t co-scaffold our way to Heaven. Nice try. But then He shouldn’t have made your women and ours fetching to each other. Palestinians can’t do stand-up. And Jews can’t cook. Imagine a race of people who can do both. Impossible? Ah, but “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”

Categories: Editorials, Social and Political Philosophy

Tags: Holocaust, Israelis, October 7th, Palestinians, Tower of Babel