Israel and Palestine – History, Painful Present and Hope

by Dean Bagdadi, ©2023 

(Nov. 6, 2023) — Since October 7, nothing has been the same. But somehow, miraculously, we keep walking, and the world continues to exist. Even for those who’ve lost almost everything.

As a Shaliach, an Israeli emissary, my goal has always been to dive into the complex; to make it clear that things are not black and white. I’ve been doing this for the past year – on Israeli judicial reform, security threats, politics, everything. I always enjoy encouraging people to ask questions, and to feel safe doing so.

But after the events of October 7, everything has changed. That morning, my wife and I were at home watching the news, sitting glued to the screen, seeing the horrific events unfold. Missile alarms, breaching of fences, thousands of Hamas terrorists infiltrating Israel by land, air and sea – with one goal: genocide of Jews and eradication of Israel.

I have family in the “Gaza envelope,” the area that surrounds Gaza. They were among the few lucky ones to survive the inferno. They hid in shelters for ten hours until rescued by Israeli security forces. But I have friends who are gone, and friends who were kidnapped.

Jews, Christians, Muslims, Thais, Filipinos. Men, women, elderly, children, infants. No one was safe, and no one is ever safe near Hamas.

1,400 massacred, 5,400 maimed and wounded, 240 hostages, including 30 children. Entire families wiped out in the most barbaric ways. And thousands of casualties on the Palestinian side, mostly because Hamas hides among and under civilians. Whatever Hamas did to Israel on October 7, Hamas did to Gaza first.

To even try to comprehend why this is happening, we must go back to the beginning – to understand the importance of that land to the Jewish people, and to Palestinians. For four thousand years, Israel has been the home of the Jewish people, and our ancestral connection to it is a major part of our beliefs as Jewish people. It is not just an aspect of faith. It’s our history, our culture, our being.

And like us, others have those same connections.

The Jewish people have always been connected to Israel. But as the world goes, specifically the Middle East, those connections have shifted, repeatedly, for the past 2,500 years.

Israel itself has changed many times, going all the way back to the Kingdom of Judeah. Every empire that has ruled the Middle East took over the land and exiled the indigenous peoples. By doing so, they detached the people’s connection to the land, and minimized the likelihood of rebellion. That happened to the Jewish people, too.

For all that time, we always prayed for one thing: security. But Jewish people were never safe. Discrimination, attacks, pogroms, lynchings. We are a hunted minority wherever we are. And after the World War II Holocaust, it was urgent that we establish a safe haven for the Jewish people – in our ancestral home, in Israel. But we were not the only ones there.

In 1948, the UN accepted a Resolution establishing two countries – one for the Jewish people, and one for the Arabic people of that land, whom we now call Palestinians. We were not the only two ethnicities at that time in Israel. Christians, Bedouins, Druze, Circassians and many others also lived there. However, we and the Arabs were the two prominent peoples.

The Jewish people accepted the offer and established the Jewish State of Israel, giving a home to many survivors who had nothing left but hope. Israel provided what we had wished for since the second exile 2000 years ago, a safe place.

Jordan and Egypt did not accept the Resolution. They attacked the newborn Israel. Jordan occupied the West Bank, and Egypt occupied Gaza, the two areas that were meant to be the state for the Palestinians. In Israel, we call this the War of Independence. The Palestinians call it the Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe. Both sides remember the conflict as a bloody war.

In 1967, Israel was attacked along all frontiers: Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria. That war resulted in a bloody victory for Israel, and the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and other territories by the victorious Israelis.

As part of the peace agreements that followed, the West Bank eventually became a semi-autonomous entity, governed by the Palestinian Authority. Gaza remained a part of Israel until 2005, a year I remember well.

In 2005, Israel decided to disengage from Gaza. It compelled Jewish people to leave their homes, destroyed their villages and withdrew its military presence. People were furious and broken. They lost their homes forever and had to be relocated.

In Gaza, elections were held for the first time. Hamas was elected. There has not been another election since.

The moment Hamas took over, its focus was on one thing only: to eliminate all opposition to its rule, by inflicting terror. Hamas hanged or shot every Gazan who resisted. It followed that with extreme Islamic indoctrination of Jew and Israel hatred. It stole humanitarian aid money for ammunition and tunnels, converted sewage pipes into deadly rockets, and inflicted terror on Israel.

Hamas has one goal: To kill the Jewish people and destroy Israel. Not to resist. Not to liberate. To eradicate and kill.

When Hamas fired the first missiles on Be’er Sheva, the city I grew up in, I was 11 years old. I remember the attacks all too well, and they haven’t stopped since.

Here is another tactic of modern terror. Anchoring terrorists in civilian areas – in daycare centers, schools, mosques and hospitals – so that any attempts to get rid of them injures and kills civilians, causing more pain and hate. If you leave them alone, they anchor even more deeply, using innocent people as shields and targeting innocent people in Israel. That’s Hamas and they are worse than ISIS.

I understand why this is hard to understand. It is incomprehensible to most Americans, and humans anywhere. Neither life under the frequent rain of missiles, nor life under a constant reign of terror, is imaginable. The only hope for peace is for hatred to diminish. For Hamas to be gone.

Thankfully, there is much we can do to help. Support aid and peace-promoting organizations with your words, dollars and actions; spread awareness about Hamas and Israel’s battle for its very survival; fight disinformation and hatred. Together we can achieve much, and the world needs us.

If you believe every human being has the right to life, security and a country – if you support humanity – there is only one thing to believe in: fighting Hamas and its terror, eliminating Hamas as a military and political power.

I say this with immense gratitude and painful optimism: Am Israel Chai. The people of Israel live.

Dean Bagdadi is the Senior Shaliach (Israeli Emissary) for the Pozez Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia