Counterpoint: As a Jew, another concern for me on the Oct. 7 anniversary is the response

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As a Jew, I read with great interest Rabbi Avi Olitzky’s Sept. 28 commentary about the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks (“When a yarmulke feels like a target: Navigating Jewish life in a fractured world”). I understand the rabbi’s fear and grieve for the Israelis murdered and tortured, and I grieve for the rabbi and his family as he describes their daily fear.

I also grieve for the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed and the hundreds of thousands maimed and missing.

Olitzky, to help make his case for “a period of intensified harassment and antisemitism,” gives what he calls “one egregious example from this past year, in January the Minneapolis City Council hosted a meeting in which antisemitism was on full display during consideration of a resolution on Israel. Signs were displayed with slogans such as ‘Both sides are thirsty / Israel for blood / Gaza for water’ and comparing Israelis to Nazis.”

For me, and according to the Jewish values I hold dear, what is egregious is the government of Israel’s response to Oct. 7. More than 42,000 Palestinians dead in Gaza. Another 700 killed in the West Bank and about 5,000 maimed. Four hostages liberated in exchange for 274 Palestinians killed. To me, this is not “self-defense” — it is genocide. Palestinian lives do not matter to the government of Israel.

The Israeli government’s logic is horribly flawed. The country cannot continue to destroy lives, maim people, destroy infrastructure and starve people and expect, in this way, to create security for its people. With every airstrike, bulldozer wreckage of orchards and buildings, drone or missile strike and on-the-ground advance, Israel’s governmental actions are creating new freedom fighters. The end logic of these tactics is to erase the entire Palestinian population. I call that genocide.

I believe strongly that we must separate the Jewish people from the actions of the government of Israel. For me, critiques of the government of the state of Israel are not antisemitic. They are critiques based on basic human values and backed up by international law. I understand Jews in the U.S. identifying with the state of Israel. That is the way I grew up. Israel was a refuge when antisemitism made it unsafe for Jews in any part of the world. It is the “Jewish homeland,” the “Jewish state.”

However, the behavior of the Israeli government is anything but Jewish. Instead of celebrating and encouraging the dignity of all its residents, the government has created open air prisons called the West Bank and Gaza. The restrictions on Palestinian movement, access to water and electricity, etc., generate hostility. This is the breeding ground for resistance.

Sometimes this resistance explodes. Intifadas happen. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s comment on these uprisings was: We need to “mow the lawn.” I am compelled because of my Jewish values to condemn the behavior and decisions of the government of the state of Israel. That is not antisemitic.

It is human.

Art Serotoff lives in Minneapolis.