People often object to criticisms of Israel’s ongoing mass atrocity in Gaza by saying, “Well what SHOULD Israel have done in response to October 7 then?” They say it like the question should confound you, as though it’s some kind of thought-terminating unanswerable Zen koan or something.

But it isn’t. The question is very answerable, and the most correct answer is that Israel should have done what it always should have done: right the wrongs of the past and make peace.

October 7 was entirely a response to generations of abuse against the Palestinian people by the state of Israel, so the correct response to it would have been to heal those abuses in a way that is agreeable to the Palestinians. This would likely include ceding large amounts of land, the payment of very extensive reparations from Israel (and ideally from its wealthy western allies as well), eliminating all unjust laws and apartheid systems, a comprehensive push to purge society of the toxins of anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia, the right of Palestinians in exile to return to their homeland, and the negotiation of a peace agreement which yields so much that even the most hardline factions in Palestinian society would be compelled to agree with it.

And when you say this the common objection........

© Pearls and Irritations