My identity as a proud Israeli and as a Jew has become more and more shaky, and my grasp on it faltering.
All I can do is to cry out, "Help!"
Where was the world when Jews were massacred in the Holocaust? Where was God? Where was God on October 7, when children, women, old people and peace-loving civilians were slaughtered and kidnapped to Gaza in their pajamas? Where was the Israel Defense Forces, where was the government during that terrible day? For several days, it seemed that most of the world identified with Israel's sense of shock and our right to self-defense; then the world understood the results of our war of self-defense. As for God, according to some of our cabinet members and their sympathizers, a miracle has happened to us. They believe that the monstrous slaughter will actually lead to redemption and to a complete and total victory.
And now, where is God, where are the nations of the world, where is the International Court of Justice, not to mention Jewish morality and our ancient values, where are they to cry out for the rescue of the Palestinians who were slaughtered in the Gaza Strip in 2024 – babies, children, women, older people and other innocent"noncombatants," who met their death while being considered "collateral damage," their fate determined by artificial intelligence. They were killed, slaughtered, suffocated to death, burned and buried alive, or turned into human dust beneath the ruins of their homes during the destruction, the burning and the razing of Gaza to the ground, during the "war of self-defense" that turned into the war of vengeance.
Why isn't everyone crying out, where are the citizens of Israel, in whose name the homeless and the helpless are starved and exiled, wandering back and forth, from one "safe zone" to another, their fate as "terrorists who are marked for death" determined by their ability or inability to obey "evacuation" orders dictated by the IDF. They die by the sword, by fire, by hunger, by suffocation and by thirst, by the systematic bombing of hospitals that were not evacuated despite "evacuation warnings." But whether they are doomed to starvation, thirst or annihilation, according to the so-called Generals' Plan – an operation that has been denied by the government, that is masquerading as if it to comply with the rules of international law, and is operating under the cloak of lies and denial presented by the Israeli government – we have all become deaf and indifferent to calls for rescue.
And we say to ourselves, "But we are different." They sanctify death, we sanctify life, and our eyes are blinded by our righteousness. And we say to ourselves, this is a war for survival, for the sanctification of the souls of our soldiers, in the name of God, the Lord of Hosts, who is on our side. And we also say that our reservoirs of empathy and pain have been inundated by our dead, our slaughtered babies and children, our orphans, the thousands of wounded and combat-traumatized. And we don't say that this is a "war of choice" masquerading as a "war of necessity." We have used up our mercy inventory; we have no compassion left for those who are not us.
And we do not know, nor do we want to know, what was done there in the killing fields. And we as Israelis do not cry out the vitriolic cry that should have been heard around the globe about what is being done in our name. To cry out: Save the Gazans from the killing, but also save us, the Israelis, from carrying the heavy burden of our conscience in the face of the massacre, slaughter and annihilation of our fellow man, for the mass killing that is being done in our name in the Gaza Strip and in the territories that are under our control, in the face of disgraceful acts of violations of basic rights, land appropriation and indifference to the fate of those who are not us.
Save us from our evil government, from its actions, which cause us all to be held responsible. Save us from deeds that obliterate Jewish morality and the values of the State of Israel, under the guise of an existential war in which everything is permitted. And save the lives of our soldiers from participating in this so-called war of choice.
And I want to scream and shout aloud my personal cry. As long as all of the hostages have not been returned to their homes and reunited with their families, as long as their families continue to be trampled upon by those who are indifferent and heartless and as long as the war continues and with it the carnage, destruction and the loss of all human dignity, I set myself apart and openly and publicly declare that I do not belong to the community of Israel, for which questions of fundamental values, of the sanctity of life and human dignity are archaic, belonging to an obsolete era of moral values. Now is the era of "we, the chosen people," of Jewish supremacy, of we and only we; an age of fascism, militarism and the messianic vision, a generation of arrogance and the trampling of the law that I was not born into and in which I no longer find my place.
My identity as a proud Israeli and as a Jew has become more and more shaky, and my grasp on it faltering.
All I can do is to cry out, "Help!"
Yehudit Karp served as a deputy attorney general of Israel from 1978 until 2003.