Published: 27 October 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
What constitutes a proportionate response to a massacre? MICHELLE LESH interrogates the legal and moral minefield of the war between Israel and Gaza.
7 October 2023. ‘A Date that will live in Infamy in Israel’, read a headline from a major newspaper. My echo chamber was full of the caption ‘7.10.2023’ with the Israeli flag and broken heart emojis. The most lethal assault in the history of the state of Israel. Black Saturday. 7 October 2023 was also my husband’s birthday, the first one we marked without him. Mark died of pancreatic cancer less than six months ago. He was an expert on Israel/Palestine, an historian and teacher. His connection to Israel went deep in him, as did his commitment to bringing about some kind of just solution to the conflict.
That depth and feeling resonating from his writing. His political instinct and eloquence made his voice powerful, accessible and original. It was also a courageous voice in the context of the diaspora Jewish community because of his readiness to criticise policies of the Israeli government and his persistent pleas to treat justly Palestinians living under the oppression of a prolonged occupation.
For me, the coinciding of dates – posthumous birthday and war – makes it hard to disentangle the collective grief from the personal. Black Saturday. I miss his real-time critiques that he churned out at rapid speed yet maintained remarkable breadth and depth. There is a gap in the world where Mark should be, which I feel acutely and always, but especially now because his voice on Israel/Palestine was such an important one. A friend expressed it well: “The instinct to check what Mark has said on Twitter/Facebook is still very strong. Muscle memory.”
I long for my husband to be by my side through life always, but now I want him next to me in front of our screens – reading, watching, and sharing content – all the while injecting the coverage with commentary on the commentary. More importantly, despairing and empathising together over the horrors as they unfold before our eyes. Comforting each other through the grief and the utter nightmare of it all, while trying to decipher the rules of what looks to be a new world order.
