My sense of collective and personal belonging has been shaken

Since October 7, I feel pain and despair. I am a Zionist in mourning. I hold my breath momentarily, constantly. I have heard people say that the only response that feels right is to scream. But I don’t want to scream. I want to find my feet, to stand on solid ground and know my place in the world.

My connection to Israel/Palestine – formed largely by a family history that goes back many generations before the establishment of the state – has long been at the core of my sense of that world. For many years that connection has been a complex mixture of pride, shame, pain and, always, of love. Now all I feel is pain, layer after layer after layer.

Almost everyone in the world seems to have a strong opinion about October 7 and Israel’s response to it. There is a growing consensus that those events changed the world and that it is impossible for Jews to think and feel about Israel as they had done before. Yet, social media and political trends have made serious, truthful, debate almost impossible. Self-righteousness, rage, and unacknowledged bias drench the space of discourse, drowning distinctions that need to be made.

It might seem precious to lament the loss of those distinctions in the face of the horror. Without them, however, there can be no insightful discussion of the political dimensions of the situation or of the role of international law – of what names we should give to the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas and Israel. No discussion of what should count as genocide, for example. That matters profoundly to me as an international lawyer.

For years Israel has been a pariah state in the eyes of Western progressives. Now millions of ordinary people in almost every corner of the world have joined them. For me, it is terrible to be compelled to acknowledge that justice is on their side. A loyal critic of Israel’s past conduct in Gaza, I never dreamed it could come to this.