TJI on the ABC: October 7 reflection

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Sam Hawley: When journalist Deborah Stone learnt about the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel a year ago today, she had to get to work. As a Jewish woman and editor-in-chief of The Jewish Independent, finding a balance in the reporting was what she strove for then and now. It's been a challenge, as Jewish Australians reflect on the bloodiest single day in Israel's history and the death toll from the controversial military response grows. Today I speak with Deborah about the past year. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. Deborah, we need to start, of course, on October 7 last year. It all began around 6.30. That's when Hamas started to fire rockets into southern Israel, thousands of them at that point.

Deborah Stone: Yes, so it was Saturday afternoon here and I actually try and avoid the news on Saturdays to give myself a bit of a break, so I didn't hear about it until I got a text from a colleague who follows the news in Israel and who texted me to say, we're putting out a special bulletin. And I initially just got back to her and said, we're not a breaking news organisation, why? And she said, this is not normal, look at the news. And when I did, I realised, of course, it was not normal. And after that, it was just waves of shock for days as we heard about the murders, the kidnappings, the rapes.

Sam Hawley: It was the most unimaginable attack. And of course, in many people's minds, we remember that rave, you know, on farmland where thousands of young people were just having fun. It was horrific.

Deborah Stone: Yes, you know, kids having a party, something that we can all relate to as normal, as far from war as you can get. And the result was just devastating. And I must say, for me, for my colleagues, for many of my friends who are liberal Zionists, who are people who believe firmly in the right of Israel to exist and also believe firmly in the right of Palestinians to have a state of their own, it became a period of tremendous cognitive dissonance. How could we hang on to our belief in both these peoples and their rights in the face of such horror?

Sam Hawley: Yes, and of course, more than a thousand people were killed and more than 250 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage in that moment. And so much changed, didn't it? That was a moment of change for the world.

Deborah Stone: Yes, not only for Israel, I think, but for the diaspora Jewish community and for the Palestinian community and for everybody who perhaps had a little bit of hope that we were moving slowly towards a possibility of peace and freedom for both peoples in the region.

Sam Hawley: But as a Jewish woman and as a journalist, you had to get back to work. Just explain that because that must have been quite difficult.

Deborah Stone: It was very difficult. I mean, as a journalist, you know, you do what you need to do and telling the story is the job. But at the same time, as it happened, we had a strategy meeting planned for that week and we were completely unable to do our normal organisational planning. We spent the whole day talking about our own trauma and about how we were going to maintain a sense of moderation in the face of what we knew instinctively was going to be a tremendous polarisation. And that is, of course, what has happened. It has become very, very difficult to be a moderate.

Sam Hawley: Yes. So what was your directive to your staff back then?

Deborah Stone: Well, I think what the team agreed on was that our need was to maintain what we tentatively called Project Grey, which was a sense that there is a grey area, that there are good Jews and good Palestinians, that there are rights on both sides and that in the midst of all this horror, we had to maintain a sense that it wasn't all black and white.

Sam Hawley: All right. So, Deborah, I want to talk to you then about the 12 months since that horrific day. So much, of course, has happened. You speak to Jewish Australians pretty much every day. What has it been like? I mean, it's pretty hard to sum up, I would think, but just tell me what they tell you.

Deborah Stone: Well, we actually, for this anniversary, have put together a page where we asked members of our community to answer that question, how has your life changed since October 7? And the responses are varied, but they're overwhelmingly very, very sad and very, very fearful. I have comments like, my children now know there are people who hate Jews. My Australia died on October the 7th. I now feel unsafe. I'm more despondent. My parenting has changed. I've lost my voice. Also, people who are more supportive of Israel and people who are less supportive of Israel. It's gone both ways. But overwhelmingly, it's fear and it's sadness. And in particular, I think it's a loss of faith in Australia for Australian Jews, a belief that we are safe here, which has been quite devastating for Australian Jews.

Sam Hawley: So there's a feeling that anti-Semitism has increased?

Deborah Stone: I think there's no question about that. I'm someone who's actually, for many years, been concerned that maybe Jews cry wolf, that there's a little bit of unnecessary fear in this community as a result of being, by and large, children of Holocaust survivors. And I've had to backtrack this year and say that that statement that I've been making for many years has not stood up to the reality, in particular, what happened at the Sydney Opera House two days after October 7th, when there was no Gaza War. Israel had not yet responded, and yet we experienced hate towards the Australian Jewish community. That was a real wake-up call. And that was quite terrifying to feel that there were Australians out there who, in response to Jews being massacred in Israel, were calling for hate against Jews in Australia.

Sam Hawley: Mm. Of course, the experience for each person, as you sort of alluded to, can be quite different. Even within a family, it can be quite dividing, can't it? Because not every Jewish person supports Benjamin Netanyahu, for instance. So there is conflict even within households over this.

Deborah Stone: I would say the majority of Australian Jews do not support Benjamin Netanyahu. Jewish people are very able to make a strong distinction between belief in the right of Israel to exist and supporting the current Israeli government. I sometimes feel that people outside the community are not as capable of making that distinction, which to me is strange, because we're very capable of understanding that Australia has a right to exist, and that doesn't mean we agree with the Australian government or the United States or any other country you care to name. But for some reason, people seem to fail to make that distinction. It's certainly true that there has been a lot of conflict within the community, particularly as the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has progressed. I think overwhelmingly at the time of the massacre on October 7, 2023, the vast majority of Jews and I think the vast majority of Australians had very strong sympathy with Israel. As Israel has responded, as there have been so many civilian casualties in Gaza, there has been an increasing debate about what constitutes a proportional response and whether Israel's aim to root out Hamas justifies what has happened in Gaza. And I certainly hear conflict on both sides. There are Jews who are very pro-Palestinian, there are Jews who are very pro-Israeli, and there are many, many people who are torn in between, who perhaps early on felt the war was justified, but as it has progressed, have been in favour of a ceasefire. And that's true within Israel as well.

Sam Hawley: Yeah. So with the death toll, of course, in Gaza, the officials say there is now at more than 40,000 and the expansion, of course, now of this conflict into Lebanon. I guess that's not something anyone can really ignore.

Deborah Stone: No. And I think we need to mention that Israelis have been under attack from Hezbollah in Lebanon since October 7. And there are many Israelis who have now been evacuated from their homes for a year. So that expansion in Lebanon does not occur in a vacuum, but the same issues arise as arise in Gaza. What constitutes a proportional response? How do you deal with the fact that while Israel is under attack, it does have very effective defence systems? The same is not true for civilians in Lebanon.

Sam Hawley: Yeah. All right. Well, Deborah, this year you commissioned a piece from a young Australian woman, Rachel Holt. She has a Jewish father and an Arabic mother. So a really interesting case study, if you can put it that way. Just tell me about her.

Deborah Stone: Yes. Look, Rachel's story, I found one of the most powerful things we published this year. It's part of a series we published called Beyond Black and White, where we tried to platform articles that addressed the polarisation and spoke about the middle ground. And Rachel's story is really a good example of that. She tells the story of crying at her mother's home after Josh Burns' office had been subject to antisemitic attack. And her mother, who is a third generation Lebanese Australian, was initially sympathetic. But then she said to Rachel, I don't know how you can be so sympathetic to Jews, given what's happening to Palestinians. And Rachel had what I think is quite a brilliant response. And she said, Mum, do you think that when I'm upset about violence against women, that means I don't care about climate change? And her mother said, no, of course not. And she said, well, why do you think if I care about Jews, that means I don't care about Palestinians?

Sam Hawley: Very touching.

Deborah Stone: And I think that's something that many of us are trying to hang on to, that it is possible to care about both groups of people in the same way. And to feel that there are both rights and wrongs on both sides.

Sam Hawley: Yeah, Deborah, I guess that's sort of where the hope must come in. It must be incredibly difficult to find much hope in this situation at all. But there can be some hope, can't there?

Deborah Stone: I have to hope there can. There is a little bit of backchannelling going on. The organisations which we have platformed for many years, which are on the ground peace-building organisations, have gone very, very quiet, but they haven't disappeared. And there are people, unfortunately not a majority, but there are people who believe that there will be peace. It's not going to happen this year. I fear it's not going to happen in my lifetime, but I have to believe that there will be a way forward.

Sam Hawley: And how do you feel and think about the conversations and relationships that you have, Deborah, with people who have different views? You know, can you have a respectful, peaceful relationship with people when feelings can run so deep?

Deborah Stone: Well, I think in Australia, it's terribly important to remember that much as this is a life and death situation for people in Israel and people in Palestine, we are privileged to live in Australia. We live in a multicultural society. We have very strong values, and those values include respect. They include a right to live and let live, and they include a belief that we need to protect our society and not bring the conflicts and the violence of the other side of the world to Australia. We are all Australians. We're Australian Jews, we're Australian Palestinians, Australian Muslims, and I think we do need to be very strong on what constitutes Australian values at this point and to protect that in order to protect the wonderful society to which we belong.

Sam Hawley: Deborah Stone is the Editor-in-Chief of The Jewish Independent. This episode was produced by KaraJensen-Mackinnon and Sydney Pead. Audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I'm Sam Hawley. Thanks for listening.