As a writer and teacher, I am accustomed to having my ideas, thoughts, words, motives and sometimes character questioned. I normally welcome being put into a position of questioning my beliefs and values. Following the atrocities committed against Israel and humanity on October 7 and Israel’s retaliation, I have had my relationship to, and support of, Israel challenged by smart, good and sensitive friends—both Jewish and non-Jewish.

They know from my history of living in the Arab Muslim world, speaking Arabic and having taught Islam that I am neither an Islamophobe nor anti-Arab. They correctly assume that I am deeply disturbed by the level of violence and the withholding of food, water and medicine. They wonder how I can defend such inhuman practices. Well, I can’t.

I can’t stomach the pain, suffering and deaths that I see. I can’t accept that all Gazans are fair targets because they voted in Hamas. Having been herded into camps—concentration camps, work camps and death camps—having been brutalized, dehumanized, starved and slaughtered, we cannot be doing this!

In Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps, starving emaciated people who were close to death were called Musselman (Muslims). They were not Muslims but Jews. They were called Musselman because they were often prostrate on the ground from exhaustion and weakness. Some prisoners also believed that Muslim fatalism moved people to accept their fate as “God’s will” and wordlessly surrender to death. Today, the terrible irony is that the starving Musselman are overwhelmingly actual Muslims.

Given the violence and death, the blocking of food and medical aid how, my friends ask, could I possibly identify myself as a Zionist? Because I am a Zionist. By embracing that word I mean to affirm my support of and commitment to Israel. Coming from a long line of Zionists who were active in forming and funding the creation of the Jewish State, this is both an inherited and a carefully evaluated commitment. I have felt attached to Israel from before it was Israel, when it was still called Palestine. Back then I identified as Palestinian. The Tzedakah Box (Pushka) on our dining room table into which we dropped change every night and got matching donations from our parents on Shabbat, had Palestine written on it in Hebraized letters.

For most of my life I have had a relatively uncomplicated relationship with Israel. I wrote checks, bought Israeli bonds, supported various charities and served on the board and as President of the Board of Friends of Tel Hashomer—a major hospital in Israel. Now, however, I have to respond to the challenges I receive both from my interlocutors and from myself.

I am well aware of an historic pattern where the world mourns Jews when we die but condemns us when we fight back. It took under two weeks post 10/7 for the world to turn against Israel for retaliating. This was long before there was a level of violence from Israel that could justify real examination, much less condemnation.

Today, the case against Israeli tactics is far stronger and, as the world has turned, with even France announcing the recognition of a Palestinian state, Jewish opinion is also deeply divided. We are increasingly ill at ease with the utter destruction in Gaza. Our moral discomfort is leading to an increasing sense of disgust. There is naturally much resistance to criticizing Israel in public because the world is already so critical that adding our own voices seems problematic. But we have to. I have to. If silence connotes consent, I do not consent to these tactics being done in my name.

Can I renounce the tactics without renouncing Israel and my identification as a Zionist? Yes, of course I can. I worked, wrote, spoke and showed up for Peace in the 60s, for Choice, for Women’s Rights and Civil Rights, for LGBTQA+ before we had all those letters. I was hassled, arrested and one time clubbed by a cop at a Fair Housing demonstration. From my university days through Peace Corps, to grad school and into my senior citizen years, I have criticized my country and worked to make it better. In every moment, with every breath, with each tear shed from emotional pain or tear gas, I have always self-identified as a patriot, as someone who loves his imperfect but perfectible country.

This is how I can still be a Zionist. As with our unfulfilled American Dream, I have a recurring dream about what Israel could become. That dream is far closer to Golda Mier and Henrietta Szold than to Bibi, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir.

Yes, my pride in America and in Israel turns at these current terrible times, in both “my nations,” to embarrassment. This fact does not lead me to abandon my identity or lessen my involvement but to redouble my efforts to redeem us from folly. I am committed to work and not flee from the painful and unacceptable realities I see in our streets in America and in what is left of Gaza.

I believe in my Kishkas, my guts, that I can, we can, make our nations better and move them towards fulfilling dreams that reflect our best values, our better angels and our highest aspirations. As with our own families, I believe that we have both power and standing when we are motivated not by rage or hate but by love. I am an American and a Zionist who hopes once again to be proud of my peoples. My hope is not passive waiting but like the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah (literally “The Hope”), my hope is a call for involvement and commitment. So, for the Perplexed, I counsel not abandonment but involvement and not despair but hope.