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Fabiola Santiago is a columnist for the Miami Herald.
I support and stand unequivocally with Israel at this hour of unfathomable tragedy and war, as do most people and leaders in South Florida, home to one of the country’s largest Jewish communities.
Hamas terrorists’ brutal surprise attack last weekend on a sacred day of celebration was Israel’s 9-11 moment.
Entire families gunned down in a kibbutz. Young people, 260 of them, massacred at a music concert, others taken hostage. Reports of babies’ throats slit, heads severed. Ongoing shelling of the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon and Tel Aviv.
In our country, the fresh pain of the Jewish people’s mounting losses blends with our own dulled but never-forgotten wounds from similarly unspeakable acts of terrorism committed against us that horrific September day.
“Miami stands with Israel,” read the banners framing the grieving Jewish community gathered Tuesday evening around the Holocaust Memorial in Miami Beach.
Yes, we do — and the message of unity, political differences over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing autocratic rule put aside, is an important one.
There’s no underestimating what’s happening in Israel, infiltrated by Hamas militants who came from the crowded, 2-million-strong Gaza Strip, ruled by Hamas since 2007 after Israel withdrew from the territory in 2005.
Israel now is shelling the area in retaliation for the unprecedented terrorism.
A strong show of support for Israel is especially significant in Florida, where acts of anti-antisemitism have been brazen — and on the rise.
Some have been staged by neo-Nazi groups pushing an extreme right-wing agenda. Others appear to be carried out by lone wolves like suspect Andrew Johnson, caught on video and arrested Saturday for vandalizing a synagogue in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood and harassing congregants with “Heil Hitler” taunts.
This is the work of white American nationalists who support former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — not Middle Easterners.
Hateful rhetoric is the fuel that enables hateful behavior — and we’ve been drowning in plenty of both in Florida during the last contentious years of nasty politics.
Florida also has a sizable Muslim population hailing from different countries. These Americans don’t condone terrorism, but support the existence of a Palestinian state and decry the crowded, unsanitary conditions under which Palestinians live in Gaza and the constant surveillance they undergo everyday living in the West Bank.
Although, this time of mourning isn’t the right one to air these grievances — as they may appear or be taken to excuse terrorism — all voices should be heard in our democracy.
Plus, as I learned during a trip to Israel and Jordan in 2019, the current reality and history of the region is complicated, not binary. Most neighboring countries support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over territory that both sides feel belongs to them.
The complexity, too, translates to South Florida, where not all Jews, for example, support Netanyahu’s aggressive territorial settlements or controversial attempts to overhaul the courts.
Pro-Palestine voices shouldn’t be silenced with punches to the face, as happened this weekend in Fort Lauderdale when a group supporting Israel clashed with two pro-Palestinian protesters holding the flag of Palestine.
One of the Jewish demonstrators aggressively used his Israeli flag to keep a Herald reporter from videotaping the attack and doing his job of reporting on the conflict. I understand the pain, the outrage, but cannot condone this reaction.
It is counterproductive, diminishing one’s moral ground. We must separate the terrorists from the rest of the people.
The attack on Israel is a game-changer moment that calls for reflection.
Like President Joe Biden, I condemn with every fiber of my being the bestiality with which Hamas militants attacked Israelis on the holiday of Simchat Torah, which marks the conclusion of the annual cycle of public Torah readings.
Against the backdrop of such “pure, unadulterated evil,” as Biden called it, it has been difficult to go about the mundane after seeing newscast images of frightened young hostages, bloodshed and devastated cities without shedding tears.
It’s hard to reconcile the modern country many of us have visited turning overnight into a war zone.
But we can support Israel with all our hearts and make room for Palestinian views. Democracy demands it, even in a time of war.
