David Rutledge

I used to be pro-Palestinian. I thought Israel was wrong for carpet bombing Gaza and using siege warfare on civilians. But then I ran into a very wise Israel apologist who changed my way of looking at things forever. I was walking down the street and I saw him leaning against a lamp post, smoking a pipe as wise men do. “Your shirt says Free Palestine,” he said from behind a plume of smoke. “Yep!” I replied. “So I guess that means you love Hamas then?” spake he. I stopped in my tracks. I’d never thought of it that way before. Could it be? Could my opposition to murdering civilians really be indicative of a deep affection for a Gazan militant group? Maybe I really did love Hamas and think everything it did on October 7 was great and wonderful? “Is this really how I want to live my life?” I thought to myself. “I — I — I…” I said out loud. “Or perhaps,” he said with a raised eyebrow, “you just HATE JEWS??” I fell to my knees. Oh my God. He really had a point. What possible reason could anyone have for opposing military explosives being dropped on buildings full of children besides a seething lifelong hatred of adherents to the religion of Judaism? How could anyone possibly oppose siege warfare tactics which cut off civilians from food and water and electricity and fuel and medical supplies unless they harbored a dangerous hostility toward members of a small Abrahamic faith? “Who… who are you?” I asked. “That’s of no consequence,” he said, casually blowing a smoke ring through another larger smoke ring. “But… but the children,” I stammered as my entire worldview crumbled before my eyes. “The civilians! They’re dying! Isn’t it bad that they’re dying?” And then he went for the coup de grâce. “Have you considered,” he said before a pregnant pause, “… that all of those deaths are the fault of Hamas?” I fell flat on my back. The world was spinning. A trickle of blood ran down into my hair from my ear. I felt all the anti-colonialism leaving my body. I suddenly could no longer remember why I thought it was bad to rain down military explosives on a densely populated concentration camp. Everything went black. When I finally came to, the mysterious stranger was gone. But his wisdom and profound insights into Israel and Gaza will always live on in my heart.