In the 40-plus years I have had the privilege of writing for the New Paltz Times, now Hudson Valley One, I have never received so many in-person comments, Facebook messages, emails and texts regarding my December column entitled “The end of friendship.” Separating from friends for ideological reasons seems to be ubiquitous here, probably everywhere.
Each person, to quote Bob Dylan’s great anti-war anthem, wants to believe they have “God on their side.”
Losing friends because of disagreements, when neither of you have the power to influence outcomes is painful, often irreparable, also futile. Sometimes, too much time has elapsed since being together, thus the relationship dies a natural death.
I called Brian, who I lost touch with because of the drift between friends that started with Covid. He informed me that he had just returned from several weeks in Israel helping out the civilian population in a non-military capacity. He is an outlier; not Jewish, Christian or Islamic. He is atheist. Not Republican or Democrat. He is a blue-collar worker with a college education. He doesn’t fit into any demographic with a predictable political point of view. He is not milquetoast either, someone timid and unassertive.
I wondered if we could have a conversation about Israel-Gaza that would build understanding, strengthen our friendship and intensify our connection. No matter what he said, I was determined to just listen.
“War is expected to be bad. Being there changed me. I think about my time in Israel every day. I don’t know how it changed me, it just did. There is a lot in the politics there; Netanyahu, the courts, him trying to seize power, how right wing it is. Lots of people need to lose their jobs. The government failed, failed spectacularly. Netanyahu will elongate the war to delay accountability. This is going to drag on for a very long tragic span of time. Something new, who knows what will have to happen. None of it is working.
I saw the places where people were killed, taken hostage. The sheer brutality, the unbelievable savagery and barbarism. Although I must have a tough exterior for my work, I am sensitive. I can’t read about atrocities and violence. I tried to face it so I could comprehend it. I couldn’t. I can’t. So when Israel responded, I got it. I get it emotionally. The response is wrong, but I wasn’t there. I did not witness the carnage. I was on a beautiful beach, a paradise in a city called Zikim. There were completely demolished tanks strewn on that beach. Can you imagine the destructive power it takes to destroy dozens of thick dense steel tanks? I saw bullet holes in residences where innocent children were slaughtered. But what Israel is doing, it’s not going to work. It is not a solution. Too many innocent people killed every day. Children. Incomprehensible!”
In war there are always massive numbers of innocents killed. Forty-five million human beings were killed during WWII. Twenty-five million of those people were Russian. During the Vietnam war, 40,000 Vietnamese civilians perished. Casualties are never evenly distributed. If morality, right and wrong , could be determined by numbers, then the complex stupefying ambiguity of the Israel-Gaza war could be easily determined.
My opinion has bounced wildly back and forth, one day focused on the death toll in Gaza. Then, the next day a friend sends me a link showing Gaza’s Sesame Street encouraging five-year-olds to “kill Jews.” The film shifted my attention yet again. The more I tried to get past the propaganda, misinformation and manipulated news reporting, the more my point of view became emotionally ambiguous.”
For the first time, at Thanksgiving last year, my family was politically divided, arguing. My 16-year-old grandson said, “You better not write about this because every day you change. Grandma, wait until you really know the truth about all of it.”
The truth is I want the killing to stop. Everywhere. All I can say with absolute conviction is this: My thoughts and prayers go out to all the innocents in both Israel and Gaza and any others who may get injured or kidnapped or die from a cause at the hands of others and all who will live in fear or trauma from these or related events for many years to come.
This statement is safe, possibly even cowardly. Then I read a David Brooks quote in the New York Times:
“The failure to deal with ambiguity is one of the greatest disorders of the age. It’s a flight from reality.”
Join the family! 
