[go: up one dir, main page]

Israel-Hamas war reopens old divisions and reveals new ones among Americans

Far from the frontlines of the war in Gaza that has raged on for the last eight months, Americans are grappling with new and old divisions. Judy Woodruff visited southeastern Pennsylvania to hear from Americans on different sides of this difficult conflict. It's part of our series, America at a Crossroads, and produced with help from PBS 39 WLVT.

Read the Full Transcript

Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

  • Amna Nawaz:

    Far from the front lines of the Israel-Gaza war that's raged on for the last eight months, Americans are grappling with the new and old divisions the conflict has created here in the U.S.

    Judy Woodruff recently visited Southeastern Pennsylvania to hear from Americans on different sides of this difficult conflict.

    Our initial plan was to interview them as a group together, but, after meeting resistance to that, we held two separate conversations.

    This story is part of Judy's ongoing series America at a Crossroads and was produced with help from our friends at PBS39 WLVT-TV.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    For the eight people we brought together, one group more supportive of the Israelis, the other the Palestinians, the pain brought on by the attacks of October 7 and Israel's war on Hamas was palpable.

  • Ruthi Lynn, Orthodox Jew:

    There's a life before October 7 and there's a life after.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    Ruthi Lynn, a mother of eight and an Orthodox Jew, said her life would never be the same.

  • Ruthi Lynn:

    Everything from how I parent my children, how I send them to school, how I conduct myself publicly, where I go, who I speak to, what I look at on social media, everything has changed.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    Aliyah Furman Stanger, a mom to two young children, agreed.

  • Aliyah Furman Stanger, Mother:

    There is a delineation now in my life of before October 7 and after.

    My husband came and he woke me up. And he said: "There's an invasion in Israel and it's really bad."

    And the first thing we did, we both have so much family in Israel, that we just started calling them and what's happening to them to see if they're OK. And they were hysterical. They were scared. There was so much confusion around what was happening.

  • Dan Segal, Attorney:

    I mean, Israel is a small country, so everybody — everybody knew somebody, not six degrees of connection, one degree of connection.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    Dan Segal is an attorney from the Philadelphia area.

  • Dan Segal:

    It's awful. It should be condemned. Israel has not a right of defense. It has an obligation to defend itself. And what happened had to be condemned, at the very same time that one had to look sort of beyond the horizon or to see a horizon of somehow how do we make sure that this never, ever happens again?

  • Judy Woodruff:

    But there is not unanimity among American Jews.

    Allison Mickel, Critical of Israeli Government: For weeks, I was waking up to images sent through WhatsApp of just body parts of children that I will never unsee.

    And, yes, I don't sleep well. I haven't slept well in a long time.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    Allison Mickel, has worked extensively in the Middle East, but has been publicly critical of the Israeli government.

  • Allison Mickel:

    I think people act like it's impossible, but it actually is very possible and very easy to hold both mourning and sadness and worry for people who were attacked unsuspectingly, but also to know that the other shoe is going to drop and to just know it's going to be so bad and so bloody.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    We have seen unfold an ongoing Israeli response toward Gaza. How has this affected you?

  • Raya Abdelaal, Palestinian Muslim American:

    It's changed my whole life.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    Raya Abdelaal, a Palestinian Muslim American, is deeply sympathetic with Gazans.

  • Raya Abdelaal:

    It made me see the world very differently. When people are watching buildings being bombed by another country and we're watching parents holding their dead children, and the international response is, they deserve this, that blew my mind, that that is what we're allowing to happen, because we are all complicit in this.

    I felt responsible as well. I'm an American citizen. I pay tax money. That tax money is going towards killing Palestinians, and I'm Palestinian.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    Pakistani Muslim American Riffat Chughtai has previously worked on building interfaith connections in times of attacks on Muslims, but told me, in this instance, Israeli policies were at fault.

  • Riffat Chughtai, Pakistani Muslim American:

    And when I went over there, everything that we had heard about the disparities between both the nations, Israel and Palestine, it became very obvious.

    I mean, there's no comparison, because Palestinians have lived in camps for years and years. How much progress can that entail?

  • Judy Woodruff:

    Sam Kuttab, a Christian Palestinian who came to the U.S. in 1970, was clear to condemn the October 7 attacks.

  • Sam Kuttab, Christian Palestinian:

    We had to call it what it is. And I saw a lot of Palestinians refusing to do that. That was — to them, it was a glimmer of hope. For me, it was just a wrong thing to do.

    So I think we had to immediately take that step. Some of us did that.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    But Kuttab also stresses Israel bears its share of responsibility.

  • Sam Kuttab:

    I do not condone October 7. But when you bring a people and take every bit of hope away from them and destroy it, and get on TV and say, once in a while, we have to go and mow the field, which Netanyahu says, basically killing Palestinians.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    At the same time, many Jewish Americans say they are still trying to process the far-reaching impact of this war here in the U.S. and in the Middle East.

  • Ruthi Lynn:

    To be perfectly honest, I feel extremely scared, scared for the future of the Jewish people,scared for the Jewish people in America, scared for my own family.

  • Aliyah Furman Stanger:

    This is still happening. The bodies are still warm. It's hard for me to say, this is the time. I need to mourn. We all need to mourn.

    And I stand unequivocally behind Israel in its war effort, not just for the sake of my people, not just for the sake of Israel, for the sake of Palestinians. If Hamas is not eliminated, it is just a matter of time until this happens again.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    Such a painful subject for each one of you and for so many more. How is it affecting your friends, people you know, people you see?

  • Dan Segal:

    In a word, it's a challenge. I find that, with respect to certain social acquaintances, both on the left and the right, there is a polarization that has set in that makes it very difficult to talk and — to talk to them and to understand them, because there's no listening.

  • Rabbi Beth Janus, Reform Rabbi:

    Within the Jewish community, we are not completely united.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    Beth Janus is a Reform rabbi.

  • Rabbi Beth Janus:

    And there's a lot of people who live in this country, in the American Jewish community, Americans in general who do not want death, who do not want conflict, who want to see this resolved. And so we have to engage each other.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    Allison Mickel, however, deplored the fact that part of the Jewish-American panel, who oppose her activist statements and strong criticisms of Israeli policy, didn't want to sit alongside her.

  • Allison Mickel:

    It's disingenuous, to me, to say that we want to have these hard conversations, and to be so nervous about even just having a dissenting Jewish voice in this space.

    To be really honest, I feel like I am met with closed doors over and over again and accusations and middle fingers and angry phone calls, and literally being moved to a different table to — when I try to have those conversations.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    Ruthi Lynn said her tight-knit Jewish Orthodox community grew closer, but said she's lost friends outside of that.

  • Ruthi Lynn:

    I would say I have lost a lot of friends for my pro-Israel views. I am completely rethinking where I'd ever send my children to college. And I'd be perfectly happy if they did an online degree and didn't set foot onto a university campus.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    Palestinian Muslim American Raya Abdelaal says, while she has made new friends, she too was let down by her old ones.

  • Raya Abdelaal:

    I lost a lot of people, a lot of friends from college that I thought would reach out and ask, what's happening? Like, are you OK? But they didn't reach out. And some of them posted for Israel, but didn't post for Palestine. And they have known me their whole lives.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    Still, Sam Kuttab says he's been able to reach across religious divisions and forge new relationships.

  • Sam Kuttab:

    I made more friends in the last seven months with them than I have done in the last 65 years. I have been to seders. I have been to Hanukkah, lighting Hanukkahs.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    You have new Jewish friends?

  • Sam Kuttab:

    Yes. And I have been to synagogues. And guess what? I find out that we have so much in common.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    Riffat Chughtai said establishing ground rules helps.

  • Riffat Chughtai:

    Whenever it gets to a point of disagreeing with each other, we tell each other — we have had this rule from the beginning — after 9/11, that we will not fight with each other, we will back off. And then we will re-continue the conversation after everybody has calmed down.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    This technique didn't work with everyone in our panels. Some on both expressed disappointment for different reasons with the U.S. response, with clear anger and resentment toward President Biden.

  • Aliyah Furman Stanger:

    I think he visited Israel in a time of war. He said, his words, not mine, his commitment to Israel is ironclad.

    And I don't think it is now. He seems to be giving in to a small, but loud minority, and he seems to be putting politics before morality. He has put pressure on Israel, immense pressure, and that has slowed the war effort. And that has cost both Israeli and Palestinian lives.

  • Raya Abdelaal:

    Like, what of — a failure of an administration. I door-knocked for Biden when he was running against Trump. And I feel all these communities have been thrown under the bus.

    To watch millions of people being starved and say nothing and to continuously say I have a red line and stand back while Israel commits a genocide and do nothing, I mean, what is the message here?

  • Judy Woodruff:

    There are a few sympathetic to Biden.

  • Dan Segal:

    I'm very supportive of what President Biden has done. I think he cares for Israel to his core. I think he deeply respects Israel. I think the pressure that he is putting on Israel is designed for the benefit of Israel and the Palestinians.

    And I think the — it is only through pressure from the United States on both sides that we're going to come to a resolution.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    But the idea of reconciliation is still hard for some.

  • Ruthi Lynn:

    I'm not minimizing the importance of long-term discussion and bridging gaps and patience, tolerance. But there is another part of me in — which just says, OK, this is great, but here we go again. This isn't our first rodeo as the Jewish people.

    We have hostages. We have 19-year-old, 20-year-old soldiers being killed. We have generational trauma.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    Even so, there were glimmers of guarded hope.

  • Riffat Chughtai:

    I believe in the two-state solution. I believe very strongly this has been the United States' policy. But the solution has to be equitable and amicable and also agreed upon by all, both parties, which has never happened before. Peace can never be sustained if it is not equitable.

  • Rabbi Beth Janus:

    Our hearts are big enough to have compassion for our own people and for Palestinian people, innocent Palestinian people, those who are innocent Palestinian people.

    And it's not that our hearts that can be big enough, but they must be big enough. My Jewish values tell me that everyone, every human being on this planet is created in the image of God, and we are not going to get to a solution by killing tens of thousands of people in Gaza.

  • Judy Woodruff:

    There is no mistaking the pain felt on both sides. We were grateful to each panelists for agreeing to sit down with us and look forward to the time when they will all sit together.

    For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Judy Woodruff in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Listen to this Segment