Marty Levine
April 14, 2026
Israeli novelist and ardent Zionist Amos Oz wrote these words in August 1967.
We were not born to be a people of masters. “To be a free people” — this wish must awaken an echo in our hearts so long as we have not lost our humanity. We are condemned now to rule people who do not want to be ruled by us…an occupation is inevitably a corrupting occupation, and even a “liberal and humane” occupation is an occupation I have fears about the kind of seeds we will sow in the near future in the hearts of the occupied. Even more, I have fears about the seeds that will be implanted in the hearts of the occupiers.
I see no validity in the annexation of populated regions to the bounds of the State of Israel without the agreement of their inhabitants. The residents of Nablus and Gaza are not “human material”, nor “human dust”, nor “sub-human rabble who have to be expropriated so as to create living space”.
He was writing this just weeks after the 6 Day War ended, a war in which Israel demonstrated its military superiority and took possession of Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. This was the beginning of what became known as “the Occupation.” This was also the beginning of a politically powerful, messianic Judaism, which sees a return to the boundaries of a country God promised to the Jewish People.
I often think about Oz’s fearful prediction as current events unfold in Israel, Palestine, and the greater Middle East.
How else to understand the announcement earlier this month that Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) had closed?
DCIP’s sole purpose was to protect children from the excesses and abuses of the occupation by bringing them into the light for all to see. But it seemed that was seen as a threat by the Israeli government. Efforts begun in 2021 have now been successful, and now this spotlight on the harm of the present reality has been extinguished.
Amnesty International placed the end of DCIP in stark terms.
In scores and scores of cases, were it not for DCIP’s invaluable documentation and reporting, abuses against Palestinian children, of lives cut short and bodies withheld from their families, might never have come to light.
The rate of children being forcibly displaced, arbitrarily jailed, and killed by Israeli forces in both Gaza and the West Bank is at extraordinary high levels…vital messengers, like DCIP, are needed now more than ever.
I think about Oz’s warning when I know that 6 months after a Gaza cease-fire began, the situation there remains dire. According to the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
The humanitarian community in Gaza continues to provide critical supplies and services amid severe constraints spanning insecurity, access restrictions, fuel scarcity, and disruptions to the supply chain. These challenges were compounded by weather conditions, overcrowded displacement sites, limited transport availability, and shortages of essential materials, all of which disrupted service delivery and prevented people from accessing vital resources that they needed.
Mondoweiss added the human perspective to this UN’s overview, reporting that a
…baby formula crisis comes amid a cluster of interconnected shortages that have hit Gaza over the past several weeks, with Israel continuing to enforce heavy restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid and essential supplies into the Strip since launching its war with Iran alongside the U.S. The shortages have stoked fears among Gazans of a return to the same famine conditions that devastated the Strip last year.
Israel continues to occupy more than half of Gaza. The flow of needed humanitarian assistance to feed, house, and meet the medical needs of the population remains severely restricted. And hundreds of Gazans have been killed by Israeli forces.
I think about Oz’s warning with each news report coming from the West Bank. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed since the Gaza cease fire was declared. Daily “settlers” supported by Israel’s military and legitimized by its government destroy homes and fields, as they take over the land that was to be the land of a Palestinian State.
What Oz feared has come true.
The situation has gotten so out of hand on the West Bank that, as reported by Yahoo News, a group of retired military and security leaders recently issued a warning that resonates with Oz’s words.
Four former heads of the internal security service responsible for the West Bank (the Shin Bet), eight former police commissioners, four former military intelligence heads, three former Mossad directors, and three former heads of the Israel Defense Forces have demanded an end to a “profound moral failure” by Israel’s government.
“The Jewish terrorism raging in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], with the tolerance – or worse, the backing – of government authorities, constitutes…a profound moral failure…erode the moral foundations and values of Israeli society”…
Israel has become a nation that sees war and destruction as the only way to guarantee its future, a future that it now defines in terms that seem to see humanity only in its Jewish population.
Israel prodded Donald Trump into two wars with Iran. And when our President was forced to agree to a ceasefire that appeared to call for Israel to stop attacking Lebanon, Israel would not lay its weapons down, successfully, it appears today, ending the ceasefire and keeping this needless war aflame.
The Guardian reported
The Soufan Center think tank in New York said: “Even if Lebanon was formally outside the deal, the scale of Israel’s strikes was likely to be viewed as escalatory, nonetheless. Israel’s strikes can be understood both as an effort to drive a wedge between Iran and its proxies and as a response to being allegedly sidelined in the original ceasefire discussions.”
…Netanyahu now seems determined to pursue a scorched earth policy in Lebanon, even if – or perhaps especially because – it might scuttle the ceasefire deal.
Amos Oz’s warning was indeed prophetic.
But it begs a key question. Did this corrosion begin in 1967 or in 1948? Is this just a “flaw” that can be corrected by a more enlightened government?
There was a time when I thought its racism just a flaw. But that was decades ago.
I thought then it was a matter of a few fringe politicians that would self-correct because the egalitarian words embodied in Israel’s Declaration of Independence would prevail.
THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
Now I recognize that to believe that I would need to ignore the reality that Israel, from its very beginning, was built on Jewish supremacy. How else to explain the sordid reality, a reality that was kept as a state secret until very recently, of the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinian residents of the land to create a reality of a democracy that had many more Jewish citizens than non-Jewish?
Until Israel’s ruling Jewish population recognizes what they have built and is ready to redress the wrongs that have been committed, I fear the future for all who see this “promised” land is bleak.
As a ray of hope, let me leave you with the vision of what might be from a Palestinian-Israeli organization, Standing Together, that gives some hope of what might be built if Israel can move beyond Jewish supremacy.
We are building a shared home for all of us. We won’t erase our differences, but rather believe in building a true partnership based on shared interests…We envision a society that serves all of us and treats every person with dignity. A society that chooses peace, justice, and independence for Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs. A society in which we all enjoy real security, adequate housing, quality education, good healthcare, a liveable climate, a decent salary, and the ability to age with dignity.
