The last many months have been a demoralizing and disorienting nightmare, a nauseating disequilibrium for Israel and Palestine, and for anyone who cares about the people who live there and the violence they suffer. The people of Israel and Palestine have been dragged by their leaders into a deep and destabilizing miasma of shock and disbelief, grief and rage with no end in sight beyond death and destruction. In place of political leadership, hollow slogans of “resistance” and “total victory” paper over a narrow and debilitating horizon of perpetual war. No thought and no care are given to protecting the human life of a complex social fabric. The mind reels in the constricted and depressing place of a hopeless dead-end turning in on itself, a circle with no line forward.

The only way to stabilize the situation suffered by Israel and Palestine is to build a bigger picture. The first steps are a pause in fighting, hostages home, humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. Then, end the war, create clear borders and redlines, back this up with regional and international power, isolate and remove Hamas from power, get Hezbollah off the border in the north without more violence, topple the government of Israel, withdraw from Gaza, lift the siege of Gaza, rebuild Gaza and the north and south of Israel, end the occupation in the West Bank, isolate the religious right in Israel, recognize the State of Palestine next to the State of Israel, reaffirm the State of Israel next to the State of Palestine, normalize relations between Israel and the Arab world, secure peace and human life on foundations of mutual security, mutual interest, mutual recognition, and mutual respect.

The big picture and a path forward demands a tripartite common: [1] An international-regional common: Neither Palestine nor Israel can function on their own outside international ad regional frameworks. Ending the occupation and defeating Hamas require cooperation linked to regional integration and international guarantees which are only possible under the rubric of a viable two-state compact. [2] A local moral common: Under the painful gravity of human suffering, the families of the hostages want their people back; the people in Gaza have literally lost everything. They are the moral core of the conflict, a common humanity of hurt. Their suffering is the only thing that matters. [3] A spiritual common: In the region and abroad, people need to resist the overpowering logic of enmity and commit to human life, the image of God in all people.

Violence and death are core realities obstructing any big picture of a human common. For Palestinians there is a one-hundred-year war against their homeland and people, while Israelis talk about wars-of-no-choice. But all the old paradigms are broken, and hopefully the old cycles. Objectively, the catastrophe of October 7 and the Hamas-Israel, unprecedented in the history of the conflict, has ripped the status quo ante to shreds. With no going back, the extreme scale of the catastrophe is creating new realities. With the passing of every week, Israel and Palestine are confronting the limit of their own power. They are hedged in by what the United States, Europeans, and Sunni states are willing to tolerate from either side. There are clear limits to what they are willing to support politically and financially. Israel and Palestine are backed into corners of their making whose only solution is a peace-of-no-choice.

Over here, diaspora Jews need to bracket and stop weaponizing the genuine fear of anti-Semitism at this political moment. Most of our friends and fellow citizens want an end to the war and a decent end of conflict resolution to the conflict. We should take note that radical anti-Israel-anti-Zionism is a fringe political phenomenon; that Israelis overwhelmingly hold Netanyahu and his government primarily responsible for the disaster brought upon the country by Hamas on October 7; that many Palestinians in Gaza hold Hamas responsible for the catastrophe they are now suffering; that for many if not most Israelis, the thing that matters most is returning the hostages. Understandably at this moment, Israeli Jews overwhelmingly oppose the idea of a 2-state solution, but in favor of no practicable alternative.

And all the global and decolonial left in the United States and Europe contribute are imbecilic anti-Zionist slogans. “River to sea,” “resistance by any means necessary,” “abolish settler-colonialism,” and “globalize the intifada” do not reflect in a critical way the immense toll in human life suffered in Gaza. Far away from the conflict with no people at risk, the myopic anti-Zionism cosplayed by white radicals and Black radicals (the non-Semitic left) exacerbate intra-communal conflict. With no big picture, radical anti-Zionism offer no viable path out of this demoralizing morass, no big picture, no vision and practice of a collective good.

Maybe the big-picture common of Israel and Palestine has nothing to do with peace and understanding. What binds together Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians into a common interest is infinite fear and hate; and the deep pain and concern they separately share, each for their own people, bound together and suffering with no clear path forward.