Gaza – Compassion and Justice
How silence encourages oppression and a cycle of violence and suffering
In July this year, we published an Open Letter about the disastrous situation and genocide taking place in Gaza and the painful silence in the Western world about what had been occurring.1
The situation in Gaza may appear to have improved since the cease-fire, and the media are certainly paying less attention to it. However, appearances are deceiving. Much of Gaza lies in ruins, and the Palestinian survivors of the genocide continue to live in appalling conditions and have almost nothing to say about their own future. Israel very frequently breaks the ceasefire, its genocidal violence has failed to stop, and the future of Palestinians living in the West Bank looks very bleak.
Our previous Open Letter was very well received, but there were also some critical responses. In this new Open Letter, we wish to reply to the criticisms. We also offer a further perspective on the situation, based on our belief that acts of mutual understanding, communication, genuine compassion and justice among all involved parties are needed to disrupt the 80-year-old cycle of suffering, hatred and violence. And as human beings observing the ongoing horrors, we are all involved. Vilification, silence or equivocation, on the other hand, only spell prolongation of this disaster.
The cycle of violence and suffering on both sides
First we would like to address one complaint that our previous Open Letter had condemned the current Israeli regime led by Netanyahu without offering sufficient comment upon the violent and repugnant role Hamas played on October 7, 2023. The indelible, burned-in imprint of pain, revulsion and loss among Israeli Jews evoked by that day is fully understandable, especially within the historical context of the German holocaust and the many centuries of hostility, oppression and threat of extinction that Jewish people have endured. In our letter we did acknowledge this suffering. However, we also found it especially necessary to point to a gaping lack of compassion and kindness for all the suffering and death inflicted upon innocent human beings living in Gaza in the genocidal aftermath of the October rampage. We were particularly disturbed by the silence displayed among many Buddhist and mindfulness communities.
Hamas is so often mentioned and condemned in articles and communications as the vicious nonhuman culprit, either explicitly or implicitly assumed to be responsible for all horrors that transpired on and after October 7. We have never defended the actions of Hamas. However, it needs repeating that the massacre by Hamas did not merely emerge from nowhere but as a reaction to many decades of serious oppression from Israel, even if it is an abhorrent, pathological reaction. Over multiple generations, Palestinians have been treated as legitimate objects of oppression and humiliation, often cruelly dehumanized in the speeches of highest levels of the Israeli government and in the popular Israeli media. Palestinians in their daily lives were and still are routinely subjected to humiliating behavior and threats, not infrequently serious physical danger by members of the Israeli military and non-military settlers. These facts are beyond reasonable contention. Amnesty International and other humanitarian organizations have long labeled the Palestinian circumstance in Gaza and the West Bank as ‘apartheid’.
Horrendous acts of hate and rage can never be justified, but Hamas has not been alone in its vicious acts. The retaliation by the Israeli regime and army has also been horrendous— an obvious undeniable genocide with massacres everyday, altogether certainly hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians killed or maimed, an entire population traumatized for life. To counter the cycle of violence and destruction, it is obviously important to understand the conditions that can lead to such behavior and equally important not to dehumanize even the worst of perpetrators under such enduring and dire circumstances.
The situation is undeniable, and all the very real suffering of the Israeli people after (and before) October 7th, in no way, provides any justification for the massive and continued death and destruction still taking place in Gaza.
The usual valuations, so often heard—who suffered most, who are the most traumatized, which murders have been most brutal—are not helpful. There is absolutely no justification, on either side, for committing such acts of utter depravity. Historical contexts are needed in order to understand, to heal, oneself and “the other,” rather than making that “other” into a beast, the devil or evil incarnate. Let us try, as difficult as it is, to understand how millenia of oppression of Jews and the recent experience of the Nazi holocaust could transform a nation and its leaders so that they, themselves, are the victimizers rather than the victims. Let us, as difficult as it is, attempt to understand how young Arabic men growing up with their parents’ and grandparents’ stories of deepest disaffection, humiliation, violence and loss, together with their own experiences of bombs falling and friends being killed, come to act out their rage with blood curdling ferocity and wanton brutality. Both are the realities.
In the end, the enemy is not the “other” for each group. The enemy is within themselves, bound to and wound around their own sense of alienation, fears, longings and histories of suffering. We, observing this all from the outside and from great distance, may find this all deeply uncomfortable and disturbing, a confrontation with our own fears, longings, histories and wish not to be disturbed. However, our own tendency to turn away from what is happening in Gaza, to repress the reality of the situation by means of silence, distraction or vilification of one or another of the “others” does no good. Our own silence merely contributes to the perpetuation of the contagious man-made suffering that we have seen in videos day after day the last years on social media, El Jazeera, even the BBC and CNN.
Yet so many in Buddhist and mindfulness communities, as well as in the Western world in which these communities reside, continue to remain silent, indifferent and maybe also afraid of the consequences of taking a stand, speaking out and acting out compassion. Many seem unwilling to disturb their comfort zones. One of us performed a cursory investigation of the behavior of German Buddhist leaders during the Nazi period, and found silence, conformity, accommodation and even indications of collaboration to have occurred among the Buddhist community during Hitler’s reign of terror as well. It seems very few, if anyone at all, dared to speak out. Are there parallels to what is happening now, even when the consequences of retribution are obviously far less harmful than in the 1930’s and 40’s?
Wisdom and compassion for all parties
Wisdom researcher Judith Glück, professor at the Salzburg University, names five principles of a life of wisdom and fulfillment. One of them is empathy, probably very close in meaning to the Buddhist concept of compassion.2 We believe we need to cultivate empathy, or compassion, for all parties suffering from the consequences of Israeli genocide or Hamas barbarity.
However, there can be no doubt that those who now suffer most tangibly from the ravages of violence and aggression are the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Most of the infrastructure in Gaza has been destroyed or severely damaged. Care for the Palestinians, almost all completely innocent, requires an institutional, judicial form of empathy and compassion known as justice—for example, by the International Criminal Court. The state and people of Israel bear responsibility for the damage and enormous suffering that Netanyahu and his government have created for Palestinians: the mass death, disfigurement and destruction. Throughout this last two years, there has been far too little discussion in Israel and the Western World about the most fundamental rights of Palestinians, as human beings, to live without humiliation, domination and violence and to have a true sense of self-determination.
Equity, equality and being treated as human beings, rather than as dehumanized vassals: Where are these basic rights seriously addressed in mainstream Israel (and, for that matter, among the Western governments, such as Germany and the Netherlands)? Is anyone honestly offering a viable and respectful solution for the future of the Palestinians and Israel, whether working towards a ‘two state’ solution or some other?
From the history we have studied — much of it from internationally highly respected Jewish Israeli historians — the Palestinians have resided for centuries, if not millenia, in what is now often referred to by some as “Greater Israel.” They were forcefully displaced, humiliated and dehumanized, with very little general empathy or compassion shown toward them in Israeli society. Maybe a mutual lack of empathy is a result of the fact that Palestinians and Israelis, though living in extremely close proximity to each other, have generally had no normal communication nor contact with each other, no opportunity to discover the commonalities of being human, except, perhaps, those most negative ones, such as at border checkpoints.
We have heard time and again, from both Israelis and Palestinians, that their first personal contacts and conversations with each other actually took place not in Israel or the occupied territories but in the US or Europe. With this lack of normal human contact, all the hostile emotions, prejudices and feelings of division are bound to breed hatred and revenge that, if maintained, will continue to be disastrous, for Israelis as well as Palestinians. It must stop. Communication and compassion for each side remains the only way to prevent a 2nd Hamas and a perpetual cycle of violence.
The future and self-determination of the Palestinians
Since October 10th, 2025, a second cease-fire has started and, as mentioned earlier, world attention toward Gaza has significantly diminished. It seems as if the Western world is relieved to believe that the violence has stopped and assume that all will now go well – in the direction of building peace and harmony. However, one can certainly question Trump’s motivation in his supposed “peace plan,“ which is sometimes cast in the media as “visionary.” How much genuine concern is there for the people in Gaza? Is there, in fact, a plan for allowing them to recover their humanity, dignity and right to live lives of hope and meaning? Many experts, in fact, expect that Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza is merely a euphemistic cover for a business program aimed financially to benefit private interests of a very few Americans, Israelis and possibly Gulf state Arabs. The latest information (the Guardian, November 14, 2025) reveals that the 2,000,000 human beings in tiny Gaza are being squeezed into an ever smaller piece of land, which has already been totally destroyed, that life-sustaining supplies continue to be interrupted, and that there is, in fact, no humane plan for these 2,000,000 human beings!3
We welcome the reduced level of genocidal violence. However, we are skeptical and believe it highly likely that business interests and profit motive will prevail in any actual so-called “peace plan,” clearly to the grave deficit of the Palestinians. Once again, they will probably be treated as vassals in a post-colonial Capitalist environment. They will continue to be denied of their basic rights for a good and fulfilling life. So, very unfortunately, we see that the painful silence of Western European countries just goes on and on and on, only to foster new depths of helplessness, despair, rage and hatred that will likely perpetuate the cycle of violence.
How to continue?
Adherents to basic Buddhist ethical principles of benevolence and compassion for all beings, we are convinced that reducing the suffering of Palestinians must be a primary objective. Even with the stop of genocide and ethnic cleansing, Palestinian trauma and grief will last for many generations. Human nature should by now have clearly taught us all that justice does not come easily, especially when decisions are solely made by those in power. In the case of Palestinians and Israelis, justice for both sides is essential. That means that both the surviving leaders of the militant part of Hamas and Netanyahu and associates be subject to judgement by international courts.
Furthermore, the Israeli government needs to take responsibility to support Palestinians, as human beings, either by means a ‘two-state policy’ or some other solution that allows them to build and live in new homes, and, finally after so many years, not just survive, but thrive in their homeland. This can only take place under the care and guidance of the United Nations and the UNRWA. We can only apply whatever pressure we have, as individuals and members of organizations, to influence the U.S. and European countries to materially support this plan. It makes sense to us that part of reducing suffering requires correcting injustices of many decades, which have resulted in many innocent victims on both sides. Otherwise, there will be just more and more violence in the region for decades or centuries longer.
Silence encourages injustice and continuation of the tragedy
We, as conscionable human beings, need to stop our silence, stop feigning balance of perspective or impartiality, when we may really be operating, for example, out of a sense of fear, indifference, exhaustion, self-interest, discomfort or out of social desirability. We need to speak out to our governments, to the leaders of our civic, religious and spiritual organizations and tell them they must acknowledge the most basic aspects of humanity and not, as so very long has been the case, merely perform lip service. Let us work together to practise compassion-in-action4, support the Palestinian people and maintain dialogue with Israelis, both Jewish and Arabic. Perhaps, the only hopeful message of these last years is that circumstances have gotten so bad, so depraved, that they must change. Every little bit we, as individuals, or members of a group, can do will be valuable. We are encouraged by the words of Desmond Tutu: “It means a great deal to those who are oppressed to know that they are not alone. Never let anyone tell you that what you are doing is insignificant.”
We wish to end this Open Letter with the final passage of a poem by Yahya Al Hamarna, a young Palestinian who started writing poetry during the genocide. The poem speaks to the most fundamental aspects of life, so very long missing in Gaza:5
I dream one day soon
to wake up,
me, and my neighbours, the kids
to the sound of birds that sing,
without the sound of bombs.
Without an evil and malicious bombing,
Just the sound of birds.
I don’t want more,
than the sound of the birds.
Frits Koster, Paul Grossman and Joost van den Heuvel Rijnders,
25th November 2025