"How Do We Move People to a Different Place?": Assessing the War While Dreaming Past It with Israeli Citizen Shawn Ruby

It was both challenging and illuminating to speak with my old friend Shawn Ruby, an Israeli citizen who is deeply rooted in his Zionist identity (having originated in Canada and raised his family and made his life in Israel, one child a high-ranking IDF officer), firmly anchored in an unwavering pursuit of moral clarity, and overall one of the most thoughtful people I know. We spoke an hour past the time the last group of hostages was supposed to be let out, in the midst of what he described as a great national anxiety, "everyone is sitting by their radios and tvs."

"There is enormous mourning. I find myself crying all the time. And it’s just been like that continuously."

"We were on the way to shul, when a neighbor came and told us something was going on down south, and it’s really bad...A good friend of ours lost his life that first day of fighting…this is a kid that we’ve known forever, we’re good friends with his partners. So that’s when it became very real."

"I was raised on Holocaust stories and pogrom stories, and it’s not like that anymore, we’re fighting back—and it’s good that we’re fighting back…But when you have power, you have responsibility—and we have responsibility also for the lives we’re taking now..."

"I am livid at my government for allowing Hamas to sit on our border for the past 15 years…I think the reason was to keep the Palestinians divided. That was immoral and wrong."

"What we’re doing is occupying the Palestinians for the past 50 years, and that is a moral stain on our country…and we were powerful enough to figure out how to solve it in some way. We were the more powerful party...We have to make people aware that as the more powerful party there are things we can do to move this thing along."

"How do we move people to a different place? It’s not that they don't think the occuparion is immoral—they do think the occupation is immoral. They just think the alternative is national suicide."

"I want to live with these people. I want Gaza to be successful. But not if they’re going to keep trying to kill me."

"I don’t think right now that the Israeli response is so disproportionate to what happened to us, and to what is needed to make sure it doesn’t happen again…cause it’s not revenge. But we’re interested to make sure it doesn’t happen again."