I have been overwhelmed with heartache and fear this last month, since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on unarmed Israelis that took some 1,400 lives and more than 200 hostages. The Israeli government’s response, led by right wing Benjamin Netanyahu has been deadly and chilling. The daily air strikes on Hamas terrorist hideouts and tunnels in Gaza, and now the ground assaults by the Israeli military have led to immense death and destruction there.

I keep asking myself what did Hamas hope to gain from their murderous atrocities in Israel? They must have known that war would be unleashed upon Gaza in response. Of course, the Netanyahu government would turn its military might on finding and killing the perpetrators of the attack, and would be determined to rescue the hostages, leaving no Palestinian life untouched. Was that the point? Goad Israel into killing innocent Palestinians to make the Jews take the blame alone for all that has happened? The result has been the deaths of thousands of Palestinian people. Don’t they matter to Hamas? Clearly they do not.

Despite these daily, horrifying killings I have found myself focused on the initial attacks in Israel and on the hostages. My internal antisemitism alert siren has been going off nonstop since that first day as reports of pro-Palestinian anti-Jewish protests and actions have proliferated across our country and the world. I wonder now if that was Hamas’ goal, to turn the world against Israel, against Jews.

I realized recently that I have been allowing myself to look away from the destruction being unleashed on Gaza and its people as I focused on what I believed to be the real victims of this war. But I see that I have been wrong, having let myself slip into my lifelong fear that the hatred of Jews will one day come for me and my loved ones as it has done for centuries. That hatred culminated in the attempt by Nazi Germany to annihilate all Jews from the face of this earth, resulting in the deaths of six million Jews.

The survivors of that Holocaust chose to find a life away from the killing fields of Europe. You can say that it was a mistake to create a Jewish state in its current location and perhaps you might be right, even though Jews had lived in Palestine for centuries. Jews weren’t the colonizers, that was the British back in the 1940s, and the original plan was for a two-state arrangement. But that never came to be. It is so easy to come up with a simple statement of why, but this whole story is one of extreme complexity. All sides have a lot of blame to share.

But here we are now with this raging war, and something must be done. I have decided to lend my voice to the growing call for a cease-fire, an end to the siege and bombing of Gaza, an end to attacks from both sides. In our calling for a ceasefire, though, we must not forget the Israeli hostages who must be released as part of any agreement to halt the violence. Will Israel agree to this, will Hamas?

Netanyahu’s assault on Gaza certainly does not make Jews safer. On the contrary, the world is turning against Netanyahu’s Israel, and unfortunately against Jews in general. Even before the Hamas attack, the people of Israel were calling for his removal and a new government to take over. Recent polling there shows “as many as 80% of Israelis believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must take responsibility” for the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, but he has yet to do so. Israel must find a way to a negotiated cease-fire, before this war spirals into a much larger conflagration.

I, like so many others, am watching this insanity with a broken heart, and I join all those who are calling on our leaders to devote themselves to finding a peaceful resolution, with justice for all parties. And quickly.

Karen Gardner of Haydenville can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.