Reform rabbi: ‘Hamas is the Palestinians,’ two-state solution a delusion

While a path to a two-state solution is listed by the Union for Reform Judaism as an “essential” part of its longstanding positions on Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Hirsch said he no longer believed that was possible.

By Andrew Bernard, JNS

The murder of Shiri Bibas and her two children at the hands of Palestinian terrorists has ended the possibility of a two-state solution, a prominent Reform rabbi preached on Friday.

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, senior rabbi at New York City’s Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, told congregants in an explosive Shabbat sermon that he had “snapped” over the killings.

“This was the week that finally ended the hope–at least in my lifetime–for a Palestinian state and a Jewish state existing side-by-side,” Hirsch said. “The Palestinians themselves strangled this fragile hope in its crib.”

“Until such time as the Palestinians themselves say they want peaceful coexistence—two states living side-by-side—we must cease deluding ourselves that a two-state solution is available now,” he added.

Gazan terrorists abducted Shiri Bibas, 32, and her two sons Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 9-months-old, from Kibbutz Nir Oz in the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Based on forensic evidence, their captors murdered the two children “with their bare hands” within weeks of the attacks, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

The funeral for the three victims was held on Wednesday after their bodies were returned to Israel as part of Phase 1 of the ceasefire-for-hostages deal between Hamas and Israel.

According to Hirsch, the murders and Hamas’s staging of parade-like ceremonies to crowds of cheering Gazans during the release of emaciated Israeli hostages is an indictment of Palestinian society, which suffers from a “moral miasma and social collapse” and whose national movement fuels “an endless cycle of violent depravity.”

“The polite lie that we tell ourselves over and over again is that Hamas does not represent the Palestinians. It is simply not true,” Hirsch said. “We recite this like a mantra so that we do not have to face the terrible truth that Hamas is the Palestinians. That Palestinianism is more about destroying the Jewish state than creating a state of their own.”

“On Oct. 7, there were only wild celebrations on the streets of Gaza as hostages were enslaved and corpses defiled,” he said. “Many of the hostages were held in apartment complexes of ordinary civilians. Thousands were in on the secret. No one objected. No one helped the hostages escape.”

Hirsch, who is president of the New York Board of Rabbis and is frequently cited as one of the most influential leaders of Reform Judaism, has previously described himself as “committed to the two-state solution.” He said on Friday that he had been a lifelong supporter of coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians.

While a path to a two-state solution is listed by the Union for Reform Judaism as an “essential” part of its longstanding positions on Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Hirsch said he no longer believed that was possible.

“How do you make peace with such neighbors?” he asked. “Never is a long time, but how do you make peace with such neighbors now?”

“I hope I’m wrong,” he added.