(RNS) — Two years ago on Oct. 7, 2023, a text message awakened me. It was from a Christian friend, expressing horror about what had happened in Israel, the first I’d heard of the Hamas attack. 

This morning, another text message awakened me. It was from my house cleaner, a pious Christian who has been to Israel several times. He expressed joy and gratitude to God for the release of the last 20 living hostages.

To me, these moments are like moral bookends, or a crossroads in history. On the table is a comprehensive peace plan: the rebuilding of Gaza, the freeing of hostages and a roadmap toward a Palestinian state. The guns, we are told, will soon fall silent. The killing will stop. These are real, concrete steps toward ending the bilateral heartache.

Many of those who claim to care most about Palestinians have gotten close to what they longed for: calm skies, the cessation of bombs and an entry lane to Palestinian sovereignty. And more than that, this peace deal leaves the Israeli right wing out in the sukkah, with no concessions to their expansionist dreams.

Two years ago, the horror happened on Simchat Torah. There was very little simchah, or rejoicing. Celebrations were muted, and many communities canceled services. This year, those festivals will be reclaimed. The dancing and singing will resume, although perhaps not full-throated, as we remember the many who did not return.

But this should be a day of sober rejoicing. And yet, many on the progressive left appear silent.

To quote Emily Tamkin quoting the New York Post in The Forward:

“We can’t hear you, Zohran,” read one New York Post headline this week: “Pro-Hamas crowd goes quiet on Trump’s Gaza peace deal.”

“It seems awfully curious that the people who have made Gazans a central political cause do not seem at all relieved that there’s at least a temporary cessation of violence. … Why aren’t there widespread celebrations across Western cities and college campuses today?” the article asked.

She goes on to give her own reflections, but it is a good question. Where are the voices of the Hollywood A-listers who posted their pro-Palestinian bona fides on Instagram, walking their solemn embrace of Palestine as if upon the red carpet itself? For them, “Free Palestine” seemed to be the upgraded moral accessory, replacing “Free Tibet” on the shelf of fashionable indignations. 

Where are the voices on college campuses — the activists who turned the kaffiyeh into a fashion statement (and remained silent about cultural appropriation)? The professors who have aerobically condemned Israel as the root of all evil? Where are the encampments now, the statements of solidarity?

So far, to quote singer-songwriter Paul Simon, who turns 84 years old today, we are hearing the sounds of silence. Why? There are two possibilities. 

The first is because this peace plan comes from President Donald Trump and his team. 

My critiques of the Trump presidency are numerous and public. But integrity requires the capacity to give credit where it is due. It does not damage my soul to thank a man I distrust when he accomplishes something that lessens human suffering. We just marked two holidays that lift up the paradoxes of human existence: Yom Kippur and Sukkot, where the sukkah is a shelter, albeit a flimsy one.

My solution is to praise the Trump team for what they got right, and continue to condemn them for what they get wrong. Hold two thoughts on your brain and in your soul.

The second reason for this silence is that maybe they really don’t care that much about Palestinians after all.

I go back to Oct. 7, 2023, when I first noticed that Hamas attackers did not cry out “Palestine!” They did not shout “Israel!” They cried “Yahud,” the Arabic word for Jews. Repeated like a curse, it was their true rallying cry. They were not waging war for land or liberty. They were waging war on existence — on our existence.

Those who were silent back then on what was arguably the worst day of contemporary Jewish history, and those who are silent now on what is arguably the best day of contemporary Jewish history, are aligned with those who hate Israel simply because it is a sovereign Jewish presence. Radical Islam has trouble with a Jewish sovereign presence in Israel. I understand that. But, what I cannot understand is how the so-called enlightened secularists could so woefully adopt Islamist theology.

It would explain their flirtation with Hamas, their rationalization of Iranian theocracy, their applause for the Houthis as they launched missiles at civilian ships. It is about their virtue-signaling contempt for the Jewish state — and, whether they admit it or not, for the Jewish people who dare to have agency, borders and power. It is moral bankruptcy in the Halloween costume of social justice.

There is still time to prove me wrong. There is still time to speak. Today, the remaining living hostages have come home. The dead will return to their loved ones. There will be funeral after funeral. Those who have been silent can still find their voices. 

Anyone can join the chorus of those who welcome those hostages home — and contrast themselves to those who ripped posters of kidnapped children off lampposts. They can offer condolences to Israeli families who lost their loved ones. They can stand with both Israelis and Palestinians, to forge alliances that look beyond slogans, to rebuild, to repair and to redeem.

While we cannot know what comes next, I would hope for increased dialogue, especially interreligious dialogue in which Jews and Muslims sit down with each other, interrogate their texts, see where the divisions are and find where the potential for co-existence might reside. The agreement calls for just such dialogue. I also hope for increased economic opportunities in which Israelis and Palestinians can create a new future. 

As for me, I return to Ecclesiastes:

A time for slaying and a time for healing,

A time for tearing down and a time for building up;

A time for weeping and a time for laughing,

A time for wailing and a time for dancing…

A time for embracing and a time for shunning embraces.

This is the time to heal, to build up — and eventually, to laugh, dance and embrace.