I am a left-leaning, middle-aged Jewish man who prioritizes compassion, charity and understanding as ethical and political values. I believe in the intrinsic value of human life and support all forms of religious tradition and expression. As part of these values, I worry about the precarious fate of Islam in the world, and in the wake of 9/11, I helped organize pro-Islamic events in New York City with titles like “What’s Right with Islam.” I therefore also worry about the fate of Palestinians in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack: I know most Palestinians did not support the attacks and did not choose this war. I am daily pained to learn of their suffering and death and want it to stop.

But like many of my fellow Jews, I am uneasy about talk of a cease-fire. This apparent tension, between my progressive, pacifist tendencies on the one hand, and my support of Israel on the other, has proven confusing for many of my non-Jewish friends. And I’ve noticed some consternation among progressives, generally, when Jewish people they know to support human rights and oppose war turn suddenly hawkish about Israeli politics. So I’d like to clear up some confusion about these beliefs.

Israel is currently at war with an extremist terrorist group. Hamas upholds a stubborn ignorance and bloodthirsty hatred of Jews like me. In their charter, for instance, they parrot globalist Jewish conspiracies mirroring the worst of white nationalist sentiment and Nazi propaganda. They approvingly quote religious sources that command the killing of Jews (quotes, I may note, supported by no other Muslim I know) and delight in their acts of violence against us. Jews have seen this kind of sentiment, this kind of violence, this kind of resentment before and we know where it leads. That is why many have, with right, likened Hamas’s attack of Oct. 7 to a pogrom, recalling the wanton violence and death that has so often befallen the Jewish people.

Hamas is, in short, a group that wants me and those like me dead. And this is not just because I am a Jew, but because I am a progressive, too. I emphasize this because Hamas seems to be the part that is missing from all this talk of a cease-fire, and yet no reasonable discussion of a cease-fire is complete without them. Hamas is corrupt, detached from their people, and act with only their own interests in mind. This is evidenced by their placing weaponry and key strategic outposts beneath hospitals and schools, in plain violation of international law, so they can use their fellow Palestinians as human shields. This is also a group that has stolen and continues to steal humanitarian funds and aid and uses it to build rockets to fire back into Israel. To quote a recent Newsweek article, “In the eyes of the terror group, every dead Jew is a victory, and every Palestinian killed is a chance to parade the dead before the media and decry Israel’s inhumanity.”

I therefore see in Hamas a group that opposes everything I’ve learned to value as a progressive and a Jew. And I cannot watch as they try to destroy the ideals I cherish most in this world. What is happening in Gaza is horrible. Israel’s tactics are deeply flawed and again, it horrifies me to hear of the death and destruction that has befallen the Palestinians. I want an end to the violence as badly as anyone. But the fact is that matters are complicated. Hamas is a group that will not honor any deal made, but will only regroup to figure out when and how to strike again. We know this because Hamas has already shown us: as recently as Dec. 1, Hamas broke their commitments made and fired rockets into Israel, thereby ending the most recent attempt at a cease-fire. It will leave a corrupt, anti-Semitic, anti-Palestinian hate group in power, one with little regard for international law or human life. A cease-fire does not solve the problem of Hamas, and we cannot, if we value human dignity or the rule of law, call for a cease-fire until we solve it.

Josh Wretzel is an associate teaching professor of philosophy at Penn State and vice president of social action at Congregation Brit Shalom.