BELCHERTOWN — The man representing the 7th Hampden District in the state House of Representatives is defending a free trip he took to Israel last month as part of a wider U.S. delegation.
Rep. Aaron Saunders, a Belchertown Democrat, attended “50 States One Israel” from Sept. 14-18 alongside 250 other state legislators from across the U.S. The attendance of American lawmakers has been criticized by some, especially with the Jewish state launching a ground offensive in Gaza City in the middle of its larger-scale war. But Saunders said open dialogue is key to understanding the embattled region’s complexities.
“This is really the only opportunity state legislators have to speak directly to Israeli officials about what we’re hearing in our districts,” Saunders explained in a phone interview on Friday. “It’s important to know that in democracy … there is a tremendous number of people looking for a new direction.”
Saunders represents the Hampshire County towns of Belchertown and Pelham, and the Franklin County towns of Shutesbury, New Salem and Wendell, along with Ludlow in Hampden County and Petersham in Worcester County.
Hamas, which has governed the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip since 2007, and at least four other Palestinian armed groups, attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,195 people and taking approximately 251 hostages in what has been described as the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Yoav Gallant, then the Israeli defense minister, ordered “a complete siege” on the Palestinian territory two days later and Israel conducted a large-scale ground invasion that has displaced about 90% of Gaza’s population and resulted in about 66,000 Palestinian deaths and 167,000 injuries, according to multiple sources.
But many — including a United Nations commission of inquiry and the International Association of Genocide Scholars — have called Israel’s actions a genocide. The Jewish state has also restricted humanitarian aid, such as food, medicine, fuel and clean water, to Gaza and has intercepted nearly all flotillas, or fleets of boats or ships, trying to deliver such supplies.
Saunders said he is not oblivious to this conflict’s brutality, but stressed that the situation is nuanced and complex.
“Hamas needs to be disarmed … but it doesn’t need to come at the cost of so many civilians,” he said.
Saunders, who was elected in November 2022, said he visited the site of the Supernova Sukkot Gathering, an open-air music festival where Hamas militants killed 378 people and took 44 hostages in the Oct. 7 attacks.
According to the trip itinerary, lawmakers also toured the Old City of Jerusalem and visited the World Holocaust Remembrance Center and the Israeli parliament, known as the Knesset. Saunders mentioned attendees heard from Israeli officials and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the United States ambassador to Israel.
Saunders, who is Jewish and serves as vice president of the Jewish Federation of Western Massachusetts, said he also met with the families of Oct. 7 victims and visited an Israeli bomb shelter.
“It’s an interesting experience for an American who has never had to retreat to a bomb shelter,” he said.
Saunders said he has heard from constituents on both sides of the political aisle since he returned. He said he is a supporter of Israel because it is the only democracy in the Middle East, and an economic and cultural partner of the United States. However, he mentioned he generally supports a two-state solution to the conflict.
“We need leaders who want peace,” Saunders said. “The war needs to stop. There’s no other way to get to peace. You can’t kill your way out of it. There needs to be a diplomatic end to this.”
He also said media outlets tend to overlook missile attacks against Israel, possibly because the country’s air defense system intercepts and destroys most short-range rockets, mortars and artillery shells. He noted many Israelis oppose the way the war is being handled.
According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, the conference was the largest-ever delegation of American lawmakers to Israel. It included Democratic state Sen. Rebecca Rausch, Republican state Sen. Peter Durant, Democratic state Rep. Alan Silvia, and Republican state Reps. Hannah Kane and David Muradian Jr.
Citing Rausch’s reconciliation statement filed with the State Ethics Commission, The Boston Globe reported the trip likely cost $6,500 per lawmaker. Durant filed the only other disclosure related to the trip. His disclosure noted the cost would be reimbursed by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Days after the conference, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Canada and other Western countries recognized a Palestinian state, a move Israel has both supported and opposed in the past.
The termination of British responsibility for the administration of Palestine created the state of Israel in its place on May 14, 1948. Zionism is a political movement, generally considered to have been founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897, that supports a Jewish homeland. This ideology received a huge endorsement in 1917 in the form of the Balfour Declaration, a public statement issued by the British government announcing support for establishing a “national home for the Jewish people.”
Advocates of Zionism view it as a return of a people, long known to be alienated and persecuted around the world, to its ancestral homeland. Jews lived on the land before and during the Roman Empire and throughout the rule of Islam from 637 until the end of World War I in 1917.