Rabbi Susan Grossman: June 2007 Archives

Commenting on the violence in Gaza, Jon Stewart quipped that those who hate Jews were overthrown by those who HATE Jews. So why should we care? The people in Sederot care, because they have suffered unrelenting rocket attacks since Israel left Gaza. The rest of us should also care because chaos anywhere threatens chaos everywhere.

Fouad Ajami’s Op-Ed in the New York Times last week blames the situation on Arafat for staying with the political myths of his people that they could have it all “from the river to the sea” rather than accept a decent and generous compromise offered by then Prime Minister Barak during the Clinton Administration. As someone once said, the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

However, there is certainly enough blame to go around for what is happening.

Some blame goes to the Arab countries for funding families of suicide bombers and other “martyrs,” rather than adequately investing in businesses, schools and other institutions that would have created jobs and hope. Last time I was on the West Bank two years ago, a Palestinian cab driver explained to me as we drove through a refugee camp that all he wanted for his children was to have a better life than he had. Most parents would agree. Arab investment in the West Bank and Gaza would have given the Palestinians the economic opportunities and real quality of life improvements that would have made peace, rather than terror, attractive.

Some of the blame falls on former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Three years ago, I met an Israeli journalist who just came from a gun fight between Gazan factions. He predicted that unless an Israeli pullout was orchestrated to give Abbas the credit, Hamas would claim victory due to their violence, as did Hezbollah when Israel pulled out of Lebanon. That would lead to Hamas winning control of Gaza. Sharon could have used the pull out to bolster Abbas, even though Abbas seemed incapable of collecting weapons or stopping rocket attacks on Israeli cities.

Much more of the blame goes to President Bush for forcing elections in Gaza over the objections of PA and Israeli leaders. Abbas said he needed more time otherwise a Hamas victory was likely. Why the press is not slamming the Bush administration for again claiming “no one saw it coming” is beyond me.

However, most of the blame falls on the Palestinians themselves. They have gotten the leadership they deserved, for they--not President Bush--ultimately elected Hamas. They followed a corrupt and manipulative leader, Arafat, who, for years, was more concerned with maintaining his own power than leading his people to peace. He lined his pockets and suppressed the small group of intellectuals who sought to (ironically) bring an Israeli-style democracy to their fledgling nation. When Abbas failed to quickly deliver on his promises for transparency and reorganization (bread and roses), the people turned to Hamas, who, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, had spent years building its reputation for honesty through its social service programs (which were funded by donations from well meaning Americans as well as others).

So what do we do now? Thinking Gaza can be contained as a separate entity and not spill over into the West Bank is the kind of wishful thinking that got us into this mess there (and in Iraq).

As a rabbi, when all else fails, I turn to prayer. I pray God softens the hearts of our enemies and guides our political leaders to make wide decisions. I pray for the Palestinians caught in the crossfire who want a better life for their children. Is that a sign of my sense of helplessness in the face of such madness? I am not sure. I also believe God helps those who help themselves. Perhaps our politicians would do well to seek the advice of the journalists who have been covering the fractured West Bank and Gaza for years. if they had listened to them to begin with, we may not be in this mess.

Thirty eight reporters are arrested in Iran. The most-watched independent television station in Venezuela is shut down. Palestinians kidnap two FOX journalists and a Palestinian radio journalist. Who does the British National Union of Journalists vote to boycott? Israel: the only Middle East nation with a free press. Ironic? Not any more so than British academics voting to boycott Israeli academics (including the leftists most critical of Israeli government policies) while remaining silent about the Sudan, Zimbabwe, and a host of other human rights offenders.

I agree wholeheartedly with Rabbi Waxman that the British boycotts are outrageously anti-Semitic, in that they single out Israel for approbation, out of all proportion to the criticism leveled (or not leveled) at much worse offenders, including the Palestinians themselves.

What can we do?

First we can support the ADL’s campaign to educate the public, which focuses on contextualizing the boycott to show how unfair it is.

Second, we can consider boycotting the boycotters. The United States can use its considerable clout to suspend contracts and grants to British academics and journalists who support this egregious act of bias.

Third, we have to take a long, hard look at how to stem the growing tendency on the Israeli left to delegitimize Israel as a Jewish State, as Adam LeBor does in his New York Times op ed, “New Lyrics for Hatikvah". LeBor’s guilt about inequities Israeli Arabs and other minorities face in Israel drives him, and an alarming number of Israelis like him, to think that the only just step is to de-Judaize the Jewish State. His position is dangerous on two counts: he is kidding himself if he thinks our enemies will be satisfied with a secular state in the Middle East where Jewish residents have equal rights. Just look at how Christians are being treated under Palestinian Muslim rule. Second, a Jewish State of Israel is needed now more than ever with world wide anti-Semitism on the rise. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The tragic history of the 19th and 20th centuries proves that abandoning Jewish particularist identity does not guarantee anything but political and physical vulnerability.

Israel must still do a better job at providing more equitable opportunities for its minorities. But it does not mean that the Jewish identity should be removed from the Jewish State of Israel. Even the name Israel is the name of the Jewish People. To think the two can be divorced is self-deception.

As a Jew in America, I know that Christmas and Easter are the legal holidays. The airwaves are filled with Christmas music and there is a national Christmas tree on the White House lawn. I may not like it, but it is part of what America is. Israel is a Jewish State in which there is a public Menorah and the flag has a Jewish star. Israel’s national anthem, Hatikvah, mentions the Jewish soul, just as our pledge of allegiance mentions God (which is offensive to those who are not monotheists or theists). Israel must treat its minorities as Jews would have liked to have been treated (but seldom were) in other countries. While Israel does a better job than most following the rule of law to protect minority rights, it can and must do better. Nevertheless, Israel should not, and need not, give up its Jewish identity to do so. What Israelis like LeBor need is a little exposure to Masorti Judaism, which hopefully can reconnect them to their Jewish souls so they can understand why there is a place (and a need) for a Jewish State in the world.

I agree with all that has been said by rabbis Stern, Hirschfield, and Waxman about agreeing to enter into dialogue with those with whom we disagree while being careful not to be duped or give up articulating our own concerns just to get to or stay at the table.

There are some other things we can do, particularly on the local level. I recently attended a Jewish-Muslim interfaith dialogue which focused on the challenges of raising Jewish and Muslim children in a majority culture which is different from our own. We shared real and personal concerns and strategies, as well as identified potential areas in which we might be able to work together. Good feelings and a sense of hopefulness pervaded the evening. Last year my congregation hosted a Roads to You Tour concert by Jordanian musician Zade. He has brought together Jewish, Christian and Muslim musicians who not only perform together but dedicate themselves to talking about tolerance in their own ethnic communities. They work with students in communities across the country and hopefully offer them a model for how people of different faiths can indeed work together. Zade’s work here is so critical because, if we can’t build a commitment to tolerance among the Muslim community in the United States, chances are we won’t be able to do so anywhere. Some of my congregants were wary of working with Zade, so as not to give the impression that most Muslims would be as willing to work together with the Jewish community. They missed the point: that we need to support such courageous Muslims who are bringing forth the message of cooperation.

There are limits to such an approach, of course. The Second Intifada deflated the Israeli peace movement in such a visceral way because well-meaning Jewish peace activitists (myself among them) had thought that dialogue and cooperative projects with Palestinians would build mutual trust and ultimately result in the means to build a cooperative peace. The problem was not with what we said together but what was being said behind our backs and the willingness of those in the peace party to ignore it. This is probably what Rabbi Stern was referring to in his warning that we not allow ourselves to be duped.

I think we have learned something in the last few years. We have to talk together, but we also must be vigilant and willing to confront--in a respectful and calm manner--contradictions and inappropriate contentions whenever presented. In this way we can start rebuilding the steps towards interfaith dialogue that have worked elsewhere: first deal with what you have in common to build a recognition of shared humanity, then begin to deal with what is unique to each group in order to begin to appreciate our differences, and only finally deal with where we actually differ, to find some ways of showing respect for each side.