For the last ten plus years, advocates of a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine have been warning that the “window of opportunity” for a two-state solution is closing fast.

Here’s Jordan’s King Abdullah II using the image in a 2005 speech:

Israelis and Palestinians must take advantage of a “small window of opportunity” for peacemaking, he warned. “If we don’t do it, I think the Middle East will be doomed, unfortunately, to many more decades of violence.”

From a 2007 Boston Globe report:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that a “two-state solution” in the Middle East is in jeopardy and described a narrow window of opportunity to push Israel and the Palestinians toward peace.

J Street director Jeremy Ben-Ami, writing in a 2008 Forward op-ed:

The window is closing on a two-state solution, and Israel’s prospects for a second, safer 60 years grow are growing ever dimmer.

And as recently as two weeks ago, Ben-Ami used a different metaphor to underscore the urgency of the latest “moment:”

If this round of talks breaks down yet again – and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a single observer who’ll argue that they won’t – then Israel, like the boater on the river, can briefly revel in having avoided the risk of heading to shore.

But bear in mind that “sitting this one out” isn’t an option. The waterfall is still dead ahead.

As someone who’s invoked the “closing window” more than once myself over the years, I’m quite familiar with this pedagogy. Time is running out for a viable negotiated two-state agreement between Israelis and Palestinians – and thus the future of a Jewish and democratic state. The status quo – namely unrestricted Israeli settlement of the West Bank, coupled with an ever-increasing Palestinian birth rate – simply cannot be sustained.

At a certain point, however, I think it’s fair to pose the challenge: how many times can you repeatedly warn of a last chance before the notion is rendered devoid of all meaning? How long can advocates of a two-state solution invoke the urgency of a fleeting opportunity before admitting that this solution is simply no longer a realistic option any more?

To be sure, with each passing day, the warning of a last chance opportunity appears increasingly toothless. The latest “window of opportunity” occurred earlier this month when it was reported that Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu was “mulling gestures to Palestinians to keep the peace talks going.” Barely a week later, we learned that Israeli officials had formally informed the PA of its position that West Bank settlements “must be a part of the Israeli State.”

Such a position, of course, makes a complete mockery of any suggestion of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state. It lays bare the truth that Israel is not really interested in two actual states, but merely the formalization of an inherently inequitable status quo.

The political realities here are stark and undeniable. Israel’s settlement of the West Bank continues with impunity and the US continues to provide its “closest ally” with all the diplomatic cover it needs to do so. Politically speaking, it is no longer possible to invoke windows of opportunity with a straight face. Perhaps the real question before us is not “how many times have we missed these opportunities?” but rather, “did they ever really exist at all?”

So what happens now? It’s reasonable to assume that this paralyzed, inequitable status quo will continue apace into the indeterminate future. Israel will continue to create facts on the West Bank with the tacit permission of the US, creating a conditions that no Palestinian leader could possibly be expected to accept.

Under such circumstances, it is equally reasonable to expect the reality for Palestinians on the ground to grow increasingly oppressive and dire.  As this occurs, their plight and their cause will be more difficult for the world to ignore. Governments, individuals and institutions will increasingly rally to Palestinian requests for support, most prominently the Palestinian civil society call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.

In turn, Israel’s actions will be increasingly more difficult for its supporters to defend.  As the status quo is allowed to languish, the state of Israel will become further and further isolated from the rest of the world community and more pressure will be brought to bear upon the political elites to fundamentally change their approach to ending this conflict.

While these are certainly sobering and painful prospects, I don’t think they are exaggerated or far-fetched. On the contrary, I believe the burden of proof is on those who believe the same tired approach to the “peace process” will somehow yield results in the future when it has failed repeatedly in the past.

Once we accept that a division into two states is no longer realistically possible, the calculus is sobering, to put it mildly: we will be forced to choose between a patently undemocratic apartheid Jewish state, in which a minority rules over a majority or a civil democracy in which all citizens have equal rights under the law.

For many liberal Zionists, this unbearably painful decision will represent a profound moment of truth. If forced to choose, which will it be? A Jewish state that parcels out its citizens’ rights according to their ethnicity – or a democratic state in which equal rights are enjoyed by all its citizens?

I truly believe this is more than an academic question.  Perhaps it’s time to stop talking about mythic “windows of opportunity” and open a new discussion: what will it take for us to admit that it is finally closed? And what will our options be then?

Indeed, this concept has already been raised and advocated by respected Israelis. As far back as  2002 a one state solution was publicly supported by famed political scientist Meron Benenisti. And more recently, Israeli journalist Dimi Reider has pointed out:

In light of the ongoing deadlock in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, leaders such as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni have raised the specter of a one-state solution. Their intention, of course, is to scare some sense into Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his intransigent coalition partners. But, as this once-taboo idea becomes a legitimate part of political discussion in the region, some Israeli intellectuals are making the case that this is not something to fear, but a path toward a viable resolution to the region’s long-running crisis.

Here in the American Jewish community, however, this sort of discussion is considered to be naive at best and heresy at worst. But as difficult and painful as it might be for us to contemplate, I believe that sooner or later (and probably sooner than later) it is a conversation we will inevitably have to have – regardless of where we might personally stand on the issue.

To this end, I am proud to announce the next conference call sponsored by Ta’anit Tzedek – Jewish Fast for Gaza: “Conceiving of a One-State Solution” with Palestinian-American journalist Ahmed Moor on Thursday, December 15 at 12 noon EST.

Ahmed Moor was born in Gaza and raised in the US, graduated from University of Pennsylvania in 2005 and spent several years as a freelance journalist based in Lebanon and Cairo. His work as been published in numerous publications, including Al Jazeera, Huffington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. He is currently a graduate student of Public Policy at Harvard University.

During our conversation, Moor will share his views on the need and the prospects for one secular democratic state in which Jews and Palestinians live together as equal citizens.  Can we conceive of such a solution and what would such a state look like practically speaking?  What are the political realities that mitigate against it and how could they ever be shifted? What are the prospects that these two peoples could live and govern a state together?

Call Info:

Thursday, December 15 at 12 noon EST
Access Number: 1.800.920.7487
Participant Code: 92247763#

As always, there will be opportunities for questions and answers during the call.

We are looking forward to an informative and respectful conversation. I encourage you to join us.

Some reading material for you this Thanksgiving. Feel free to read excerpts around the table tonight:

A powerful meditation on lost opportunity by journalist Robert Scheer, writing in Truthdig:

How many folks from my generation are honestly sanguine about the economic future of their children and grandchildren? What I have heard constantly, and just this week from a former top investment banker addressing a college class I teach, is that our offspring probably will face a decade of lost opportunity. I thought back to my college days and how shocked any of us, even those from the most impoverished of circumstances, would have been to hear such a prediction.

As The New York Times editorialized this Thanksgiving, “One in three Americans—100 million people—is either poor or perilously close to it.”

A bummer of a message, I know, until I think of those pepper-sprayed college students linking arms, and of all the Americans, young, old and between, who have occupied their minds with a challenge—that it doesn’t have to be this way. For their brave spirit of resistance we should be most grateful this Thanksgiving.

Retired Air Force lieutenant colonel William J. Astore expresses some Thanksgiving gratitude for our nation’s public servants:

As we sit down to our Thanksgiving dinners, we should reflect on the true roots of our national greatness: Our enshrinement of individual freedoms and liberties exercised within communal settings that are consistent with principles of human dignity and decency. True public servants support such ideals, to include our troops, our police – and our protesters, who dare to confront us with reminders of democratic ideals that we as a country are failing to meet.

Yes, protesters are public servants too, deserving of a fair hearing and a measure of respect. Yet the more we deploy armed forces to suppress such protesters, the more our democracy withers from within, even as we claim to be spreading it from without.

A nation simply cannot sow the seeds of democracy in other lands while poisoning the seedlings of democracy in its own land.

This Thanksgiving, let us reflect on the dangers of using one group of public servants (the police) to suppress another group of public servants (the protesters).  Let us ponder the dangers of putting armed forces empowered by noble oaths to ignoble purposes. And let us ponder as well what suffers most when our public servants are turned against one another – and who profits most.

And finally, Aisha Ali’s excellent and important survey of the real history of Thanksgiving:

Americans should know the history behind Thanksgiving. The images of Pilgrims continually celebrating Thanksgiving, and Native Americans being invited out of goodwill is false. As tension mounted, and wars erupted between Native Americans and Pilgrims, there were no future Thanksgivings.  Native American history involves successive colonization, intrusion of colonists’ beliefs, sacrilege of lands and sacred burial sites, and the unjust force of Native Americans further west. However, this was not always the story of Native Americans.  Native Americans used to live in a harmonious society.  “Earth Mother” or “Mother Earth” was respected and she in return, blessed Native Americans with bountiful crops, peace, and health. Since then, America has become a place of corruption, racism, segregation, and capitalism– all due to the foundation on which America was built.  As Abigail Adams once questioned how could any good come from a White House that was built by half-hungry slaves, how can America be a place of good will, liberty, and welfare without acknowledging the bloodshed and tragedy of its native peoples?

What many of us eat today, including our Thanksgiving menu, comes from the harvest crop initially cultivated by Natives, which accounts for nearly 70 percent of all crops, including corn, potatoes, and tomatoes.  It is important that we teach our children the truth on which America was founded.  The images, the story, the history of Native Americans must be changed.  What we have all learned is based on both truth and myth.  It is our duty as parents to educate our children and teach them the real story of not only Thanksgiving, but also America, wholly.  How can races/ethnicities ever heal unless we are able to address the problems and move on together to face them?

Yet, the true theme existing behind Thanksgiving should not be ignored, as everyone should be thankful for his or her blessings and this is something we must instill in all children: the acknowledgment of your blessings and being grateful for them.   But most importantly, we must instill in them, the truth.

Accusations of anti-semitism in the Occupy Wall Street movement are flying fast and furious now. Newt Kingrich leveled the charge today on the CBS’s Early Show. David Brooks insinuated it in the NY Times not long ago. And Bill Kristol’s Emergency Committee on Israel has actually bought air time in New York and DC to run a laughably misleading ad that implores viewers to “Tell Obama and Leader Pelosi to stand up to the (anti-semitic, anti-Israel) mob.”

Watch the above clip for the real story.  Then read this thorough piece by commentator MJ Rosenberg. It would all be pretty hilarious if it wasn’t such a horribly cynical exploitation exploit the real pain and fear of anti-semitism to slow down a movement committed to justice and dignity for all – which is, in the end, what Judaism is all about.

The new American embassy in Iraq is the largest in the world and is built on a tract of land roughly the size of the Vatican

In my recent Yom Kippur sermon, I linked to an article that explained why, even if Obama did honor the pledge to withdraw US troops at the end of 2011, this wouldn’t be the end of our militarized presence in that country by a long shot.

So now that Obama has formally announced the Iraq withdrawal, just pay close, close attention to the heavily militarized State Department presence that will remain.

From a recent WashPo article:

The list of responsibilities the State Department will pick up from the military is daunting. It will have to provide security for the roughly 1,750 traditional embassy personnel — diplomats, aid workers, Treasury employees and so on — in a country rocked by daily bombings and assassinations.

To do so, the department is contracting about 5,000 security personnel. They will protect the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad plus two consulates, a pair of support sites at Iraqi airports and three police-training facilities.

The department will also operate its own air service — the 46-aircraft Embassy Air Iraq — and its own hospitals, functions the U.S. military has been performing. About 4,600 contractors, mostly non-American, will provide cooking, cleaning, medical care and other services. Rounding out the civilian presence will be about 4,600 people scattered over 10 or 11 sites, where Iraqis will be instructed on how to use U.S. military equipment their country has purchased.

“This is not what State Department people train for, to run an operation of this size. Ever since 2003, they’ve been heavily reliant on U.S. military support,” said Max Boot, a national security expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Make no mistake: we’re all going to be paying for Bush’s Folly for a long, long time to come…

US Global Command and Control System

In 2006, I was approached by JRC’s Peace Dialogue task force and asked if I would consider adding something to our Shabbat prayer for peace. Could we, they asked, introduce the prayer by reading the names of three American soldiers, three Iraqi civilians and three Afghan civilians who had been killed in these two ongoing wars?

The reason, they explained, was to remind ourselves that peace is not just an abstract concept. If we’re going to say a prayer for peace, we should own up to the stakes – we should acknowledge that we are citizens of nation at war, that war comes with a very real human cost, and that as American citizens, we are complicit in all actions made by our country.

So for the past five years, that’s how we’ve begun our prayer for peace every Shabbat evening: a JRC member will stand up and bring the names of real people into our sanctuary. Three will invariably be American teenagers or twenty somethings, followed by six Iraqis and Afghans with harder-to-pronouce Arabic names.

One year ago, when President Obama when announced a reduction of American combat forces in Iraq, I was tempted to finally stop reading the names of Iraqi civilians.  It felt to me as if the war effort was finally winding down and transitioning into a fundamentally different kind of operation. I was also eager to shine a brighter spotlight on our war in Afghanistan, which had officially become the longest war in American history, with no end in sight. (Yesterday, by the way, marked the tenth anniversary of that war – a milestone that managed to pass our nation by without much fanfare.)

I ran this idea past several Peace Dialogue members and got different kinds of responses, both pro and con. In the end, I was prevailed upon to continue. After all, Obama himself said that our active combat presence would be maintained until the end of 2011. And as long as this is the case, I realized, we’d be hard pressed to deny that we were still a nation at war.

As I think about my response to Obama’s announcement, I realize, somewhat shamefully, that I had fallen prey to a very convenient form of naivete.  Or at best, wishful thinking. Because the painful truth is that we going to be in Iraq well past even 2011.  The truth is no one really knows when our military is going to leave Iraq, but even when it does, there can be no doubt that we will remain an armed presence in that country for a very long time.

Our government actually makes no secret of the fact that we’re digging in.  All the signs are there, even if they are not widely reported by the media.  Most Americans don’t know, for instance, that the US mission in Baghdad is the world’s largest embassy – built on a tract of land the size of the Vatican and actually visible from space.  Why? Because after the military withdraws, the State Department expects to have 17,000 personnel in Iraq at some 15 sites. If those plans go as expected, 5,500 of them will be armed “security contractors.”  Of the remaining 11,500, most will be in support roles of one sort or another, with only a couple of hundred in traditional diplomatic jobs.

In short, when the military leaves, the US presence in Iraq will shift over to a heavily militarized State Department presence. But make no mistake: we’re in Iraq for the long haul.

And when it comes to our presence in Afghanistan, the news is even worse, I’m afraid. In 2009, President Obama said 2011 would be the “transition point” for bringing the troops home. One year ago, NATO announced that it would be moving the goalposts to 2014. Now just two months ago, we’ve learned that the US and Afghan governments are negotiating an agreement that will allow US military forces to remain in Afghanistan until 2024.

This, even though a new poll shows fewer Afghans than ever support a US presence in the country or believe we are making their country any safer. This, even though a CNN poll earlier this year revealed that 63% of Americans “completely oppose” this war.

The hard truth about all of this – the very hard truth – is that our nation is now essentially entrenched in a permanent state of war: war without end.  It is our new normal.

I find it all the more frightening when you consider the sheer magnitude of this “permanent war condition” – and how far its reach actually extends.  If are to truly gauge our military presence honestly, it does not end with Iraq and Afghanistan. Our nation is also engaged militarily in Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen.  The Washington Post reported last year that US has deployed special operations forces in 75 countries, from South America to Central Asia. We are also expanding drone wars throughout the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.  And none of these “operations” show any sign of winding down. On the contrary, by all appearances we’re just getting started.

How did it all come to this? Well, students of US history can can surely chart a course leading from the earliest days of manifest destiny to our first overseas military adventures in the 19^th century, through World War I, World War II, the Cold War and now, the huge buildup in the aftermath of 9/11.  In each period of history, our military reach has extended greater and greater across the world. And in each period, our national mission – our sense of our place in the world – has slowly but fundamentally shifted.

It’s not quoted that widely any more, but George Washington, in his farewell address to the nation urged his country to cultivate its own garden and avoid foreign entanglements at all costs. That notion seem utterly quaint today, particularly in the post 9/11 world. Today, America is world’s only superpower – and such we are wielding that power with impunity literally all over the world.

Consider these facts:

- The Pentagon currently spends approximately $700 billion annually – more than the entire rest of the world combined.

- We have approximately 300,000 troops stationed abroad, again more than the rest of the world combined. According to the Department of Defense, we have 761 military bases in foreign countries around the world. (And that number might actually be higher than 1,000, depending on which report you choose to believe.)

- The Pentagon has literally divided up the planet, maintaining armed readiness under what it calls “Unified Commands.” Each command headed by a four-star general or admiral. The “Pacific Command,” which comprises 50% of the earth and more than half its population; the “Central Command” (namely the Greater Middle East); the “European Command,” which was established in Germany following World War II, the “African Command,” created in 2007, which conducts military activities and operations in 53 African countries; the “Southern Command,” which encompasses Central and South America and the Caribbean; the “Northern Command,” namely North America, established in the wake of 9/11; and finally, “Space Command,” responsible for the largest region of all.

While all this information is technically public domain, I wonder how many Americans really know these facts about their country. My suspicion is that we know just bits and pieces of the puzzle, but are simply too overwhelmed by the enormity of it all to contemplate it for very long.  And most of us who do think about it for a second longer generally throw up our hands and say, “Well, that’s just the way of the geopolitical world.”

Of course it’s all well and good when we Americans say things like this. But rarely do we stop to consider how the facts I just listed for you are experienced by the rest of the world’s inhabitants.  I’ll put it plainly: while our pursuit of military entitlement around the world may help us feel safe here at home, it is fueling anti-American attitudes around the world. We know this. Every international poll tells us this in no uncertain terms. And yet the buildup continues.

And that really is the crux of the issue here. For some Americans the most salient lesson of 9/11 was that the world is a dangerous place and we must use military power to mitigate the danger.  I include myself among those who learned a very different lesson: 9/11 taught us that when we intervene militarily abroad, we beget blowback here at home.

Many of us had hope that Obama truly believed this as well – that he would turn back the Bush doctrine and steer our nation’s foreign policy toward a saner course. But as it has turned out, the very opposite has happened. He has embroiled us in even more Mideast wars and has deployed even larger numbers of special operations forces to that region.  He has also transferred or brokered the sale of substantial quantities of weapons to these countries and has continued to build and expand US military bases at an ever-increasing rate.

He also promised to prosecute the so-called “War on Terror” with greater attention to civil liberties, but that hope has been fairly dashed as well.  During his campaign, note what he had to say about this subject:

As president, I will close Guantanamo, reject the Military Commissions Act, and adhere to the Geneva Conventions. Our Constitution and our Uniform Code of Military Justice provide a framework for dealing with the terrorists. Our Constitution works. We will again set an example for the world that the law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers, and that justice is not arbitrary.

Well, it’s over two years later and Guantanamo is still open. This past March, the Obama administration announced it would be resuming military tribunals there. And just last week, we learned that our President did something truly unprecedented – our President actually approved the extra-judicial assassination of an American citizen in Yemen.

Now I know there are many out there, including many liberal folk, who aren’t expressing over-concern about this incident. It is certainly true, Anwar al-Awlaki was a radical Muslim cleric, and yes, his language and speeches were incendiary. He may even have plotted against the United States – but we will never know that for sure because he was never indicted for a crime. What we do know is that Yemen experts said he was a minor player – and that he likely had no operational connection to Al Qaeda. But again, we’ll never know that for sure. What we do know is that Mideast extremists now have a new martyr and we have crossed a terrifying Rubicon: our government now openly assassinates its own citizens without due process.

I’m focusing these observations exclusively on our Commander-in-Chief, but of course I realize that this issue is much, much larger than just one man.  I know it’s natural to look to our primarily to our President, but in truth what we call “Washington” is really a massive bureaucracy that includes a myriad of interests. It’s a far reaching power elite that includes not only the federal government but the national security state, as well as the intelligence and federal law enforcement communities. It also includes big banks and other financial institutions, defense contractors, major corporations and any number of lawyers, lobbyists former officials, and retired military officers, all of whom hold enormous influence over our foreign policy.

This, in short, is what empire looks like in the 21^st century. It may differ from empires past, but if you have any doubt, just take a look around: just like all empires, our nation has has positioned itself to fight war without end, and like all empires, we’re starting to buckle here at home under the weight of our own power and ambition.

As I’m fond of pointing out, we Jews actually know quite a bit about empires. Whether it was the Babylonian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, we’ve experienced them directly over the centuries. We’ve lived among them, we’ve been oppressed by many of them, but most critically, we’ve seen many a mighty empire rise and fall throughout our history.

As a Jew, I’ve always been enormously proud of the classic rabbinical response to empire. The Jewish people have been able to survive even under such large and mighty powers because we’ve clung to a singular sacred vision.  That there is a power even greater. Greater than Pharaoh, greater than Babylon, even greater than the Roman empire that exiled us and dispersed our people throughout the diaspora. It is a quintessentially Jewish vision best summed up by the venerable line from the book of Zechariah: “Lo b’chayil v’lo b’koach” – “Not by might and not by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of Hosts.”

Indeed, the Prophets give us a powerful paradigm for understanding these kinds of issues.  In the Hebrew Bible, we read that after the Israelites enter the land, they eventually come to the prophet Samuel and tell him they want a king – to be “k’chol ha’goyim – like all the other nations.” God considers this to be a personal rejection, but tells Samuel to tell the nation, essentially, “Fine if you want a King, I’ll give you a King. But just you wait and see what happens.”

Of course as they come to discover, kingship in Ancient Israel doesn’t go so well for the nation. It becomes focused on militarism, becomes incorrigibly corrupt, splits in two and eventually gets overrun from within and without. During this period, it is only the prophets who speak the hard truth to power, who rail against the toxic ambitions of Israelite empire, who warn that this path will eventually be their downfall. And so it becomes.

Given all this, it would seem to me that as American Jews, we find ourselves in a paradoxical situation. Because for the first time in our history we find ourselves, by and large, as the beneficiaries of empire.  Even more than that, I’d say we American Jews have firmly hitched our wagon to it.  The state of Israel represents our major military proxy in the Middle East and the American Jewish establishment is very well enmeshed in the political power elite of our country.  There is no getting around it, at the dawn of the 21^st century, Jews have firmly cast our lot with empire.

But it’s certainly worth asking: in doing so have made a kind of Faustian bargain? Are we bucking the most central lesson of our survival over the centuries?  We more than most, should understand the limits and dangers of nations that venerate unmitigated power. After all, aren’t we quite literally living proof of this fact? We know full well that although mighty empires will rise, it is not by might and not by power that they will be sustained.

If this is so – if this is truly so – then we of all people should be helping lead the charge for a new direction.  We should be proclaiming the lessons of our own historical experience for all to hear. We’ve seen this before. We’ve seen what happens to powerful nations that depend exclusively upon military might to make them strong. We know what happens to countries that neglect the needs of their own citizens while pouring more and more blood and treasure into foreign wars. We know that when nations attack and occupy other nations, it doesn’t make them more secure. It only isolates them further, creating more enemies than allies in the end.

I know that many feel it is hopelessly naive to say these kinds of things.  Those who challenge the status quo of permanent war today are dismissed as out of touch, over-idealistic or just plain oddball. Anti-war activists are generally treated by the political establishment – by liberals and conservatives alike – with condescension, if not downright contempt. We just don’t understand the way the “real world” works. The real world is a “dangerous place.”  In the real world, things get messy.

But I can’t help but think that as things get messier for us here at home, we might actually start to see a change in this mindset. When it comes to our various wars, the middle class has gotten something of a free ride up until now. The government has gone to great lengths to ensure that we don’t feel the pain of permanent war. We’ve instituted a poverty draft where only half a percent of Americans actually serve in the military. We are outsourcing military service more and more to private security contractors – and are increasingly using drone technology to fight our battles, so that no matter how much violence we mete out, our citizenry experiences war as little more than a video game. All of this has served to anesthetize us. The reality of war is just not that real to most Americans.

But it may get real before too long. As these wars continue to draw out with no end in sight, with no discernible progress – and as economic hardship starts to affect more and more of the middle class – growing numbers of Americans may well start to connect the dots.  The Occupy Wall Street protests forming around the country may represent an early indication of this – the nascent stirrings of a new movement that finally challenges the culture of empire that has been gripping our nation.   If not now, however, it will come. It will come because we are, quite simply, on an unsustainable course. At the end of the day, there really is no such thing as war without end. Sooner or later, something has to give. It is only a matter of  when – and how.

In the meantime, I believe the most important thing we can do is to educate ourselves. To learn, as Americans, the truth about the wars our nation is fighting. To understand the suffering it inflicts on others. To grasp the costs we are paying ourselves here at home in so many unacceptable ways.

And I hope that as Jews, we might at least be able to have this conversation: as citizens of a nation engaged in war without end, how seriously will we honor a spiritual tradition that demands we pursue peace at all costs?  How seriously will we heed a historical legacy that has witnessed all too well the price of empire?  Is this really the kind of Jewish voice, Jewish vision, we want to hand over to the next generation? Or do we want to reclaim our prophetic voice and vision – one that speaks truth to power and points out the hard lessons of history?

All good questions for Yom Kippur.  This is, after all, the season in which we are commanded to ask hard questions together as a community. As American Jews, it seems to me, as members of two communities, we do this twice over.  As Americans, as Jews, how are we betraying the values we hold dear? As Americans, as Jews, how are we accommodating ourselves to a life of war without end? Are we really, truly prepared to bear the consequences of our acquiescence?

This year, let us pursue peace.

Source: Economic Policy Institute, The State of Working America 2011

Three years ago, I traveled with several JRC members and nearly 1,500 others to Postville, Iowa. We went to show our solidarity with 400 immigrant workers of the Agriprocessor kosher meat packing plant who had recently been arrested and imprisoned. It was, at the time, the largest single-site workplace raid in US history.

After participating in an interfaith service, we marched through the streets of Postville. As we reached the downtown area, we met up with angry counter-protestors, many of whom were holding signs condemning the invasion of “illegal immigrants” into their communities. One woman held a large sign that still sticks in my mind – it read: “What Would Jesus Do? Obey the Law.” I distinctly remember pointing out the irony of this sign to a fellow marcher, considering Jesus is actually considered to be one of the earliest practitioners of civil disobedience.

Now, I certainly don’t believe there’s anything inherently wrong when people of faith invoke religion to support their political positions.  From the prophets to Martin Luther King, faith has played a powerful and important role inspiring movements of political transformation.

But on that day in Postville, I was reminded that religion generally works best as a force for social good when it is leveraged on behalf of the the vulnerable and the oppressed.  But when those in power use faith as a justification for their oppression of the weak – frankly, that’s when we tend to witness religion at its worst.

To put it in the most basic terms, I’d say religion and politics mix well when they are used for the purposes of liberation. When they are used on behalf of empire – when they are wielded in what my Christian colleagues might call a “Constantinian” fashion – religion and politics generally tend to make for a pretty fatal mixture.

That’s why I reacted so instinctively when I saw that sign in Postville. “What Would Jesus Do? Obey the Law.” Really?  Even if those laws are oppressive?  Even if those laws are enacted by an all-powerful empire and wielded as a weapon against the weak?  Now I’m not a Christian theologian, but I was always led to believe this was exactly the kind of thing that used to drive Jesus nuts.

However you might choose to read your Bible, this much is fairly clear to me: if our religious tradition teaches us anything useful at all about laws, it’s that we need them to safeguard the well-being of the poor, the stranger, the widow the orphan. For their sake and ours, we are obliged to use the rule of law on behalf of the weakest – to protect those who are most at risk in our community.

I mention this because I strongly believe there has been a growing backlash against these kinds of laws in our country over the past few decades.  Government’s role in creating a stable foundation for the most vulnerable is currently under vicious political attack. And I’m very sad to see this political backlash supported by growing religious rhetoric.

Indeed, politicians, clergy and pundits, are increasingly invoking God when they attack the role of government. They preach that the real evil in our midst is “Big Government,” that higher taxes are immoral. The mere suggestion that society has a responsibility to ensure a more equitable distribution of wealth  – well, this simply represents secular, godless (or God forbid) “socialist” values.

Now that the 2012 campaign is gearing up, this religious rhetoric is entering our political discourse in some pretty surreal ways. Recently, for example, Michelle Bachmann responded to Hurricane Irene by saying it was God’s warning to Washington to rein in taxes and runaway spending.  And not long ago. Texas governor Rick Perry gave an ersatz Dvar Torah in which he compared the government to Pharaoh, claiming that we’ve all “become slaves to the government.”

One of the most popular financial gurus in the country, a Christian fundamentalist named Dave Ramsey, preaches the same sort of gospel.  His signature advice to his followers is to handle money “God’s way.” What would it mean for our country to run its economy “God’s way?” According to Ramsey, God’s ways would not include Social Security, since God would not want to invest for the long-term at such a modest rate of return. God’s ways also don’t include progressive taxation, since God desires us to emulate the habits of the wealthy. And God’s ways certainly do not mean creating government programs to protect the vulnerable, since God commands people to help themselves.

Now I know we’re tempted to chuckle when we hear this kind of stuff. But lest you think these views only reflect the feelings of a radical few, you should know that these kinds of religious ideas are finding traction – and they are growing increasingly popular.  According to a just-released study by Baylor University,  approximately one in five Americans believe that God opposes government regulation and champions the free market.  As one researcher put it, there is a significant demographic that actually believes “the invisible hand of the free market is really God at work.”

There are so many things that trouble me about these kinds of religious ideas – but I think what troubles me the most is their inherent moral insensitivity. For me, saying “God helps those who help themselves” is just a theological version of “the poor and the hungry will just have to fend for themselves.”

So I’ll go out on a limb here and say that big government is not our enemy. On the contrary, I’d say it is our central religious imperative.  In fact, I think that those who bash big government have got it backward.  The real religious issue here is not that our government is oppressing American citizens or that we need to minimize its role in our lives.

No, if there is one critical religious and moral concern facing our national community – the concern that frankly we should be shouting from the rooftops – it’s that the US, the wealthiest nation in the world, has the greatest wealth inequity of any Western industrialized nation.  It’s that the top 1 percent of the households in our country hold 40 percent of our country’s wealth.  It’s that government as enacted laws that enable the rich to get richer while the laws that protect the poor are slowly but surely being dismantled.

Along these lines, I’d add that our religious concern should be aroused by the fact that the number of people currently living below the poverty line is almost 47 million – the highest level ever recorded by the Census Bureau. Or the fact that in the world’s wealthiest nation, one in four children under the age of six live in poverty. That 33 million adults and 17.2 million children live in food insecure households.  And of course,  it’s the fact that these numbers all across the board are significantly higher for people of color.

Now, I know there are many in the religious community who do share these concerns and who work tirelessly to alleviate them.  People of faith make up a large percentage of those in the trenches – and they know better than anyone the real spiritual concerns facing poor and middle class Americans today.

But for too many reasons, these concerns have not been politically mobilized. They are being drowned out by a louder religious voice in our political culture – one that attacks the role of government and insists that the best way we can help the poor and the unemployed is to insist, in essence, that “God will provide.”

And that’s a real shame, because one of the ethical  glories of Biblical tradition – a tradition that is shared by Christians, Jews and Muslims alike – are the myriad of commandments that demand society distribute its wealth equitably – so that the most vulnerable among us may never slip through the cracks.

So, my friends, it’s time for a little Torah study. I’d like to try something that in today’s cultural climate might be considered sacrilegious. I’d like to make the religious case for big government.

Let’s start with Deuteronomy 15:11 – one of the Torah’s most famous teachings on economic justice:

The poor will never cease from the land, which is why I command you: open your hand to the poor and needy kinsman in your land.

At the heart of this commandment is a profound challenge. For whatever reason, the world is a broken place. Economic inequity will forever be a constant for society – and so we are told we must never accommodate it at face value.  We are bidden to take responsibility for the poor in our midst and consistently do what we must to alleviate their burdens because they will always be among us.

It’s also interesting that the commandment “open your hand to the poor” is written in the singular – like most of the laws in Deuteronomy.  As such, it commands each and every one of us, as individuals, to honor the value of tzedakah.

But at the same time, God commands these laws to the nation as a whole. Economic justice is at once an individual and a collective responsibility. In other words, individual charity is desired and important, but it is not enough. At the end of the day, the Bible views the creation of economic equity as a communal obligation as well.

Another famous example of this comes in the book of Leviticus, where the Israelites are subjected to what might be called significant “government regulation.” Indeed, those who use religion to bash big government might be surprised to discover that the Bible contains a commandment that all Israelite farmers must leave the corners of their fields unharvested so the poor and the stranger may glean from them. And they’d probably be appalled to learn that every fiftieth year, on the Jubilee Year, all land reverts back to its original owners and all debts are automatically forgiven.

And when it comes to taxes, the Bible makes no bones about it: “thou shalt pay.” Far from being a necessary evil, paying tax is viewed as a sacred obligation. Examples of taxes abound in the Torah: the Israelites are commanded to pay a 10% tithe for the poor, a tithe for the Levites, offerings for the priests and a flat shekel tax for communal sacrifices.

Neither does this kind of anti-government, anti-tax mentality exist in any meaningful way in Jewish tradition itself.  On the contrary, in a classic line from Pirke Avot (3:2), Rabbi Hanina teaches,

Pray for the well-being of the government; for were it not for fear of it, each person would swallow the other alive.

Jewish law has little specific to say about the government redistribution of wealth, since when halachah developed Jews were living exclusively under the rule of foreign governments.  However, the Rabbis made a point of ruling that Jews are obligated to pay taxes imposed by the governments under which they lived unless they were patently unjust. The ruling stems from the famous Talmudic principle, “Dina d’malkhuta dina.” (Bava Kamma 113a)  Literally, “the law of the land is the law.”

In general, the rabbis created a system in which the rule of law ensured a society of equity and economic justice.  This is not to say they advocate “class warfare” (to use a term being bandied about a lot these days). Equity means ensuring the protection at of the weak, without compromising the welfare of the strong. In her book “There Shall Be No Needy,” my colleague and friend Rabbi Jill Jacobs, sums this idea up well:

(Jewish Law) aims to mitigate inequity so as to prevent one person from exploiting or degrading another. It tends to favor and protect the more vulnerable party, while still looking out for the well-being of the more powerful one. Thus the law prevents selling needed medicines for more than the going rate, while also allowing doctors to accept money for their work; permits workers to leave in the middle of the day, while also limiting this permission when the labor market is tight and the crops are in danger of spoiling; and prevents a landlord from evicting a tenant suddenly, while also allowing the lease to be broken if the landlord loses his or her own home. When the balance tilts too far to one side, the principle of tikkun olam (in its earliest rabbinic manifestation) allows for adjustments to the legal system such that society functions more equitably.

These religious values express a certain essential world view about society and human nature.  At the end of the day, we’re being taught that issues of human poverty and wealth imbalance are too massive – and the stakes simply too high – to be left to individual noblesse oblige.  We are taught to never assume that left to their own devices, those who have will naturally take care of those who don’t.  And it’s downright dangerous to claim that God, working through the divine machinations of the free market, will somehow provide.

This does not mean that markets are bad or that they are immoral. Markets are by nature amoral – sometimes the results of market processes are good and sometime they are bad. That’s why it’s morally dangerous to rely on markets to protect the public good. While markets are incredibly useful and productive institutions, they are only moral insofar as they are structured to act morally. And that’s why we need government as a way to pursue our moral goals – so that we can do the right thing when the market fails to do so.

Past experience has shown us that corporations will not always provide safe working conditions or livable wages, that mortgage brokers will not voluntarily regulate themselves from predatory lending, that private schools cannot ensure that all our children get a decent education, that companies will not clean up their pollution on their own, and that “let the buyer beware” is not going to protect us from dangerous products. No, if we want to real social and economic equity in our country, we must acknowledge – in fact we must champion – the role of government in our national community.

Some might be surprised to know that one of the most eloquent American religious advocates of this point was none other than Dr. Martin Luther King. Most Americans view King primarily as a civil rights leader – but in fact at the end of his life, he was very outspoken against economic injustices in our nation. King wrote and spoke widely against the United States’ economic system for creating a widening gap between the rich and the poor.

To his credit, King understood that racial injustice could not be divorced from the deeper issue of socio-economic justice. To this end he publicly advocated a variety of government programs, including the creation of jobs by government and the institution of a guaranteed annual minimal income.

Of course, today our nation venerates King virtually on the level of a founding father. But as we prepare to unveil the new Martin Luther King memorial in Washington DC, I wonder what King would say about the state of economic justice in our country today. What he would say if he knew that this $120 million monument that was paid for largely through corporate donations – the largest being $10 million from General Motors, which now uses the King memorial in its car commercials?

As our nation celebrates Dr. King’s memory next month, do you think we’ll be prepared to honor his full legacy? To remind ourselves that he spoke passionately about the poor and working men and women, that he urged our government to create new programs and to guarantee a livable income for all American citizens?  And that these values came directly from his Biblically-inspired religious faith?

Now I am not saying that saying we should look to the government to be the answer to all of our problems. Of course a bureaucracy as large as the federal government is bound to be inefficient and wasteful in too many ways. But at the same time, I’d say it’s prejudiced in the extreme to cite inefficiency in order to question an essential function of government itself.

I’m also struck that those who rail against “big government” tend to use this term very, very selectively.  We rarely hear them use this claim, for instance, in reference to hundreds of billions of dollars our government allocates for defense spending – which include the maintenance of hundreds of military garrisons all over the world and the funding of two never-ending wars that a majority Americans believe we should not even be fighting at all.  We rarely hear “big government” directed toward federal laws passed in order to give significant tax breaks to the richest citizens in our country. And we certainly don’t hear conservative politicians and pundits refer to laws that outlaw abortion rights or same sex marriage as “big government.”

No, like everything else in politics, this term is a convenient euphemism. Underneath the slogan, I believe there lies an ideology of radical individualism – a value system that views social safety nets with disdain and believes that wealth will naturally trickle down from the wealthy to the rest of society.

But it’s just not working that way.  The “trickle-downers” tell us that the best way to create jobs and jump start the economy is to get government off the backs of business. For me, the most compelling argument against this theory is to simply take a look around. We’ve had more than three decades of government deregulation and what do we have to show for it? A steadily rising gap between the rich and poor, an increasingly squeezed middle class and ominously rising unemployment.  It’s simply not working.

We’re currently witnessing some encouraging signs that our administration is ready to take on this fight. Last week, Obama unveiled a deficit reduction plan that proposed $1.5 trillion in new taxes on corporations and Americans earning over $250,000 a year. And thanks to the support of Warren Buffet, it also includes a tax on the super-rich.  And sure enough, already the mere suggestion that the rich should pay their fair share is getting slammed by many politicians and pundits as “class warfare.”

Class warfare. It takes some chutzpah to claim that in a nation where the top 1% hold 40% of the wealth, a modest little deficit reduction plan can be called “class warfare.” And anyhow, what’s wrong with a little class warfare?  When the Torah demands that society actively redistribute its wealth, isn’t that class warfare? Don’t we gather around the seder table every year to celebrate what is, after all, class warfare?  When it comes right down to it, isn’t economic justice worth fighting for?

For me, one of the ironies of all this is that while I do believe government has a role to play in ensuring equity, I’m not all that confident that our elected leaders will be the ones to lead the way to this kind of reform. I think one of the hardest lessons of these past two years was that so many of us were inspired by the Obama campaign to believe in the power of the government to effect real social change – only to have these hopes dashed as mere illusions.

To put it bluntly – when it comes to the work of social change, I think we’re placing far too much faith in our political leaders and far too little on ourselves.  I’ll return to what I said at the outset: religion works best as a force for social good when it is invoked on behalf of the the vulnerable and the oppressed – when it speaks truth to power in order to shift power.  Politicians to the left and to the right – no matter how inspiring they may be – are part of the power elite in this country. Who will hold them to account if we do not?

That is what religion at its best has always done – and that is what the faith community desperately needs to do today.  We in the interfaith community share a venerable religious vision that speaks directly to the crises of this country. It’s a religious vision that understands the world is a broken place and that it doesn’t get fixed by itself. A vision that disavows the simplistic faith that “God will provide” and is rooted in the conviction that society can never take the welfare of its weakest citizens for granted.

And we shouldn’t take times such as these for granted.  Alas, we know all too well that these are not merely theoretical issues for any of us.  We all know people who are suffering heartbreaking losses as a result of this horrid economy. There are members of our own congregation – people who are in this sanctuary as I speak to you who have lost their jobs, who have lost their savings, lost their homes.

Many of us are just not used to thinking of ourselves as vulnerable – but as the middle class slowly shrinks in our country, we’re coming to grips with a truly painful reality. That our lives may never really have been on such firm ground after all.  That our children are growing up in a world that is more fragile than we might ever have dreamed.

I know we are all doing what we can to reach out to those in our community who need our support now more than ever. It is times such as these that challenge us to access our highest selves.  But at the same time, I do believe that modern democratic government and its programs are also a reflection of our best selves – our most decent selves.

And if this is truly so, then attempts to drastically cut taxes and shrink the public sector can only serve to diminish our ability to act as responsible moral beings. The more we Americans buy into a vision of government as bad, the more we stand by as this institution is weakened, the more we weaken our ability to redeem our world.

I know you all join me in my prayer that this be a better year – a year of dignity and prosperity for all. For us, for our loved ones, for those we don’t know personally but whose humanity is ours and for whose welfare we are ultimately responsible.

May we do what we can, what we must to create a fair and equitable world in our day – and may we bequeath future of genuine hope to our children.

Amen.

To explore these timely issues, Ta’anit Tzedek – Jewish Fast for Gaza is sponsoring a phone conference with Josh Ruebner, National Advocacy Director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation on Thursday, September 22 at 12 pm (EST)

Ruebner is a former Analyst in Middle East Affairs at Congressional Research Service, a federal government agency providing Members of Congress with policy analysis. His analysis and commentary on US policy toward the Middle East appear frequently in media such as NBC, ABC Nightline, CSPAN, Al Jazeera, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, Middle East Report, and more.

The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is a national coalition of nearly 350 organizations working to end US support for Israel’s illegal 43-year military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip, and to change U.S. policy toward Israel/ Palestine to support human rights, international law, and equality.

Call-in info:

• Call in number: 1-800-920-7487
• Code: 92247763#

Participants in the call are encouraged to read one or more of the following articles:

• “FAQ about the Palestinian U.N. Initiative” by Josh Ruebner
• Straining Every Nerve Against UN Membership for Palestine” by Josh Ruebner
• What Have Obama and Netanyahu Wrought?” by Henry Siegman

Please join the call!

I don’t have a position on whether or not it is a good thing for the PA to seek membership status for Palestine at the UN. That is for the Palestinians to determine – and I know there are a variety of Palestinian opinions both pro and con on this issue.

But I do believe this: the Obama Administration is being highly disingenuous in its attempts to block this declaration by claiming a Palestinian state can only achieved through peace negotiations.

On this one I’m in full agreement with former AJC Executive Director Henry Siegman, who offered this analysis yesterday:

(Is) there anyone who witnessed the frenzied applause that greeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s most recent speech before the U.S. Congress in which he left no doubt about his government’s intentions for East Jerusalem and for the West Bank, or heard President Obama’s assurances to AIPAC’s conventioneers that the ties that bind the U.S. to Israel are forever “unbreakable,” who still believes that the U.S. will ever exert the kind of pressure on Israel that will finally change its cost/benefit calculations with regard to its colonial project?

Two years ago, Obama stood at a podium in Cairo University and said the following:

America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own…

The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security…

The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.  This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace.  It is time for these settlements to stop…

And now here we are. The Obama administration has done everything it can to undermine its own publicly articulated goals. It continues to support Israel unconditionally as it settles the West Bank with impunity. Last February it cast the sole veto vote on a UN Security Council resolution that condemned the settlements. Now it is poised to publicly oppose Palestinians formal membership at the UN – the very body by which Israel itself became a state.

No, I’m not personally taking a stand on this because I don’t presume to preach to Palestinians what I think is in their best interest. But as an American citizen, I can’t accept my government’s claim that it is in any way committed to this so-called “peace process.”  Until the Obama administration is truly ready to be an honest and effective broker, it could at the very least refrain from smacking Palestinians down when they seek recourse through other means.

And when it comes to the larger implications of a US veto, I’ll say this: whatever good will Obama might have engendered after Cairo is now on the verge of being completely and utterly squandered. You know things are looking dire when a former Saudi Ambassador to the US writes in the NY Times:

The United States must support the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations this month or risk losing the little credibility it has in the Arab world. If it does not, American influence will decline further, Israeli security will be undermined and Iran will be empowered, increasing the chances of another war in the region.

When one of your only allies left in the Arab world makes a public statement such as this, I’d say its time to pay heed.

This Labor Day I’d like to think globally and act locally.

Bowing to an increasing culture of all-out warfare on public sector jobs in our nation, the city council in my hometown of Evanston is currently considering privatizing up to twenty of its public services, including recreation programs, community health initiatives, information technology, the city vehicle fleet program, street maintenance and more.

Yes, even here in our supposedly “progressive” little town of Evanston, we’re not immune to the spreading disease that views “big government” as the source of all economic evils. This Labor Day, it seems a good time as any to make this point: a balanced budget is not a de facto virtue. Budgets are value-neutral. How we generate income and how we spend that income are inherently values-based decisions.

And on a purely practical level, I’m in full agreement with those who claim that balancing the budget by slashing government spending does not stimulate the economy. Given that we’re experiencing zero job growth – and probably will for some time to come – it seems to be doing the exact opposite. Indeed, Paul Krugman makes this point convincingly in today’s NY Times:

Although you’d never know it listening to the ranters, the past year has actually been a pretty good test of the theory that slashing government spending actually creates jobs. The deficit obsession has blocked a much-needed second round of federal stimulus, and with stimulus spending, such as it was, fading out, we’re experiencing de facto fiscal austerity. State and local governments, in particular, faced with the loss of federal aid, have been sharply cutting many programs and have been laying off a lot of workers, mostly schoolteachers.

I know our experience here in Evanston is being currently played out in any number of communities around the country: we are falling prey to a knee jerk, fear-based assumption that the only way to balance a budget is to cut spending. But there is certainly more then one way to slice a pie – and I would claim that doing it at the expense of public sector workers is not only economically unjust but economically irrational.

Click here to read how privatizing Evanston services would affect our workers – and why it would cost our city more in the long run. And if you are an Evanston resident, click here to sign a petition that calls on our city council to keep public services in the public’s hands.

May this Labor Day inspire us all to go forth and do the work of justice.