Category Archives: Peace

Blocking for Obama

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This past weekend JRC hosted a national conference for the regional organizers of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom.  An eye-opening and informative two days concluded with a visit from Jeremy Ben-Ami, Executive Director of J Street (above, with outgoing BTVS Executive Director Diane Balser). Jeremy’s essential message, which resonated throughout our entire two day meeting, was that the peace process driven by the Obama administration currently has great momentum. He added, however, that realistically speaking, we have a 18-24 month window to produce meaningful results.

Jeremy used a football metaphor to describe the job of those in the Jewish community who currently advocate for the two-state solution: our job is to act as Obama’s front line, blocking for him and creating lanes through the opposition as he moves forward. To do this, he explained, we’ll have to consistently anticipate the opposition and stay two steps ahead of the administration in order to give him “room to run.”

One sobering example of this political tactic: Obama will eventually have to compromise on the settlements. There is clearly a stalemate between the US and Israel over this issue – and Jeremy explained that if the peace camp drew an unwavering line in the sand over the settlements, then the process would simply be dead at the starting gate. According to this view, it would be best for us to support a compromise on this issue now so that we can successfully maintain the momentum in the process.

As an active  (if somewhat anguished) peace process advocate, I certainly grasp the wisdom of this approach. While my principled voice screams out, “What?!! Give up on the settlements? What kind of sham is this?!!” – my practical political voice responds, “Hey, that’s politics. It’s all well and good if you want to remain unsullied in your moral ivory tower, but if you really want to be part of the solution, you have to come down and get your hands a little dirty. If you want to play then you have to be part of the game. That’s just the way it works.”

I get this. I do. But I will confess that I haven’t truly been able to drown out either voice completely. While I do understand the art of political compromise, I also believe that there may well come a point in which some of us run up against a compromise that is simply unacceptable: one that essentially betrays the very ideals that compelled us to support this process in the first place.

Obviously, this point would be placed at different places by different people. And I’m well aware that there are those on both ends of the political spectrum who believe we’ve long since passed that point.  But for for those of us somewhere in the murky middle, the reality is terribly complex – at times painfully so.

My friend Danielle Peshkin, in a comment to my last post, put it perfectly, I think:

It is always difficult, though necessary, to decide to when to sacrifice morality for strategic advantage in the long term advancement of your political goals. It’s equally difficult, though also necessary, to decide when sacrificing morality and justice for short term strategic gain will in fact harm the long term goal of establishing peace and justice.

Flesh of Our Flesh?

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isaiah_58Learn to do good, seek justice; relieve the oppressed. Uphold the orphan’s rights; take up the widow’s cause. (Isaiah 1:17)

This classic verse comes from the Haftarah portion for this Shabbat. It is the final so-called “Haftarah of affliction” coming annually on the Shabbat before the festival of Tisha B’Av. Beginning next week our prophetic portions will offer messages of consolation, reminding us that the path of return to righteousness is always open to us. Indeed, it is this very message that will guide us into the High Holiday season itself –  the season of our return.

As I read this passage this year, I was mindful of a very similar passage that will appear in the Haftarah of Yom Kippur, also from the book of Isaiah:

No, this is the fast that I desire: to unlock fetters of wickedness and untie the cords of lawlessness; to let the oppressed go free and break off every yoke. It is to share your bread with the hungry, and to take the wretched poor into your home; to clothe when you see the naked, and never forget your own flesh (Isaiah 58:6-7).

In a way, these two similar Isaiah passages seem to represent spiritual bookends to the High Holiday season. These characteristically prophetic calls to justice and repentance guide us through our High Holiday journey, reminding us not only of our seemingly chronic hypocrisy but also of the eternally simple route to return: “learn to do good, free the oppressed, feed the hungry…”

As many of you know, our recently organized Fast for Gaza has cited Isaiah 58 as a kind of spiritual prooftext to our initiative. As it turns out, ever since we’ve launched this project I’ve been in a kind of dialogue with more than one correspondent over this particular verse. Several people have already written to me that we’ve misinterpreted Isaiah. It appears that for some, calling a Jewish fast in support of Gazan Palestinians rather than Jewish Israelis represents a betrayal of this prophetic imperative (not to mention the Jewish people.)  As one writer put it, “never forget your own flesh” means “charity begins at home.”

This criticism motivated me to do a bit of digging into the source material.  As it turns out the Hebrew word for “your flesh” – b’sarcha – can indeed refer to blood relations or kin. But interestingly, according to the Brown, Driver, Briggs Biblical Dictionary (p. 142), this term can also mean “all living beings” (occurring in this usage at least 13 times throughout the Bible.)

So, in fact, there is good, solid linguistic evidence to reject this narrow, tribal reading of Isaiah.  Now I’m certainly willing to admit that this passage might have referred only to fellow Israelites when it was originally written. But today we live in a fundamentally different time than the ancient Israelites. In our globalized, post-modern world, the Jewish community has become inter-dependent with others in profound and unprecedented ways.  Whether we are prepared to admit it or not, our Jewish security, our Jewish destiny is now irrevocably bound up with the destiny of all peoples and nations of the world.

I am well aware that this viewpoint represents a distinctly 21st century Torah. I also have no illusions that it will be a simple matter for the Jewish community to heed this call. Having only recently emerged from the ghetto, still living with a collective memory of anti-Semitism, still reeling from the trauma of the Holocaust, it will necessitate a radical shift in consciousness to understanding our place in the world in such a way.

It will not be easy, but I believe it will be essential.  It can no longer be us against them. At the end of the day, we are all one flesh.

Bibi’s History Tutorial

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I’m in agreement with the pundits who conclude that there was absolutely nothing new for consideration offered in Netanyahu’s speech. Perhaps he achieved a personal milestone by finally uttering the words “Palestinian state” but beyond this it was a tune we’ve all heard before. He offered “peace negotiations immediately without prior conditions” then proceeded to spell out the all too familiar prior conditions that everyone knows are non-starters for the Palestinians (i.e. Jerusalem remains the “united capital of Israel,” “natural growth” of the settlements will continue, there will be no right of return for the Palestinians.)

Same old, same old.   For me at least, the most interesting parts of his speech were not his tired policy pronouncements, but his extended forays into historical analysis – and in particular, his repeated justifications of the Jewish people’s right to the land:

The connection of the Jewish People to the Land has been in existence for more than 3,500 years. Judea and Samaria, the places where our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob walked, our forefathers David, Solomon, Isaiah and Jeremiah this is not a foreign land, this is the Land of our Forefathers.

It seemed clear that Netanyahu’s history lesson was a pointed rejoinder to Obama’s Cairo speech, in which Obama stated that the “Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.” You may have heard that following his speech, many in the Jewish community criticized Obama for connecting Israel’s right to exist to the Holocaust and failing to cite the Jewish people’s historical connection to the land.  Witness this livid Jerusalem Post editorial:

Mr. President, long before Christianity and Islam appeared on the world stage, the covenant between the people of Israel and the Land of Israel was entrenched and unwavering. Every day we prayed in our ancient tongue for our return to Zion. Every day, Mr. President. For 2,000 years.

Perhaps it’s because Palestine was never sovereign under the Arabs that even moderate Palestinians cannot find it in their hearts to acknowledge the depth of the Jews’ connection to Zion. Instead, they insist we are interlopers.

When Obama implies that Jewish rights are essentially predicated on the Holocaust—not once asserting they are far, far deeper and more ancient—he is dooming the prospects for peace.

For why should the Arabs reconcile themselves to the presence of a Jewish state, organic to the region, when the US president keeps insinuating that Israel was established to atone for Europe’s crimes?

Thus Netanyahu’s pointed words yesterday:

The right of the Jewish People to a state in the Land of Israel does not arise from the series of disasters that befell the Jewish People over 2,000 years – persecutions, expulsions, pogroms, blood libels, murders, which reached its climax in the Holocaust, an unprecedented tragedy in the history of nations…The right to establish our sovereign state here, in the Land of Israel, arises from one simple fact: Eretz Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish People.

It’s facinating to me that Netanyahu et al are so threatened by the suggestion that Israel’s establishment is ultimately bound to the Holocaust.   After all, didn’t Theodor Herzl himself found political Zionism as a reponse to world anti-Semitism?  And whatever historical claim the Jewish people might have to the land of Israel, it’s safe to say there would never have been international support for a Jewish state had it not been for the Holocaust.

Beyond this, I’m troubled by the need to continuously and defensively remind the world of the historical Jewish connection to this particular piece of land. I’m not at all sure that this is really a road we really need or want to go down.

What does it really mean for any people to have a “right” to a land?  I understand that the Jewish nation, like every nation, has its historic narrative, but let’s face it: nations don’t exist by right, they exist by fiat. Nations exist by virtue of military power and by their ability to maintain a system of governance  that will ensure their survival as a polity. Beyond this, it’s pointless to argue one’s historical or moral right to a land. It seems to me that if history has proven anything, it’s that might makes right – and all the rest is commentary.

The real question here is not who has a right to this land. The central issue is how its inhabitants will see fit to exist on the land. And on this point, I don’t see that Netanyahu gave us anything fresh to consider.

People You Should Know About: Ezra Nawi

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If you’re looking for the definition of an Israeli hero, here’s my nomination: human rights activist Ezra Nawi.  Well-known in the Israeli-Palestinian peace movement, Nawi is a true original. This is how he was described by journalist Neve Gordon in a recent Guardian article:

Nawi is not a typical rights activist. A member of the Ta’ayush Arab-Jewish Partnership he is a Jewish Israeli of Iraqi descent who speaks fluent Arabic. He is a gay man in his fifties and a plumber by trade. Perhaps because he himself comes from the margins, he empathises with others who have been marginalised – often violently.

Nawi has long been active on behalf of the Palestinians and Bedouins of South Hebron, a region where the occupation is particularly oppressive and harassment at the hands of Jewish settlers is virtually constant. While his non-violent activism has helped bring international attention to this troubled region, it has also made him a target in the eyes of the occupation authorities. In July 2007, he was arrested and charged with assaulting a police officer while protesting the destruction of a Palestinian house. He will be sentenced next month and will most certainly face jail time unless there is a significant public outcry.

As it turns out, the home demolition and arrest were all captured on film and broadcast on the Israeli news. (Click above – Nawi is the one in the green jacket and the grey cap.)  The footage is riveting and everything is clearly documented from beginning to end (including the non-assault of the officer.)  Nawi himself gets the last word however. Sitting handcuffed in a military vehicle before laughing, scornful soldiers he says, “Yes, I was also a soldier, but I did not demolish houses. There’s a big difference. The only thing that will be left here is hatred…”

Since Nawi’s arrest, support has been building. Jesse Hochheiser’s blog, “Across the Borderline” contains several powerful testimonials, including this from Hebrew University professor and fellow Ta’ayush activist David Shulman:

Ezra Nawi is probably the most courageous person I have ever met. I have seen him in countless moments when settlers violently attacked him and other peace activists, Palestinians and Israelis; his presence of mind, steadfastness, and clarity always got us through such times. He is that most unusual of human beings– a person of profound inner gentleness and moral principle, selfless and creative in finding ways to help the Palestinian shepherds and farmers of the South Hebron hills.

The only thing standing between Ezra Nawi and imprisonment is your voice. Click here to offer your support.

Confessions of a Peace Process Cynic

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Don’t get me wrong. I’m on board. I’m in there with the American Jews who are reassuring Obama that we’ve got his back. But I have to say it’s all I can do to resist my cynicism when I read about Peace Process, version 5.0. (And for safety’s sake, let me just reiterate my blog’s disclaimer: I’m writing this merely as a snarky private citizen – not on behalf of any organization with which I’m affiliated.)

As I’ve written before, I’m encouraged by Obama and Clinton’s tough talk on the settlements. Nevertheless, I’ve increasingly been wondering if/how the administration would back up their tough words with meaningful action.

Thus I confess to a distinctly familiar sinking sensation when I read this in the NY Times this morning:

As President Obama prepares to head to the Middle East this week, administration officials are debating how to toughen their stance against any expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The measures under discussion — all largely symbolic — include stepping back from America’s near-uniform support for Israel in the United Nations if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel does not agree to a settlement freeze, administration officials said.

Other measures include refraining from the instant Security Council veto of United Nations resolutions that Israel opposes and making use of Mr. Obama’s bully pulpit to criticize the settlements, officials said. Placing conditions on loan guarantees to Israel, as the first President Bush did nearly 20 years ago, is not under discussion, officials said.

Call me cynical, but “symbolic measures” simply aren’t going to cut it. Not when you’re up against the juggernaut that is Israel’s settlement movement. (Read Akiva Eldar’s “Lords of the Land” if you think “juggernaut” is too strong a word.) And certainly not when you are dealing with the most pro-settlement Israeli administration in recent memory.  Already several Israeli officials are complaining loudly that the demand for a settlement freeze is “unfair.” (“There are reasonable demands and demands that are not reasonable.” Bibi said today.)

I found it interesting that the NY Times article cited George H. W. Bush and the loan guarantees – now that brought back some memories. Remember the last time an American president tried to tie US aid to Israel’s settlement activity?

For many in the Jewish community, Bush’s presidency could be encapsulated in his offhand quip to reporters in September 1991 during an AIPAC lobbying effort on Capitol Hill in support of the proposed $10 billion loan guarantee to Israel: “I’m one lonely little guy” up against “some powerful political forces” made up of “a thousand lobbyists on the Hill.”

Bush had opposed the loan guarantees as long as Israel continued settlement in the West Bank and Gaza. The president finally agreed to a loan guarantee package in August 1992, requiring as a set-off any funds Israel spent to build housing or infrastructure in the territories. Despite this action, the political damage was done. The loan guarantee controversy later motivated Jewish opposition to President Bush, who received no more than 12% of the Jewish vote in the 1992 election (down from close to 35% in 1988).

More than fifteen years later, you’d still be hard pressed to find anyone in the American Jewish establishment supporting the withholding of aid to Israel under any circumstances.  As I’ve written before, this is the “third rail” in the American Jewish community. But trust me on this: it may well be the only diplomatic stick that will get Israel’s attention at the end of the day.

Now is Obama up to that level of political courage? And even more to the point: will the American Jewish community still have his back if/when that time comes?

Six Months and Counting

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250_bibiIt’s no longer speculation to imagine an Israeli military attack on Iran. Following his visit to Washington, Netanyahu has made his ultimate intentions perfectly clear:

These are not regular times. The danger is hurtling toward us. The real danger in underestimating the threat.  My job is first and foremost to ensure the future of the state of Israel … The leadership’s job is to eliminate the danger. Who will eliminate it? It is us or no one.

Never thought I’d  live to find myself saying this, but here goes: the voice of sanity on this issue comes from the US Secretary of Defense:

The only way we can prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is for the Iranians themselves to decide that it’s too costly. And that it absolutely detracts from their security rather than enhances it.

If we or the Israelis or somebody else strike (Iran) militarily, in my view, it would delay the Iranian program for some period of time, but only delay it, probably only one to three years. You would unify the nation, you would cement their determination to have a nuclear program, and also build into the whole country an undying hatred of whoever hits them.

I have a sinking feeling about this. The Obama administration has painted itself into a corner by giving talks with Iran a six month deadline – a daunting task by any reasonable standard.  Are Netanyahu’s threats mere bluster? I for one wouldn’t want to test that theory.

Pray for the peacemakers…

“Now the Hard Work Starts…”

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So Netanyahu managed to spend his entire sojourn in DC without uttering the magic words “two state solution.” On the upside, however, the Obama team has laid down the line on Israel harder than any American administration in recent memory – particularly on the issue of a settlement freeze.

Note Clinton’s forceful words on the subject during this recent Al-Jazeera interview:

We want to see a stop to settlement construction – additions, natural growth, any kind of settlement activity – that is what the president has called for.

Clinton’s words here were actually very carefully chosen. Indeed, one of the latest tactics of the Israeli government to skirt this issue is to insist on allowing additional construction on existing settlements to accommodate “natural growth.”  During a visit to Washington earlier this month, the increasingly disappointing Shimon Peres, put it this way:

Israel cannot instruct settlers in existing settlements not to have children or get married. These children are not going to live on roofs.

(The mind reels with potential witty rejoinders to that whopper. I’ll refrain..)

We should at least be heartened that Obama has unequivocally drawn the line on settlements – but he still has an incredibly difficult job ahead of him. As Clinton puts it in the interview, now the hard work starts.

We in the American Jewish community are not exempt from this work. If we truly believe that a just and viable two-state solution is in the best interest of all concerned, then it’s time for us to stand up and say so.  Click here to do just that.

E1: End of the Two State Solution?

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From today’s Ha’aretz:

Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu has struck a secret deal with Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman for highly contentious construction on West Bank land known as E1, Army Radio reported Wednesday.

While this might not seem like major news to some, this report, if true, would be devastating to the peace process (such as it is…)  In fact, settling E1 might well constitute the final nail in the coffin of the two state solution.

“E1” stands for East 1 – it is the administrative title given to the area east of Jerusalem and west of the West Bank development Ma’ale Adumim (see map above). Israeli settlement monitors such as Ir Amim and Peace Now have long cautioned against the dire consequences of settling this critical strip of land:

Construction of E-1 would jeopardize the hopes for a two-state solution.  It would, by design, block off the narrow undeveloped land corridor which runs east of Jerusalem and which is necessary for any meaningful future connection between the southern and the northern parts of the West Bank.  It would thus break the West Bank into two parts – north and south.  It would also sever access to East Jerusalem for Palestinians in the West Bank, and sever access to the West Bank for Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem. Both of these situations are antithetical to the achievement of any real, durable peace agreement and the establishment of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state.

The expansion of Ma’ale Adumim, as with the expansion of any other settlement, is a unilateral act which undermines and jeopardizes efforts to resume negotiations which are based on the principal of two states living side by side with peace and security.

It’s not such a stretch to imagine Netanyahu blithely giving E1 away to Lieberman as a political bargaining chip – he’s been hankering after this piece of earth of some time now. In fact, back in 2005 he choose a barren hilltop in E1 upon which to announce his candidacy for Prime Minister. This is what he had to say at the time:

This is Jerusalem, it’s our capital…Nobody can tell us to freeze building in our capital. What we need to do is to break this siege by building here.

You can see all of E1 quite easily from the top of Mt. Scopus. It’s beyond sobering to think the fate of the peace process might well hand upon a mere 12 square kilometers.

Trust me, this will be one to follow…

PS: Click here to send a letter to Secretary of State Clinton to ask her to make a settlement freeze a necessary part of the peace process going forward.

A Peace Veteran Bears Witness

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kathykellyThis past Wednesday, JRC’s Peace Dialogue sponored a visit by longtime peace activist and nonviolence practitioner Kathy Kelly, who traveled to Gaza during the recent war.

If you’ve never heard of Kathy Kelly, you should read her bio because she’s someone you need to know about. This recent article will give some idea of the territory she covered in her presentation.

As she’s has been walking the walk for decades, I was surprised (and somewhat appalled) when she told us that this was the first time she had ever been invited to speak to a specifically Jewish audience. I hope and trust it won’t be the last. Through word and deed, I believe this inspiring peace veteran has a great deal to teach us.

Rabbis on the Third Rail

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Having nothing better to do, I spent a fair amount of time last week trying to spearhead a Rabbinical Statement on Gaza. Sorry to report that after several days of back and forth we had to fold the entire project when it became clear that we wouldn’t find a wording that would satisfy a critical mass of rabbis. (To make matters even worse, an early version of the statement was precipitously posted on the net before we had consensus. I’m fairly sure it’s still floating around out there in cyberland in all its unauthorized glory…)

There were several motivations for the statement. First and foremost, it came from a desire to express a Rabbinical voice of opposition to Israel’s military action in Gaza, which we felt was strategically disastrous and morally outrageous. It was also important to us that Jewish community leaders publicly expressed sorrow not just for the loss of Israeli life but also for the massive devastation experienced by Gazans during the past three weeks:

We condemn the firing of missiles from Gaza that forced so many Israelis to live in fear and we mourn the loss of life that resulted from these attacks. However, we are devastated by Israel’s disproportionate use of force, killing more a myriad of people, including over 450 children. In the wake of such overwhelming civilian bloodshed, we can only ask, in the words of the Talmud, “How do we know that our blood is redder than the blood of our fellow?”

Additionally, since we felt we could not address the tragedy of the war while ignoring the larger political context of the conflict, our statement contained a strong message for the new American administration:

We urge our new President to turn back the policies of previous administrations – policies which have given Israel permission to take numerous measures that we believe are counter to the cause of peace, including the expropriation of Palestinian lands, destruction of Palestinians homes and businesses and the widespread building of settlements in occupied Palestinian territory.

The most controversial aspect of our statement was our call for the new administration to take an assertive diplomatic approach with Israel, and not to rule out the withholding of military aid “as necessary.” As anyone familiar with American Jewish community politics must surely know, withholding aid  is the “third rail” for organized Jewry –  i.e., the line that can never be crossed.

And it was this was the sentence more than any other that confounded of our core group of signers. We tried various different wordings: “if the administration deems it necessary,”  “withholding of aid as a last resort,”  “withholding aid for noncompliance” – but in the end, no wording seemed to suffice. Some felt that this was going to far and others refused to sign unless a strong statement about withholding aid was included.

I can certainly understand why this issue pushes such profound buttons for American Jews. It plays on our deepest fears and as well as our abiding sense of Jewish vulnerability. For many American Jews, the withdrawal of aid would be tantamount to abandonment by Israel’s most significant ally. But there are other Jews – and I believe their ranks are growing – who simply do not want to be party to Israel’s growing militarism and are not afraid to admit it.

For my part, I was less concerned about this particular issue, and perhaps that just reflects my own naivete. While I understand our community’s fears, I also believe that withholding aid is probably the strongest diplomatic “stick” America can wield with Israel – and in the end it may be the only one that will ever really get Israel’s attention. But whatever we might think about this issue, I just don’t agree that it must be ipso facto off the table for mere discussion in our community – and I deeply resent those in our community who reserve the right to excommunicate others who hold this opinion in good faith.

It’s all moot anyhow. No matter how we worded the statement, we couldn’t retain our core of signers. Some asked to have their names removed for various reasons. Many told me they would have loved to have signed, but couldn’t for organizational or professional reasons. After several days we called it quits.

I know there are some decent lessons in all of this, but mostly I’m just frustrated  and very, very sad. I know for a fact that there are many Jews out there who were waiting for rabbis to make a statement of this kind, regardless of the final wording. I still believe  that whatever the political realities, those of us who care about the shared fate of Israelis and Palestinians will have to find the courage of our convictions.

For me it really comes down to this: two of our most sacred Jewish values are Ahavat Yisrael (“Love of the People Israel”) and Ahavat Habriot (“Love for All People”). Should it really be that hard for us to promote both with equal passion?