Category Archives: Politics

Peace with Justice in Israel/Palestine: A Dialogue

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Since my recent post on the current round of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process I’ve received many responses, via comment, in person, and email. Here’s one of the most thoughtful and challenging, sent to me by a good friend. Click at the finish for my response:

As the Midrash (Leviticus Rabbah 9) teaches, “Great is Peace, since even in a time of war, one should begin with peace…”

Even now, when the prospect of achieving peace seems so remote and the hostility from some in the Netanyahu government so hostile, we as Jews are commanded to pursue peace. This doesn’t mean that we should be Pollyannaish about the possibilities of success in the upcoming talks, but neither should we give up before they’ve started. There is always the possibility, however remote, that Netanyahu will decide to take the bull by the horns and do a Nixon to China like move. Those of us who care deeply must encourage the best possible outcome. After all, if these talks fail and the Palestinian Authority disintegrates, where will this leave in terms of security in the West Bank and international credibility? Where will it leave President Obama who has hinged so much of his foreign policy on resolving the conflict? These are serious and weighty matters for Israel and the U.S.

I know that the political maneuvering around peace talks can be very discouraging for those like you who are trying to improve the situation on the ground. Politicians make all sorts of moves that are hard to swallow. Hillary Clinton, for example, started out very strongly on human rights issues leading the way for international financial assistance to Gaza following the war and strong denouncing settlement building in East Jerusalem. To get to these talks, she has become much more restrained in response to both the failure of the settlement freeze policy and to fear of attacks from the right wing (both Jewish and Christian) in characterizing Obama as anti-Israel. There is a place for politics in moving things forward, but it operates in a very different manner than truth telling. Mobilizing support from people with a broad range of perspectives involves compromises that can be very hard to swallow, but until we find a way to win over broader grassroots support, this is the price we will pay until then.

I admire your decision as a prominent rabbi to telling the truth about the on the ground situation in Israel and Palestine. This is extremely difficult to look at for many of us, and yet you have decided to unflinchingly dive in headfirst. However, I believe that your framing the political process in opposition to justice on the ground is quite problematic and ultimately more harmful to your dreams than heuylpful.

I cannot praise your glorification of hopelessness and the messianic like idea that we cannot pursue peace until there is justice. We cannot stop seeking peace and we cannot stop seeking justice, and we must use all of the tools at our disposal including politics and including truth telling.

Most importantly, if you really want to “extend civil rights, human rights, equity and equality for all inhabitants of Israel/Palestine” then you will need every possible ally. Please don’t make yourself the leader of an exclusive club that turns away your natural allies for lack of moral purity. It’s so much easier to stand on supposed high moral ground and criticize those who imperfectly seek to bring about change than to do the dirty work of making it happen. In the end, we all need each other if we’re going to move this forward.

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The Peace Process is Dead

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Israelis and Palestinians are being brought back to the table, but no one really seems to be all that happy about it. Indeed, I can’t remember a time when renewed peace talks were greeted with such widespread cynicism. And that’s when you can even read about it at all – as I scour my usual media outlets for news and commentary on the peace process, I’m getting the distinct impression that this kind of thing is simply not considered to be news any more.

The only significant piece I’ve read recently is Ethan Bronner’s front page article in Saturday’s NY Times. The first few paragraphs pretty much tell you everything you need to know:

The American invitation on Friday to the Israelis and Palestinians to start direct peace talks in two weeks in Washington was immediately accepted by both governments. But just below the surface there was an almost audible shrug. There is little confidence — close to none — on either side that the Obama administration’s goal of reaching a comprehensive deal in one year can be met…

“These direct negotiations are the option of the crippled and the helpless,” remarked Zakaria al-Qaq, vice president of Al Quds University and a Palestinian moderate, when asked his view of the development. “It is an act of self-deception that will lead nowhere.”

And Nahum Barnea, Israel’s pre-eminent political columnist, said in a phone interview: “Most Israelis have decided that nothing is going to come out of it, that it will have no bearing on their lives. So why should they care?”

I used to believe where there’s talk, there’s hope. (In fact, I think I’ve even written those very words on this blog once or twice before). I don’t think I really believe this any more – not, at least, when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. For almost two decades, the US and the international community has been brokering talks between both sides and now this is what it has come to: beyond the pro-forma diplomatic statements, everyone seems to agree that it’s really just a road to nowhere. And a half-hearted attempt to bring the “crippled and the helpless” to the bargaining table simply doesn’t inspire hope. Quite the opposite.

I’m not even tempted any more to engage in an analytical discussion of how/why/where talks have failed. There are still more than enough pundits out there ready to parse the political maneuvering. To my mind, it’s all fairly moot at this point. For so many years, so many of us have been working overtime to advocate for the peace process. But while so many of us have held forth the two-state solution as a kind of Holy Grail, the prospect of a viable Palestinian state has grown increasingly remote.

Again, from Ethan Bronner:

Most Palestinians — and many on the Israeli left — argue that there are now too many Israeli settlements in the West Bank for a viable, contiguous Palestinian state to arise there. Settlement growth has continued despite a construction moratorium announced by Mr. Netanyahu.

Moreover, support for many of the settlements remains relatively strong in Israel. In other words, if this view holds, the Israelis have closed out any serious option of a two-state solution. So the talks are useless.

As someone who has fervently supported peace talks from the beginning, I write these words with great sorrow: it is time to face the facts and declare that the peace process is dead. I respect those who honestly disagree with such a position, but for myself at least, I cannot in good conscience advocate for a peace process that is so fatally flawed in so many ways. For me, the much more critical and pressing question at this point is not “how can we get both parties to the table?” but “how can we find a way to extend civil rights, human rights, equity and equality for all inhabitants of Israel/Palestine?”

That’s really the crux of the issue for me: peace without justice is no peace at all. Whether or not there is eventually a one-state, two-state or fifteen-state solution, it will need to be a just solution. And at the moment, justice seems to be precisely what is missing from the peace process.

At the end of the day, Israel simply cannot claim to take the concept of Palestinian statehood seriously while it establishes Jewish settlements throughout the Palestinian territories with impunity. Israel cannot say it accepts the concept of a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem yet at the same time evict Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem with a clear intention of Judaizing these neighborhoods. And perhaps most critically, Israel cannot claim to meet the Palestinians across the peace table in good faith while it oppresses Palestinians on a daily basis.

My friend and colleague Cantor Michael Davis once said to me that the real problem with the peace process is that “we are focusing exclusively on the future at the expense of the present.” I agree. For far too long we have been using the peace process as a shield to keep us from honestly facing the very real and troubling human rights abuse Israel is committing on the ground right now. Yes, there will need to be a political solution to this conflict. But until a present justice is consciously attached to a future peace, I believe in my heart that the peace process will remain as good as dead.

Tony Judt, May His Memory Be for a Blessing

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When Tony Judt passed away from ALS on August 6, the world lost a brilliant historian and a brave, unflinching observer of current political events. In the Jewish community, Judt was famous (some undoubtedly would say infamous) for his views on the Israel/Palestine conflict; particularly for a piece he wrote for the New York Review of Books in 2003:

The problem with Israel, in short, is not—as is sometimes suggested—that it is a European “enclave” in the Arab world; but rather that it arrived too late. It has imported a characteristically late-nineteenth-century separatist project into a world that has moved on, a world of individual rights, open frontiers, and international law. The very idea of a “Jewish state”—a state in which Jews and the Jewish religion have exclusive privileges from which non-Jewish citizens are forever excluded—is rooted in another time and place. Israel, in short, is an anachronism.

Judt’s historical/political analysis of Zionism, needless to say, ensured that he would become persona non grata in many Jewish circles. But whether or not you agreed with his conclusions, I believe he courageously raised crucial, if painful questions that we continue to confront today – and whose relevance, I predict, will become only more critical in the coming years.

One of his final editorials on the subject was this trenchant analysis of the recent Gaza flotilla tragedy. Click above to get a poignant glimpse of the man himself. May his memory be for a blessing.

Big News: Jews Find a Way to Talk Civilly About Israel!

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The latest issue of the Chicago Jewish News contains a wonderful cover story about my congregation and how we’ve been working to find a way to talk openly, honestly and civilly together about Israel. (The eye-grabbing headline: “HELL FREEZES OVER, CUBS WIN WORLD SERIES, JEWS FIND WAY TO DISAGREE AGREEABLY.”)

Here’s an excerpt:

“I have very strong feelings about Israel and I express them pretty openly. My activism is very public,” (Rabbi Rosen) says. “That is my own truth as a Jew and a rabbi, and it is very important to me to be true to my private personal conscience.”

But as the rabbi of JRC, “I also feel strongly that my job is to create the kind of environment where people, even those who don’t agree with me — and there are many — feel welcome to express those views and have those views heard. I respect the diversity of opinion at JRC,” he says. “We may be (perceived as) left-leaning, but on the subject of Israel, we are more diverse than people think.”

The largest group of congregants, he says, fall somewhere in the middle of a continuum, with some on both ends of the spectrum.

With these thoughts in mind, Rosen says, he and a number of congregants “decided together that rather than raise all this dust, it would be a great opportunity to use these emotions in some kind of constructive way.”

What else can I say other than that I’m enormously proud of my congregation?!

The Jewish Community Debates BDS

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As the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement gains momentum, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see at least two internal Jewish community conversations in which this painful, volatile issue with was debated with intelligence and mutual respect.

Last month, the New York-based org Jews Say No sponsored a debate/discussion featuring Israeli activist Yonatan Shapira, Birthright Unplugged director Hannah Mermelstein, Forward editor JJ Goldberg and J Street board member Kathleen Peratis.  It takes thirteen YouTube clips to see the entire program, but I highly recommend watching it from beginning to end. I found it informative, intelligent, passionate – and ultimately inspiring for the way a Jewish gathering could discuss such a potentially divisive subject so gracefully. (Click above for the first clip, then surf to the Jews Say No website to watch the next twelve.)

For its part, Tikkun Magazine held its own Jewish roundtable on BDS featuring Tikkun editor Rabbi Michael Lerner, Jewish Voice for Peace director Rebecca Vilkomerson; Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, founder of Shalom Shomer Network for Jewish Nonviolence, J Street president Jeremy Ben Ami; and Israeli Shministit (refuser) Maya Wind. The entire conversation can only be accessed by purchasing the July/August edition of Tikkun Magazine, but you can read key excerpts at the JVP website.

Gaza: Humanitarian Crisis or Collective Punishment?

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More than one Israeli politician has commented that there is “no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” Fair enough. During Ta’anit Tzedek’s monthly conference calls with Gazans we heard over and over that Gazan citizens do not want this crisis to be viewed as a humanitarian issue.

For instance, journalist Sami Abdel-Shafi told us in March that he believed casting Gaza as a humanitarian case is ultimately harmful to Gazans (80% of whom are dependent on foreign aid to survive). That is to say, the longer Gazans are kept dependent on humanitarian largess, the longer Gaza will successfully be kept isolated from the international community:

As long as the so-called “humanitarian” classification continues, I’m afraid we can stay like this for years. But the key is, why leave a population of more than 1.5 million people almost completely deprived of being educated and being developed and of the opportunity to be effective contributors to the regional economy, in addition to the economy of the world?

The answer (as I’m sure Abdel-Shafi well knows) is that this is precisely the point. The blockade of Gaza has never been about Israel’s security. From the very beginning, its aim has always been the isolation of Hamas through the collective punishment of Gazans.

Of course Israel has long tried to make the case that its blockade was initiated to keep weapons out of Gaza, but this justification has grown increasingly hollow over the years. (The surreal revelation that coriander was on the “forbidden list” is perhaps the most infamous example.)

I’ve noticed that even Israel has become less and less inclined to defend the blockade on security grounds.  This past week, it was reported that Israel’s defense establishment is urging the government not to cave in to growing international pressure and permit Palestinians to export goods from the Gaza Strip.  As one defense official put it, “If this happens, we will lose all of our leverage over Hamas.”  When I read this, I couldn’t help but think about Abdel-Shafi’s comments. What possible security benefit could Israel gain with this kind of economic warfare?

On a more heartening note, I just read in the Israeli press that “reliable sources” report that Obama will insist on a full lifting of the blockade when Netanyahu visits Washington in two weeks. According to the report, the President considers the continuing travel ban on Gazans to be (you guessed it) “collective punishment.”

Here’s hoping…

The Occupation: Attention Must Be Paid

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Photo from ActiveStills

Moshe Yaroni, writing in Zeek, offers an extremely eloquent answer to the question “Why is there so much attention on Israel’s human rights abuses when there are so many other worse offenders, including Iran and any number of Arab states?”

This is a tired argument. Few states enjoy such close cooperation in the diplomatic, industrial, political and economic arenas with the United States than Israel. None of these countries have the kinds of human rights violations allegations made against it that Israel does due to a forty three year long occupation, one that has only grown harsher and more complex in its severity since the peace process first began in the early 1990s.

Israel is welcomed into the family of Western democracies, by the US and Europe, and therefore enjoys many benefits that Arab states and Iran and other states do not. Israel’s recent admission to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is the latest example. These benefits should carry with it raised expectations—Israel is supposed to behave better than Iran or Saudi Arabia.

The occupation of the West Bank and the siege of Gaza are very serious issues. They are sources of immiseration and exploitation, with enormous global consequences. It is a fallacy to suggest that these issues, which involve American governmental and corporate support to a much greater degree than many other issues, cannot be protested simply because there are worse problems in other places.

Finally, few human rights issues around the world affect Americans to the extent that the Occupation does. Not only do they complicate American diplomatic and military efforts in the Middle East (even Dennis Ross, who wrote, with David Makovsky, the strongest argument against what they called “linkage” recently admitted this) but Israel is a close ally on many levels and is a focal point for the faiths of a majority of religious Americans. There is every reason for Americans to focus on this conflict.

Jewish Blogger Panel Video Now Online

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Last January I participated in a panel discussion on Jewish blogging sponsored by the Committee for a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine. I was honored to join two of my favorite bloggers in the world, Adam Horowitz of Mondoweiss and Cecilie Surasky of Muzzlewatch, for what turned out to be an extensive and incredibly thought-provoking conversation.

CJPIP has just uploaded a video of the program to their website. Click here to watch.

Alan Dershowitz and the Politics of Desperation

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From a piece I’ve just posted in the Huffington Post:

I’ve noticed an interesting pattern in Alan Dershowitz’s recent HuffPo columns.

On April 21 he smeared Jeremy Ben Ami and the pro-peace, pro-Israel lobbying group J Street, putting words in Ben Ami’s mouth and saying that J Street has “gone over to the dark side.”

On May 4 it was Rabbi Michael Lerner, a leading figure of the American Jewish left, and editor of Tikkun Magazine. Dershowitz accused Tikkun of “McCarthyism,” disregarded the recent attack on Lerner’s home, and characterized Lerner’s criticism of Israeli policy as “blood libel.”

In between the two, Dershowitz lambasted Judge Richard Goldstone, the highly regarded international jurist who prepared a UN report on Israel’s Gaza War. He labeled the report as “evil” and attacked me and a group of American rabbis for having the temerity to find merit in Goldstone’s work – we are “bigoted,” apparently, and “ignorant,” and are – yes – leveling a “blood libel” against the Israeli government. Most recently, Dershowitz hit a new low when he went on Israeli television and compared Judge Goldstone to Dr. Joseph Mengele.

When a Jew starts to accuse rabbis of blood libel; when an American shouts “McCarthyism” at an American magazine editor whose life is dedicated to dialogue; when a professional, highly experienced lawyer accuses a world-renown jurist of “evil,” equating him with the Nazi “Angel of Death,” and uses Star Wars terminology against a legitimate, widely-supported political lobbying group – well, it adds up, and it indicates one thing: Desperation.

Click here to read the entire article.