http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/secret/article.asp?mador=5&datee=06/26/01&id=122359
Caught in a moral dilemma
By Marc H. Ellis
Ha'aretz & The Jordan Times
With Israeli helicopter gunships firing into cities and towns in the
West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and Tzachi Hanegbi, an Israeli cabinet
minister in Ariel Sharon's new government, speculating about another
war in the Middle East, American Jews are caught in a dilemma.
Most American Jews know little about the realities of the Middle East
except as communicated by Jewish leadership and media stereotypes. For
American Jews, the map of Israel as it is drawn today, with its
expanding borders and sophisticated military control of Jerusalem, the
West Bank and Gaza, is plastered with pious slogans of unity and
defense. Israel is experienced by Palestinians as an unjust power bent
on continuing, even escalating, aggression. For American Jews, Israel
is under siege by a relentless terrorism that threatens to bring a
second Holocaust to Jews in Israel. If war comes, it will be one of
defense.
The dilemma faced by Jews is found here. For over a century in Europe
and America, Jews have taken pride in our ethical tradition. We have
been leaders in social justice movements, from the struggle for civil
rights to feminism, and in the broader international arena of human
rights.
For most American Jews, Jewish identity is defined around the themes
of human progress and justice. If there is such a thing as Jewish
messianism in the contemporary world, it is found here, in the realm
of human affairs, in broadening inclusion and struggling for the good.
Even after the Holocaust, and perhaps because of it, this impulse has
remained strong. If the ultimate questions about God are unanswerable
after Auschwitz, and the Jewish covenantal framework in doubt, then
recommitting to the human project is even more central. What is
fascinating about the Jewish community after the Holocaust is the
refusal to despair about the human condition when despair would be
perfectly reasonable.
And more. The refusal to despair has been taken up by Jewish thinkers
around the world in a tradition of critical thought that rivals and
perhaps surpasses any other community. American Jews have participated
in this tradition as evidenced by our numbers in universities,
think-tanks and advisory posts in government and industry. If
anything, and perhaps paradoxically, the Holocaust has energized
Jewish life and thought, bringing Jewish contributions in the broader
society to a new level.
This is why helicopter gunships firing into Palestinian population
centers is so disconcerting and so difficult to come to grips with.
What kind of search for justice or critical thinking would allow this
reign of terror? How can such an articulate community shout pious
slogans and turn a blind eye to the reality of a power that may,
especially with Israel's nuclear arsenal, have no limits?
The situation is complicated, to be sure. But wasn't the 1960s
struggle for civil rights complicated? Apartheid in South Africa was
complex and its dismantling far from perfect. Is the feminist movement
without complication? International human rights standards are hotly
contested in the political and cultural arenas. Did American Jews turn
a blind eye to these struggles because of these complexities?
Do American Jews refuse to pursue a social justice agenda today
because of conflicting interpretations of rights and responsibilities?
As unwanted sojourners in Europe who, in the 1930s and '40s, were
segregated, despised and murdered in the millions, what option did
Jews have but to form a state in the Middle East?
Palestinians were the victims of this European syllogism, a
defenseless people who became refugees in the formation of Israel. A
triumph for Jews. A disaster for Palestinians.
But the emergency of the Holocaust years has long since disappeared.
Israel has expanded its borders and its appetite for power, like any
nation-state, has long since replaced its ethical claim for a place in
the sun.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian catastrophe has deepened with the loss of
land and swelling refugee populations. Offers of peace from Israel are
trumpeted as a basis for security and justice, but the details are
less sanguine. Ariel Sharon's map of a final settlement with the
Palestinians resembles too closely the segregated European ghettos
that Jews lived in during much of European history, and whose renewal
in the 20th century forecast doom.
There are Jews who, remembering our own suffering, speak boldly
against the use of Israeli power to surround, enclose and humiliate
the Palestinian people. These Jews of conscience reside in Israel and
America, and though small in number, they remain committed to the
Jewish tradition in its ethical dimension. Jews of conscience
recognize historic Jewish suffering and contemporary Palestinian
suffering as a call to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land
and the cycle of violence that once again envelops the region.
American Jewish leadership calls for unity. It is really a call for
silence. Jews of conscience here and in Israel call for critical
thought and compassion.
Who will win this other war, the civil war over the definition of what
it means to be Jewish? Will expansion and militarism win the day? Will
the ethical be reasserted, calling Israeli power to account before it
is too late? Much depends on mainstream Jewish leadership found in
Jewish organizations, synagogues, and among Jewish academics and
intellectuals. Unfortunately, where much is expected and needed,
little is forthcoming. In the main, Jewish leaders have been silent
and even aggressively attempt to silence and discipline Jews who speak
out on this issue. Jewish leadership has ignored the map of Israel as
it has come to be, perhaps out of ignorance, perhaps fearful for their
own position.
The time is now to overcome this ignorance and fear. We ask where
others were when we were suffering. Today an accusing finger is
pointed at us as Jews. How will we respond? Helicopter gunships are
now part of the landscape of Jewish life. What we do with them is
defining us as a people.
As sure as the rockets fired from the air destroy, maim and murder
property and life, they do likewise to the ethical tradition Jews have
cultivated and suffered for. Jews of conscience hold open the
possibility of averting the final catastrophe that threatens both
peoples with an end unworthy of either.
The article was distributed by Search for Common Ground, a U.S. NGO
involved in seeking solution to regional crises. The group is
supported by the United Nations and Unesco.
