DIALOG.......................
Dear Reader,
Yesterday, in response to a letter from a BYlines reader (see below), I delivered a sermon in which I attempted to address some of the most important issues that have been raised with me about Israel's response to terrorism over the last few weeks. Clearly, I could have said much more and, hopefully, on other occasions will. But at least this is a start. Too many of us have allowed CNN to shape our opinions about Israel's actions. My sermon was an attempt to set the record straight, as honestly as I know how.
It is with that in mind that I am taking the step, for the first time, in sharing a sermon via email with our BYlines readership.
When you finish reading the sermon, I invite you to go to a special discussion section that has been set up on our website. By going to www.bethyeshurun.org/isra2002_frm.htm, you can comment on the sermon (pro and con), and leave other comments or questions you might have. I will do my best to respond, and I suspect other participants will join in as well.
Rabbi Rosen
----------------------------------------------------------------
ISRAEL - A CALL TO ACTION
By Rabbi David Rosen
Delivered April 13, 2002
Congregation Beth Yeshurun, Houston, Texas
One of the beautiful things about Shabbat is that I do not turn on my
computer, and that means I cannot read my email. I love reading most of what
is sent me, but lately I have been receiving too many letters that are
filled with pain and anger-not at the Palestinians or Yassar Arafat, but at
Israel, Ariel Sharon, even me.
This morning I would like to share with you one such letter, beautifully
written and articulate, from a reader of my weekly email newsletter BYlines.
The letter came this past week, and the letter-writer raises important
issues that I feel need to be answered.
So let me read you this letter, which I have only slightly edited to remove
personal references and other somewhat marginal comments on other things:
-------------------------------------------
Rabbi Rosen-
I am a supporter of Israel and someone who has always been proud to be a
Jew. I condemn the terrorist attacks against Israel and have no doubt that
Yassar Arafat is behind most of it.
But if we Jews want the world to condemn terrorism against us, then the only
way we can have a credible voice is to acknowledge Israeli terrorism against
Palestinians.
I was always brought up to believe that we Jews were to live by the Golden
Rule. But where is that Golden Rule now in the way Israelis are treating
Palestinian men, women and children? Whenever I watch the television, all I
see are people humiliated and by whom-Jews! Palestinians are under a barrage
of enormous power. Most Palestinians aren't terrorists, and yet they are the
ones whose homes are being bulldozed by Israeli soldiers. Pregnant women who
need to get to a hospital are stopped by soldiers and not allowed to pass.
This is heartless, and when I see these stories on the TV, I am deeply
ashamed.
What is so disturbing is that so much of this could have been avoided had
Israel discontinued its settlements policy years ago. How would we feel if
our land was occupied? What nation on earth would tolerate having another
nation claiming ownership of its land? How can Palestinians today feel any
pride or self-respect if they cannot even control their own borders, and if
there are settlers building communities and thumbing their nose at their
Palestinian neighbors? I'm sorry to say that if I were a Palestinian, I'm
not sure I would feel any different than they do.
What upsets me most is the silence of rabbis and other Jewish leaders to the
injustices against the Palestinians. I'm all in favor of denouncing
terrorism against Israeli civilians, but terror works both ways. Arafat is
far from perfect, but Sharon is not much better. How come we never hear that
from our rabbis? That brutalizing other people is against everything we have
been taught as Jews! Our President has demanded that Sharon stop his
assault! Instead, he has thumbed his nose at our country. Who is going to
condemn this insanity?!
-------------------
This is most of the letter that I received, and today I want to answer some
of the concerns she raised.
It seems to me that three issues need discussing here: Israel's settlements
policy, Israel's treatment of Palestinians, and Mr. Sharon's rebuff of
President Bush.
Let's take Israel's settlements policy first. And for that, we need to go
all the way back to 1948, to the very year when the United Nations divided
Palestine into a Jewish state and a Palestinian one.
The Jewish State was proclaimed right away. The Palestinian state, however,
was stillborn. Immediately all of the Arab nations rejected any compromise
over the partitioning of Palestine, and Jordanian forces moved in and
occupied the West Bank.
Jordan remained the military occupier of the West Bank from 1948 to 1967. In
1951 Jordan even tried to annex the West Bank, but no Arab nation recognized
the annexation.
During its occupation of the West Bank, Jordan both allowed and encouraged
terrorist assaults into Israel by Palestinian marauders. But these
incursions were disorganized and slipshod. What was needed was a more
coordinated offensive against Israel, a need filled by a new and stronger
entity called the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO for short).
Founded in 1964, while the West Bank was in Jordanian hands, its mission was
not the establishment of a Palestinian state on the West Bank but the
elimination and destruction of the Jewish state.
In 1966, a fellow named Yassar Arafat took control of the PLO and his method
was to create a more potent assault against Israel.
As Martin Peretz has written: "From the beginning, Arafat's tactics of
terror were audacious: blowing up airplanes in midair; taking children
hostage in schoolhouses; skyjackings; hijacking of buses; shootouts and
bombings in crowded airports, theaters, terminals, markets, beaches,
restaurants, wedding halls. His most daring moment was during the 1972
Munich Olympics, in which eleven Israeli athletes lost their lives."
In 1967, Egypt, Syria and Jordan decided to attack Israel in what Egypt's
President Nasser was described as the "war to end all wars" against Israel.
Fortunately for Israel, Egypt and Syria were rebuffed (and, in turn, lost
the Sinai and the Golan Heights). Jordan's forces were pushed out of the
West Bank entirely, which left Israel in control of nearly a million
Palestinians.
The West Bank remained, however, a breeding ground for terrorism. Israel's
settlement policy was established to do two things: First, to create
outposts that would serve as a front line against terrorism; and second, to
create "facts on the ground" that Israel could one day use to redefine its
pre-1967 border, which was by any measure completely indefensible.
Who would want to live in isolated settlements on barren West Bank land? Two
kinds of Jews: Those who were deeply nationalistic, and those who were
passionately religious.
Over time, other Israelis began moving into these settlements, which
eventually became villages and towns with new and affordable housing and
highways which connected them to Tel Aviv and Netanya and elsewhere. The
majority of settlements today are in fairly close proximity to Israeli
population centers, and the Jews who live in these areas today use them
primarily as bedroom communities.
So how did these territories become "occupied Palestinian land," and how did
Israel become "occupiers"?
The answer is: They didn't.
As the columnist George Will correctly noted earlier this week:
"The occupied territory on the West Bank is an unallocated portion of the
Palestine Mandate, to be allocated by negotiations. Jordan was the military
occupier of the West Bank from 1948 to 1967. Israel took the West Bank when
repelling aggression from there in 1967. Under settled international
practice, Israel is entitled to hold the land until made secure by
negotiated arrangements."
Every survey shows that the overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews are ready
and willing to relinquish and/or relocate West Bank settlers. In Prime
Minister Barak's offer to Mr. Arafat 18 months ago, he drew a line that
would have given Arafat 97% of the West Bank and compensated the
Palestinians for the other three percent by giving them adjacent Israeli
land.
Indeed, of the several objections Arafat voiced against the Camp David
accords negotiated in 2000 with President Clinton and Prime Minister Barak,
the resolution of the settlements issue was not among them.
Palestinians today claim that the settlers need to be removed because they
"terrorize" Palestinians. But as usual, Palestinians have put the cart
before the horse: Settlers have gone on the offensive only after repeated
assaults by Palestinians, who have been shooting at Israeli cars and buses
and terrorizing the settlements themselves.
Palestinians argue today that they have been oppressed by a brutal
occupation.
I do not doubt that it is humiliating having to endure endless roadblocks
and auto inspections. I am positive I would be frustrated and angry if the
ambulance I was in was delayed so that it could be exhaustively examined.
But please, some context here!
Again and again, the media has challenged Israel's need to stop and examine
ambulances and has ridiculed Israel's charge that ambulances have been used
to export bombs and other materiel. Instead, CNN and others have described
Israel's search of ambulances as heavy-handed and deeply humiliating.
And yet, it was not the Jerusalem Post but USA Today that reported and
documented numerous examples of ambulances found carrying explosives. And
just today, a member of Beth Yeshurun sent me a video clip from CNN.com
itself that showed an ambulance that was allegedly carrying a wounded child.
Israeli soldiers became suspicious and told everyone to leave the ambulance
at once; the wounded child suddenly wasn't very wounded and he ran off in
fear.
A robot was dispatched to the ambulance to pull up the cot on which the
child had been lying, revealing a belt laced with explosives, clearly on its
way to be dispatched for some deadly task. The Israel Government estimates
that one out of six ambulances stopped have been found to carry explosives,
including suicide belts.
When did this "brutal occupation" about which we continually hear begin?
Eighteen months ago in the aftermath of a storm of suicide bombers inside
Israel!
When I was in Israel in the summer of 2000, nearly 70 percent of the West
Bank was already in Palestinian hands. To go through the West Bank, we had
to pass through Palestinian security checkpoints, which we did without
incident. I asked our tour guide if he felt the need to carry a gun when
taking buses like ours through the West Bank. "No," he assured me, "we have
a peaceful relationship with the Palestinian security people."
Only 18 months ago, thousands of Palestinians were coming into and out of
Israel on their way to and from work each day. Israel was not only not
occupying the West Bank; it was trying to pull out from it as quickly as
possible as part of the Oslo Accords.
But when the borders became porous and the Palestinian security forces
turned a blind eye to terrorists coming and going, and when Israel submitted
lists of terrorists to Mr. Arafat and unsuccessfully asked him to arrest
these people, Israel had to move in and shut the borders down. And yes, this
has meant no one is going to get into Israel or pass through Israeli
territory without rigorous and thorough scrutiny.
Yes, this has caused grievous hardship-but let's understand why. And let's
understand too that it was not and is not Israel's desire to occupy
Palestinian lands or to cause suffering to Palestinians.
Israel has no quarrel with most Palestinian men, women and children.
Unfortunately, Israel has a life-and-death quarrel with men and now women
who strap bombs to themselves, walk into markets in Jerusalem, Netanya and
Haifa and blow themselves up.
Israel has a life-and-death quarrel with political leaders who not only
sanction such terror but finance and encourage it. And since Israel is not
fighting a definable army, but terrorist cells that operate from within
civilian populations, it is inescapable and unavoidable that innocent
Palestinian lives will be lost.
And what do we think has happened in Afghanistan, where the full wrath of
the United States Army and Air Force has been directed against not only
Al-Qaida but also the Taliban? Can we even begin to estimate not the
hundreds but thousands of simple Afghanis who have been killed or injured.
And even more so because the American tactic has been to preserve American
lives at all costs by dropping bombs and firing missiles at Taliban and
Al-Qaida locations. Israel, on the other hand, has never dropped a bomb or
fired a missile at civilian targets.
To the contrary, listen to what General Yoram Yair said on Israeli TV in the
aftermath of the dead Israel soldiers who were killed in a booby-trap in
Jenin earlier this week:
"Any other country in this type of closed area of war like in Jenin, would
take its F 16s and bomb the 100meter x 100 meter area until it is totally
flattened and no terrorist would be alive. Israel, in trying to not injure
or harm innocent women and children in these Jenin terrorist camps, had to
use foot soldiers, go door to door, and have the bombs, the suicide bombers,
the land mines, explode and injure and kill our soldiers."
Yes, I am pained and deeply, deeply saddened by the loss of innocent
Palestinian lives. Judaism does teach a reverence for human life, and on
Passover we are commanded to diminish our cups of wine when we recite the
plagues and recall the suffering of our foes.
But Israel is in a war! It is a war that must be fought not because Israel
wants to, but because Israel sees no alternative.
Many in the media have tried to make this Sharon's war. But this is a war
that has been endorsed, with great reluctance and sorrow, across almost the
entire Israeli political spectrum. Those in the Israeli left-doves like me
who have yearned for a peaceful solution not for years but for decades-have
been left grappling to find alternatives.
President Bush and Collin Powell are of course right: The Israelis and
Palestinians must find a way to talk.
The difficulty is that Israel has gone down that road before, only 18 months
ago. And when Mr. Arafat did not get what he wanted, he walked out and began
the Intifada, the uprising which has caused nearly 2,000 Israeli and
Palestinian deaths and thousands more injured.
Nothing Mr. Arafat has said in recent months suggests he has changed his
thinking on what he wants:
He remains insistent that Israel return to her 1967 borders, which were
indefensible then and remain so now. Arafat knows that.
He remains insistent that Israel take back-not give financial reparation but
to physically take back-every Palestinian refugee and his or her
descendants, anywhere between two and five million people, a tactic that
would destroy Israel as a democratic and Jewish state. Arafat knows that.
He remains insistent that Israel give back East Jerusalem and the Old City,
including our most sacred Jewish site, the Western Wall, basically severing
Israel's connection with Ancient Jerusalem. This would be a gut-wrenching
concession which even Israeli liberals cannot contemplate. Arafat knows
that.
To my letter writer I say: We are a people of peace, we are a people that
abhors war and does not wish to harm our neighbors. But our Torah also
teaches that when someone comes to kill you, you do not have to lie down and
wait. Pikuah nefesh means we must do everything we can to save another
person's life, but it also means we have the obligation and responsibility
to save our own.
And the people of Israel have been under assault for more than a
year-and-a-half, and for half-a-century before that. To argue that Israel
does not have the right to defend itself and its people is illogical.
"This nation will do what it takes to defend that which it holds dear."
These words spoken last Monday could have come from Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon. They didn't. They came from President Bush, speaking in
Tennessee about America's war against terrorism.
When it comes to attacks on the United States, President Bush reiterated his
commitment to "find the enemy wherever they may hide" and "defend freedom,
no matter what the costs."
The president's words make it all the more puzzling why he now insists that
Israel cannot do the same to defend herself.
Yet, he tells the Israelis that they cannot hunt down terrorists in the West
Bank. Mr. Sharon cannot understand the President's reasoning and neither can
the overwhelming majority of Israelis.
So far, the Israeli Defense Forces have captured tons of weapons in the West
Bank and have intercepted five car bombs -- that is five more suicide
missions that have been thwarted and dozens of lives saved. And the IDF has
arrested some 500 Palestinians wanted for attacks on Israelis.
We should be applauding the Israelis, not demanding they retreat before they
have accomplished their objectives.
My friends, we Jews are a peace-loving people. The Government of Israel has
said that it supports a Palestinian State; it supports a retrenchment and
redistribution of the settlements; it supports a limited return of some
refugees and generous financial compensation for all others.
Rather than sitting in front of CNN and wringing our hands, it's time for us
to act-to act with boldness, with passion, with energy.
First, we need to arm ourselves with the facts.
That's why we have created a special section on our Beth Yeshurun website
that is filled with invaluable information:
What we can do to help Israel-now!
Where can we turn for news reports from Israel that are fair and balanced?
What are some books we can read to better understand the complex issues at
play
What have some of America's leading journalists, commentators and political
analysts said about the current Middle Eastern struggle?
What have your rabbis at Beth Yeshurun been writing and saying about recent
events?
Our web address is www.bethyeshurun.org; if you forget it, it's on the
inside of this week's Shavuon, and on the front page of each issue of the
Message.
Go to these pages; read them; reflect; and then challenge the criticisms you
hear from co-workers and neighbors who really don't understand what is
happening but who have been affected, as we have all been, by the painful
images broadcast non-stop on CNN and the other networks.
Second, our Israeli friends here in Houston will be gathering this Sunday
afternoon at 3:00 for a peaceful demonstration at the corner of Westheimer
and S. Post Oak. Let's stand there with them! There won't be any speeches,
just an opportunity to let the thousands of cars driving through the
Galleria this Sunday see that there are people who support Israel. Our
Israeli friends promise plenty of signs and banners for everyone to carry.
And finally, this coming Wednesday evening, our community as a whole will be
celebrating Yom HaAtzma'ut, Israel Independence Day, at the Jewish Community
Center. Yes, our hearts have been numbed by all of the sadness and pain and
suffering of the last 18 months. But "Nagilah v'nishm'chah vo," we will
"rejoice and be glad" that we have an Israel, and that she has lived to 54,
despite nearly nonstop assaults upon her integrity and security.
At 6 P.M. this Wednesday, in the playing fields behind the JCC, we will
gather for a rally in support of Israel. I will be there, Cantor Propis will
be there, and so will be thousands and thousands of Jews and Christians-and
you, I pray, and your families, your children, your neighbors and friends.
Together let us fill the JCC field to overflowing. Let us give Channel 2 and
11 and 13 and 39 and the Chronicle an overwhelming turnout that will show
our local media how Houston feels about Israel!
My correspondent began her letter to me with "I am a supporter of Israel and
someone who has always been proud to be a Jew," and to her I say it is time
to act with pride and with determination on behalf of her people, our
people.
Together, let us help the children of Israel live!
Together, let us help the mothers and fathers of Israel live!
Together, let us help the grandmothers and the grandfathers of Israel live!
AM YISRAEL CHAI!
TOGETHER, LET US HELP THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL LIVE!
Amen!
_______________________________
Rabbi David Rosen
Congregation Beth Yeshurun
4525 Beechnut Blvd.
Houston, Texas 77096
[email protected]
http://www.bethyeshurun.org
Phone 713-666-1881
Fax 713-666-7767