Rabbi Janet Marder

June 4, 2010

A Sea of Troubles

1948 – Jews around the world celebrate the founding of the State of Israel. At one such celebration, the Pulitzer-prize winning American poet Karl Shapiro reads aloud a poem called “Israel,” which contains these lines:

"When I see the name of Israel high in print

The fences crumble in my flesh; I sink

Deep in a Western chair and rest my soul.

I look the stranger clear to the blue depths

of his unclouded eye. I say my name

Aloud for the first time unconsciously."

Ensconced in his chair in the West, Karl Shapiro took vicarious joy in the birth of the Jewish State, an event he referred to in the poem as “the liberation of Palestine.” It represented, for him, the end of a 2000 year exile and the long nightmare of anti-Semitism. The word Israel made him proud and set him free. Jewish self-consciousness and shame were replaced by a new sense of confidence and inner peace. The ghetto fences crumbled in his mind. “I feel the weight of prisons in my skull / Falling away,” he wrote. “…. Speak no more of the yellow badge…speak only the name of the living land.”

It is 62 years since the birth of the Jewish State, Anti-Semitism has not been vanquished, and the sight of Israel’s name in print no longer brings a thrill to most American Jews. When Israel’s in the headlines nowadays, more often than not, the news is bad. And we respond, depending on our political proclivities, angrily or defensively, attacking, explaining or justifying the acts of the Israeli government.

This week’s events provoked strong reactions from all ends of the spectrum. The editorial staff of Tikkun, a Jewish magazine based in the Bay Area, wrote: “We unequivocally condemn Israel’s attack on the Gaza-aimed aid flotilla,” and referred to “the ethical bankruptcy of Israel’s attack and the Gaza blockade.” The distinguished Israeli novelist David Grossman had equally harsh words:

“No explanation can justify or whitewash the crime that was committed,” he wrote, “and no excuse can explain away the stupid actions of the government and the army.”

Israeli government officials have laid the blame for this sad affair on those who organized the Gaza aid flotilla, saying their motives were clearly not humanitarian but aimed against Israel. Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said that the organizers have connections to international terrorist organizations, including Hamas and Al Qaeda. He called the aid convoy a violent and provocative attempt to break the blockade of Gaza, saying that no sovereign nation would tolerate such a provocation. Gabi Ashkenazii, Chief of Staff of the IDF, said Israel’s soldiers were attacked by militants as they boarded the ship, and were forced to respond with live fire. Israel found weapons on board ship that were used against IDF troops.

Yesterday the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported early findings of an investigation by the Navy: during the operation several passengers beat three Israeli commandoes until they lost consciousness, then dragged them below deck in an effort to take them captive.

Others have argued that Israel was justified in intercepting the ship in international waters. Eric Posner, a professor at the University of Chicago law school, makes just such an argument in today’s Wall St. Journal, stating that longstanding international law permits states to enforce publicly announced blockades on the high seas, and that blockades are legal in times of war or armed conflict.

Jonathan Mark, Associate Editor of The Jewish Week, also cites international law in pointing out that the flotilla “was likely carrying contraband (weapons), was breaching a blockade no different than Kennedy's quarantine of Cuba in 1962, and the vessels were given prior warning and refused to stop. That puts Israel fully in the clear on every count,” he writes. “Israel offered to allow all the humanitarian materials on board to be sent into Gaza by land, after a search for contraband.”

This offer, as we know, was refused – casting serious doubt on whether the real purpose of the mission was to get aid to Gaza or to spark a violent confrontation with Israel. Clearly, this event must be viewed against the background of Turkey’s rebuff by the European Union and its Prime Minister’s subsequent attempts to draw closer to the Islamic world, particularly Iran.

The international community, including the UN Security Council, has been quick to condemn Israeli actions, even before learning all the facts and circumstances surrounding this event. What about Israelis themselves – how are they reacting to what happened? Yesterday I participated in a conference call with Israeli journalist Yossi Klein Halevi, who calls himself “a liberal Zionist” and Anat Hoffman, Director of the Reform Movement’s Israel Religious Action Center in Jerusalem. Anat reported that teenagers at her son’s school spent the day brainstorming creative ways that the flotilla could have been dismantled without resulting in casualties.

Many Israelis, she said, are reacting bitterly to what they see as a botched operation in which the navy walked into a trap, resulting in further embarrassment to the state. Anat reported: “I heard one person say, ‘We tried to stop one ship and instead we drowned our whole country.’ Another said, ‘We wanted to keep the ship from getting to Gaza – but it got to everywhere else in the world’.” The overwhelming majority of Israelis support their government’s right and duty to intercept the flotilla, but, as one journalist wrote, “It’s not enough to be right – you also have to be smart.”

Yossi Klein Halevi reminded us that the government of Israel has three primary objectives in pursuing the blockade of Gaza. The first is to keep weapons – especially Iranian-made long-range missiles -- out of the hands of Hamas, an organization explicitly dedicated to the destruction of Israel.

A second goal is to present the Palestinian people with a stark choice: to opt for the way of jihad, which results in punishment by Israel (that is, the siege of Gaza), or to pursue the path of negotiations, resulting in economic and other rewards; witness the current 7% economic growth rate in the West Bank and Israel’s removal of several hundred roadblocks there. A third, long-term objective of the blockade, which is admittedly problematic, is to bring down the Hamas regime entirely. Recent polls show a decline in Palestinian support for Hamas, although the flotilla incident has undoubtedly given them a boost.

Reminding us that this weekend marks the 43rd anniversary of the Six Day War and hence the 43rd anniversary of the occupation, Halevi had no reassurance to offer for the future. “There is not the slightest hope for a two-state solution so long as Hamas remains a dominant partner in Palestinian politics,” he said. Most Israelis today – at least 70% of them, he argues, are convinced that creating a Palestinian state is an absolute necessity for Israel, for a host of reasons, including the need to meet the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians and to preserve both the Jewish and the democratic character of the state of Israel.

But those same Israelis also fear that creating such a state prematurely, while Hamas remains a power, could be a suicidal move and an existential threat to the Jewish state. Imagine a Hamas takeover of the West Bank, only a few miles from Tel Aviv; imagine missile attacks raining down on Israel’s heartland, bringing devastation to hundreds of thousands of people, as attacks from Gaza terrorized the people of S’derot for many years.

So Israel must live with two contradictory realities – equally compelling and equally untenable. It is absolutely essential to end the occupation and create a Palestinian state; it is an intolerable risk to create a Palestinian state at the current time. Added to this dilemma is the conviction, shared by most Israelis, that no matter what they do, the world will be against them. This leads on occasion to defiance and arrogance; it leads also to a sense of isolation, exhaustion, hopelessness and despair.

And what about us, American Jews ensconced in our comfortable chairs in the West? “I worry that American Jews are becoming divested from Israel,” says Anat Hoffman. “Divestiture, you know, is not just an economic act; it’s also an emotional and spiritual act [of alienation].”

June 1, 2010. A letter to the editor, written by Judith Resner of Berkeley, California, appears in the New York Times. I quote it in its entirety: "When I was 13 years old, in 1948, I won awards for collecting donations for the new State of Israel. Well, I've had it with Israel, and I want my money back. "

What was going through Judith Resner’s mind, I wonder, when she wrote that line? “I’ve had it with Israel, and I want my money back.” When I was 13 years old I collected donations for you. You promised me orange groves and brand-new forests; you promised me a haven for the afflicted and a light to the nations. You promised heroism and nobility; you promised me humanitarian ideals and a place I could be proud of. This wasn’t what I bargained for. Not Jewish victims but Jews with guns. Power, and sometimes the misuse of power. A nation state that, like any other, pursues its own interests in the grimy, sometimes brutal realm of international politics. I’ve had it. I’m through.

Some Jews remain 13 year olds at heart, withdrawing their loyalty when Israel does not conform to their pristine notion of what a Jewish state should be. I wonder if Judith Resner, who apparently still resides in the United States of America, has withdrawn her loyalty or her financial support from this country – hardly a paragon of moral purity in all its dealings. I’d love to remind her of the words of George McGovern, a decorated World War II combat veteran, liberal politician and American patriot, who defined patriotism as “a love of one’s country deep enough to call her to a higher plane.”

That’s the sort of patriotism, of Zionism, that American Jews owe to Israel today. A willingness to relate as adults to a Jewish State that we neither idealize nor demonize. A deep love and pride in what is beautiful about Israel – and there is much that is beautiful – accompanied by the determination to help Israel reach its highest ideals whenever she falls short.

We owe some understanding and empathy for a country coping with profound threats to its existence that we American Jews do not face – a country confronted by implacable enemies, agonizing dilemmas and unpalatable choices. We owe some appreciation for the extraordinary miracle of a state built by refugees and survivors of pogroms and death camps; and some grasp of what Israel has achieved in the face of devastating challenges. Above all, we owe to Israel a commitment to remain engaged, even in the toughest times, because that is what love and faithfulness demand. They demand that we not divest ourselves from the only country in the world devoted to protecting and preserving the Jewish people.

Said Anat Hoffman: “I would say to world Jewry at this moment: We have done poorly in this [flotilla] operation….But this is not the time to let go of us. This is exactly the time to invest [yourself] in Israel and invest in the leadership you believe in.”

What’s asked of American Jews at this juncture is something very difficult. We would like to get a thrill whenever we see Israel in the headlines; we’d prefer that Israel always be a source of vicarious glory rather than discomfort and struggle. What’s asked of us instead is that we demonstrate the capacity for sustained and loving commitment to a worthy cause even when the rest of the world does not understand or support us; even when it causes us pain; even when there are no easy answers or quick solutions or immediate prospects for improvement.

Asked about his political views, John F. Kennedy once defined himself as “an idealist without illusions.” That is a good description of what all of us are called to be at this time. We dare not let go of our ideals or our dream of Israel making peace with the Palestinians. But we ought not harbor any illusions that a final and lasting peace agreement will come anytime soon. Sometimes, sadly, the desire for peace and the yearning for peace are not, by themselves, enough to create the reality of peace. So we are tested: can we persist in holding on to peace and holding onto Israel, without giving up on either, for as long as it will take?

The night falls and Jews around the world say the Hashkivenu prayer, whose words, literally translated, are a frank confrontation with the darkness that exists in this world: “Shield us: remove from us enemies and pestilence, sword, starvation and sorrow; remove the evil forces that surround us.”

The enemies of the Jewish people are real, and when we let ourselves think about them, we have reason to fear. But Israel stands against them: a flawed nation, far from perfect; but also a place that is beautiful and stirring and inspiring to the heart. I am proud to love her and stay with her, even when she faces a sea of troubles. I am blessed to live in the time of Israel, and to speak the name of the living land.