For Jews, Yom Kippur is over, the decree is decided, and our New Year has begun. In our religion, Rosh Hashanah, our Jewish New Year, comes with a bit of a cliff hanger. God has 10 more days until the end of Yom Kippur to decide, who shall live a great year, who shall perish, and everything in between. The decision has been made – I hope your year is a healthy, Peace-filled one. I can’t help but wonder what’s in store for Israel this year. Israel, the scrappy, young David as it faces down the Goliath of the World.

Recently, I attended a debate between two Jewish scholars – Daniel Gordis and Peter Beinart. It was filled with thought-provoking issues. I am writing this blog and my next, based on what I learned. The first will concentrate on the festering wound of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This is the issue that permeates most discussions of Israel – an issue Danny points out overshadows the miracle and fascinating kaleidoscope of Israeli society. There’s more to the U.S. than war, and the same can be said for Israel. In my blog next week, I’ll talk about other reflections on Israel and the Jewish people.
Danny wears his heart on his sleeve, and shows his love for Israel from every pore. He is a passionate Zionist and defender of Israel.
I believe Peter loves Israel, as well – but writes with a different style. He is a CNN news commentator. He’s trained to present the facts – of course, as he sees them.
Danny called Peter to task regarding his work saying that within it, you would find “a lot of very smart stuff, but you won’t find a love statement.” Ouch. I believe Peter chose his life’s work, exactly because of his love for Israel.
I think part of why Danny feels this way is the difference between being an Israeli Jew, and a Jew who lives outside Israel. As a Jew, living outside Israel, I care deeply for what happens. Our support of Israel and the Law of Return (the law that says all Jews have the right to live in Israel)1 adds to the validity that our opinion matters.
However, I state my thoughts with a serious caveat. I don’t have the same skin in the game. Danny and his family face the potential for bombings, car rammings and stabbings, daily. He has sent kids off to war and expects he will have to do the same with his grandkids – I couldn’t do that. I believe I understand why he would recoil at times against criticisms of Israel.
I also hurt, both when I hear what Israel is doing, and when they are criticized for it. Personally, I believe Peters’ observations help. It reminds me of the friend who is willing to tell you what you need to know – not necessarily, what is easy to hear. We all know the rest of the world is more than willing to viciously scream the “Emperor has no clothes!”
It’s not only Peter with these grave concerns. Ehud Olmert, and Ehud Barak both former Prime Ministers of Israel, said Israel is facing the danger of becoming an Apartheid state.2 For a moment, I thought I was at a B.D.S. (Boycott, Divest, Sanction Israel) rally : (
As I listened to their heart-wrenching analysis of the status of Israel – I couldn’t help but wonder if Israel is bi-polar. Is bypassing the Green Line, strangling Israel beyond the point of no return?
What do I mean by asking – Is Israel bipolar? The definition of bipolar is “having or marked by two mutually repellent forces or diametrically opposed natures or views.” This is Israel’s tragic dance with democracy. On the one hand, within the original borders established in 1948, Israel is seen as a vibrant, thriving, liberal democracy. Against all odds – the only democracy in the Middle East.
Israel, since its inception, perceived the equality of women with men. Its citizens both Jewish Israelis and all others living within these borders – including Palestinian Israelis, have the right to vote. There are over 1 ½ million people of Arab descent, almost 21% of the population in Israel.3 There are 17 Israeli Arab current members of the Knesset4 (Israel’s parliament), and Salim Joubran, is an Arab Israeli who sits on Israel’s Supreme Court.
The Israeli government within the original borders of Israel treat their Arab citizens far more fair and humane, than their own Palestinian leaders in the West Bank. There’s a lot that other nations can learn from this small, inspiring Israeli nation.
And it’s also true, as Peter pointed out, Israel can’t claim the same just treatment in the occupied territories. It’s shocking to realize this blight has been going on for nearly 50 years. I doubt either side expected that would be true and it seems the paths they are choosing to reach resolution, get uglier with each passing month.
Peter explained, “Palestinians are living essentially under military law, while the Jewish settlers living within these areas, are living under Israeli civil law. The Jews have free movement, they have the right to vote. The Palestinians don’t have the right to vote – they are not citizens [of Israel].”
What are the Palestinian leaders of these areas doing? Why has this taken this long to resolve? After, thousands of years of the Jewish people trying to return to Israel, and 68 years as a state, why do Palestinians still deny Israel’s right to exist? It’s complicated : (
Peter had taken students to Hebron, a seething cauldron of everything wrong on both sides of the occupied territories. Danny was understandably frustrated. He questioned why Peter hadn’t taken the students to the equally egregious Palestinian squares and schools celebrating what they call martyrs. Martyrs is the term used honoring the terrorists who gave up their lives to kill or injure Jews.
As if that’s not unbelievable enough, the martyr is paid while in jail and/or their family is paid what they have the nerve to call a salary – the more Jews killed the higher the salary goes. You might think this is an unbelievable horror story that I’m writing for Halloween – but it’s not, it’s true! How does the Palestinian leadership justify making their own childrens’ lives worth more monetarily, dead than alive? Where is the morality in making kids’ lives an expendable currency? Is that a conversation that Palestinian parents have with their kids?
A quote from their “moderate” leader as noted by the Gatestone Institute, “We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every martyr will reach Paradise and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah.”5
– Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian leader.
Add to that the fact money for these salaries comes from international aid to the PA/PLO, well it’s unfathomable. The PLO is very open about the payments, but not whose funds are being used for this purpose. These accusations of misappropriation of funds have existed for years. As reported in The Times of Israel recently, the UK finally froze $32 million in Palestinian aid (1/3 of UK’s Palestinian aid package) as it investigates if their money was funneled to prisoners and their families.6
Germany also is beginning to look closer at how their Palestinian aid is spent. MP Volker Beck, a member of the German Green Party, is pushing the German government beyond their policy of not wanting to know. In September he said, “Berlin knows very well how the system that supports terrorists and their families works.”7
Yigal Carmon, the president of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), told the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs in July.8 When will the U.S. look at the facts as well?
Add the Palestinian leadership building tunnels under schools and hospitals – using their own people as protective shields – these policies are indefensible.
It’s a bad situation ready to explode, and has, with each missile and terrorist bombing.
Danny points out, the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank mistreats their own citizens. “There’s a reason that Palestinians who are gay or lesbian sneak across the border to go to Tel Aviv and don’t “come out” on the West Bank. There is a reason that people are not protesting on the West Bank even though Abbas is on his 11th year, of a 4-year term. You think people don’t know that? You think they don’t care? You think they don’t want to vote? You don’t think they noticed this week that Palestinians cancelled elections once again? You don’t think that Hamas amazingly enough understood that they were even about to lose even on the Gaza strip probably? That’s where democracy is dead and has never had a whiff of fresh air.”
Describing the reality of rules imposed by the Israeli military in Hebron, Peter explained, “It is illegal for 10 people to congregate for political purposes even in someone’s home.” He continued, “On Shabbat, Palestinians are not allowed to walk down the street [in certain areas].” On his visit with the students, and their Palestinian hosts, they were shut down by angry Israeli settlers who had summoned the soldiers. The military declared the area a “closed military zone.”
Now surely, no one believes this is all Israel’s fault. The intransigence of the Palestinians toward the basic right of Israel to exist as well as their Palestinian leadership holds a significant blame for the lack of forward movement. Danny explained, “There is actually a war of survival still going on.” He warned, “Between 2015 and 2016 from 300 public opinion polls taken by reputable Palestinian organizations, showed that 80% of Palestinians don’t believe that the Jews have a right to any land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea – up from 65%, twenty years ago. That’s disturbing. It’s frighteningly moving in the wrong direction.”
Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies were also a cause for grave concern. The perception of whether Netanyahu supports a 2-state solution or not bounced around like a ping pong ball between them – similar to Netanyahu’s comments in the press. One moment Netanyahu acknowledging a two-state solution makes sense, and then not. Netanyahu is trapped between the solution that makes the most sense and his political coalitions’ disdain for it.
Danny and Peter agreed a 2-state solution was the only workable answer. Peter explained Netanyahu’s policies of increasing settlements requiring the permanent protection of settlers ad infinitum, and continued military law in the West Bank, helped give credibility to the claims of the B.D.S. movement. Netanyahu was destroying the possibility of a 2-state solution. By destroying the green line, he was proving their case for calling Israel an apartheid state – not only for the West Bank, but for all of Israel. Sadly, neither man believed Peace would be possible in our lifetimes.
Peter said, “I’m not an optimist about the situation in Israel today and I fear the consequences of being a generation which was alive during the collapse of the Israeli democracy” – comments to me more frightening than any Halloween story I’d heard!
Omar Barghouti, one of the B.D.S.’s most esteemed leaders, said in a 2014 speech at Columbia University, that he was grateful to Netanyahu. “We’ve got to congratulate Benjamin Netanyahu. Without him, we could not have reached this far at this time. It could have taken much, much longer, but with the help of the Israeli government, our biggest closet supporters in the world, we’re going much faster.”9
Comparing moves for Peace to a chess board, both agreed a solution would not be coming soon. Danny lamented although the settlements weren’t tenable for the long-term, giving them up without them being used as a negotiating chip at this time would be a wrong move.
Continuing his Chess analogy, Peter said, “Don’t hand the Palestinians your King. When you continue to pay for more Jews to move into the West Bank, potentially closing the option of a Palestinian state with a 2-state solution, you are faced with 2, 1-state options. One which is a Jewish state, which is not really a democracy with a large territory, and one that is not a democracy at all. You are handing over the king to the other side.”
Oey, the people in this land seem to be at the mercy of intractable governing with their own agendas. Of course, there definitely are supporters of these governments – but what about those trapped within the situation? Countries and governments move slowly. As Danny pointed out, “Look at African Americans in this country and you will hear that it doesn’t feel like American democracy is in great shape. But that’s not to say that America is collapsing at the seams or that we are about to turn a blind eye to the mirror either. Great projects are often beset by great challenges. And great projects it seems to me deserve boundless loyalty and endless love.”
When you look at our own backyard between our history and the absurdity of our current political elections, as my mom would say, “People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
So that’s a taste of their discussion. I found it amazing and I was grateful to them for their love of Israel, their life’s work of support and in taking the time to share their well-studied analysis.
As far as Peace, I pray that they are not right. I’m hoping a shift in human thought will break open this stalemate. Maybe Peace will not come from governments, but from the people living lives of quiet desperation. There are people working on Peace at the grassroots level. Every day I ask myself, what can I do to put more Peace into the world – whether writing my book, or what I hope is an informative article, or a kind thought. I believe any step forward helps. Stay tuned for Part II. As always, I invite you to Join Me on My Journey…
Footnotes:
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Return
2 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/28/1295162/-Kerry-echoes-Barak-and-Olmert-warns-Israel-risks-becoming-an-apartheid-state
3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel
4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_members_of_the_Knesset
5 https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9108/palestinians-proud-killed-jews
6 http://www.timesofisrael.com/uk-freezes-30m-in-aid-to-palestinians-over-payments-to-terrorists/
7 http://www.timesofisrael.com/uk-freezes-30m-in-aid-to-palestinians-over-payments-to-terrorists/
8 https://www.algemeiner.com/2016/09/06/palestinian-payments-to-terrorists-are-in-the-news-but-not-at-the-bbc/
9 http://mondoweiss.net/2014/12/netanyahu-barghouti-celebratory/