JustASC

A wildly, although probably inadvertently, misleading headline from Reuters:

Venezuela Catholic mission hit after Jewish attack

Jews are attacking the Vatican? Good God! The story itself is confusing:

Tear gas canisters were lobbed into the Vatican’s diplomatic compound in Caracas on Wednesday, the head of the mission said, days after armed men vandalized a synagogue in the capital.

A quick read suggests that the attack on the Vatican facility was retaliation for the attack on the synagogue. But then you realize that if there is a link (and it’s not clear there is), it’s that both attacks may have come from the same perpetrators:  The Vatican blames hard-line supporters of  Chavez “who say the Roman Catholic Church meddles in the country’s politics.”

My head hurts.

My word of the week:

eqvellocal, adj.  (ee-QVELL-uh-cull) Describes that uncertain feeling when you hear a piece of good Jewish news that’s immediately followed by some not-so-good news. Example: “Phyllis had eqvellocal emotions when she found out her son-in-law finally got a job — as a human guinea pig.”

Real life eqvellocation, from yesterday’s New York Times wedding announcements:

Lisa Loeb, the singer and songwriter, and Roey Hershkovitz, the music coordinator on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” were married Saturday evening at Brasserie 8 ½, a restaurant in New York. 

Mazel tov! So far, so good.

Rabbi Andy Bachman officiated.

Even better — they should live and be well! But wait a sec:

Ms. Loeb considers herself to be a “vegequarian” – which she defines as a vegetarian who eats fish, and, in her case, sometimes a bit of bacon…

Gevalt! I’m feeling eqvellocal about Ms. Loeb! What’s next?

But the next spring, both agreed that their timing was off. “Over a sad shrimp quesadilla, we realized that we really needed to break up,” Ms. Loeb said. “We were in different places in our lives.”

Oy, I have to sit down.

Here’s a wonderfully thoughtful and thought-provoking response to my column last week:

Andrew Silow-Carroll asks if we, as a community and as supporters of Israel, can tolerate uncertainty regarding Israeli actions during the recent Gaza conflict. This is a difficult but important question.

My response is that if we are devoted to Israel, and if we harbor doubts about its self-defense methods, then we need to take responsibility for our doubts and ask ourselves-what should Israel have done instead?

Israel faces a horrible conundrum. It is not simply combating Hamas in Gaza. It is simultaneously facing a rearmed Hezbollah to the North, a corrupt and collapsing Palestinian Authority to the East, and an increasingly hostile indigenous Palestinian citizenry within its own borders. Most worryingly, it faces an Iran that calls for Israel’s destruction and is racing to developing the weapons to make this happen.

And it lives in a world largely unsympathetic to its struggle, unappreciative of its substantial efforts toward peace, and dubious about its very legitimacy.

Given this Rubik’s Cube of threat, what should Israel do when unilaterally attacked, without provocation, for a sustained period? Should Israel have done nothing and accepted an unceasing barrage of missiles and mortars? Hamas’s appreciation of a “policy of nonviolence” is probably less than Rabbi Tepperman’s, and would have likely encouraged further assaults from Hamas as well as others who minutely calculate the costs of attacking Israel. More critically, by doing nothing Israel would cede its borders to the range of Hamas’s missiles. Its sovereignty would thereby cease.

What about Israel’s particular military tactics? Mr. Silow-Carroll asks whether Israel went too far or not far enough in Gaza. Like Mr. Silow-Carroll, I have no idea. My sense, from reading the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz, is that Israeli officers, politicians, and pundits are themselves wrestling with these same questions. How do you stop a population that cynically uses human shields, or that acquiesces in being such shields, from attacking you? Tit-for-tat, the classic mode of deterrence, demonstrably does not work. Routing out all the militants would incur a horrendous loss of life. Israel opted for a middle ground-meting out a severe response that demonstrates its willingness to act forcefully and that threatens even more dire future actions-but suspending the eradication of Hamas as a military threat. Was this the correct choice? I have no idea. I am uncertain.

But unlike me, or Mr. Sillow-Carroll, or the reticent Rabbi Tepperman, Israel does not have the luxury of achieving certainty before it acts. And we, its supporters, if we are supporters, must appreciate this burden of uncertainty that Israel faces, day in and day out. Indeed, we must identify with it and make it our own.

Does this mean denying any doubts? Of course not. But it does mean having the courage and devotion to work the problem as Israel attempts to do. At the very least, it involves signing a letter calling on biased critics, like the authors of the original ad in The Montclair Times, to do the same.

Sincerely,

Kent D. Harber
Verona, NJ