January 29, 2009
A clash of newspaper ads in Montclair got me thinking about the inadequate ways we American Jews talk about crises like the war in Gaza.
The first ad appeared in the Montclair Times under the banner “No more blank check for Israel!” It called Israel’s military attacks on Gaza “contrary to morality, international law, the cause of peace, and to its own long-term interests.” It called on the Obama administration and Congress to cut U.S. aid to Israel. It was signed by about 100 people, including, apparently, some Jews.
Rare for an ad critical of Israel, it at least acknowledged Israel’s plight, saying, “No country should have to face rockets fired at its citizens.” But that acknowledgement is undermined by the authors’ one-sided “solution”: lifting Israel’s economic blockade of Gaza. The authors couldn’t bring themselves to mention Hamas or its calls for Israel’s destruction or that their rockets landed in Israel for years before the blockade was imposed. Instead, they imply that indiscriminate rocket fire is a justified and even appropriate response to the blockade.
In response to the ad, some 380 people, nearly all Jews, signed and published one of their own. It carried the headline “We support Israel.” It acknowledged the “loss of Palestinian civilian life” and “their extreme suffering.” The ad calmly laid out Israel’s case for war, its right to defend itself, Hamas’ provocations, and the “bottom line”: “If the Palestinians want to peacefully co-exist with Israel, they need to say, ‘We recognize the right of Israel to exist, and we too want peace.’ Unfortunately, as long as Hamas rules Gaza, it appears that neither half of that simple statement will ever be made.”
True, true, and true. It’s an ad I might have signed. For public consumption, it was a strong defense of Israel and a statement that warfare, while regrettable, is sometimes necessary.
Still, the ad doesn’t address what troubles me about the war. There is a difference between Israel’s “right to defend itself” and whether the war, or any action like it, is the right thing to do. And by right I mean “correct.” Did a war that cost a reported 1,300 Palestinian lives and 13 Israeli bring Israel closer to its aims in Gaza? Did the destruction discredit Hamas in the eyes of Gaza’s Palestinians, or harden residents’ resentments toward Israel? Would the war have accomplished more if Israel had extended the fighting past the three-week mark — or, conversely, was there anything gained by extending the fighting past the first day or the second week?
We have a hard time asking these questions as American Jews. First, when Israel is under attack, literally and from media and protesters around the world, our impulse is to offer a display of unity. And when it comes to military issues, American Jews defer to Israelis, since it is their sons who will do the fighting and the dying.
And that’s as it should be, especially for public consumption. But in private, I’ve heard a level of unease with the Gaza war that I haven’t heard perhaps since the first Lebanon War. Friends and acquaintances want answers to military questions and also want to discuss the non-military alternatives. And those kinds of discussions, I must say, are harder to have in a community that is quicker to rally in support of Israel’s troops than of its peacemakers. Unfortunately, Jewish organizations are more likely to reach consensus when the rockets fly than when negotiating partners put pen to paper.
From private to public
Going public with these private misgivings is tough, especially when you see the anger directed at groups like J Street and the Israel Policy Forum for asking similar questions. In the case of the dueling ads, however, Rabbi Elliott Tepperman of Montclair’s Bnai Keshet synagogue was forthright in speaking of his qualms during and after the war. In a long letter to congregants, Tepperman explained why he did not add his name to the second ad. He had no objections to the ad, he told me, and respected those in his congregation who helped put it together.
But, he said, he wasn’t compelled to give more attention to the original ad than it deserved.
Nor was Tepperman convinced that dueling newspaper ads were all that useful or effective if the goal is to change minds or increase understanding of the conflict. “I’d rather we have a meaningful discussion of our identities that’s face to face and see where we land,” he told me, “than a polarizing and two-dimensional debate in newspaper ads.”
Most of all, he was concerned that in merely defending Israel’s right to defend itself, the “We support Israel” ad did not adequately address a bigger question, which is: “What is Israel’s best interest if it is to pursue peace and have some meaningful long-term security and a peaceful relationship with its neighbors?”
In the letter to his congregants, Tepperman wrote of his commitment to the principles of nonviolence. He’s not naive — he knows that military action is sometimes warranted and necessary, and even effective. And he allows that this time Israel may indeed have achieved its goals.
But here is how he describes his “extreme uncertainty”:
“I pray that we might look back on this current conflict and make sense of the awful loss of life with the hindsight that this was a turning point toward lasting peace and security in the region. I am fearful that instead, we may look back at this as an action that merely stoked the engines of violence.”
I asked Tepperman if he felt alone in his uncertainty, and whether he thinks Jews like us, who feel they have unanswered questions about the war and peace, are in an inconsequential minority. He said that he received about 50 responses — 20 percent of his congregation. Of those, 90 percent thanked him for his thoughts — a sign of acceptance, if not agreement — and a “good percentage” said it resonated with them. (Perhaps that’s only a reflection of his congregation’s liberal bent — I’ll find out soon enough whether a Reconstructionist rabbi gets more respect than a Jewish newspaper editor.)
And before you dismiss Tepperman or me or those like us as self-haters, or appeasers, or naifs, remember what we’re talking about: “uncertainty.” If I can’t be certain that the Gaza war was a good idea, I also can’t be certain that it wasn’t. As Tepperman says, there is the nagging possibility “that I am wrong and this is what Israel needed to do and may have been a reasonable act of self-defense that will serve Israel’s long-term goals in ways I don’t yet understand.”
As Jews we need settings where we can discuss these nagging possibilities, without fear of being labeled and dismissed, no matter our political leanings. The Gaza war did not just raise profound and existential questions about war and peace and Israel’s survival. It asked, do we, as a community, have the ability, and courage, to discuss the things we don’t yet understand?
Does devotion to Israel erode if we harbor doubts about its actions?
And will our devotion to each other — as individuals, as a community, as fellow Jews and lovers of Israel — endure if we acknowledge our uncertainties?
