MANNA 103: Spring 2009
Written by Rabbi Dr. Tony Bayfield Tuesday, 17 August 2010
Last month, standing on top of the huge former rubbish heap in the new Ariel Sharon Park near Tel Aviv, I was mightily impressed with Israel’s leadership in technology and ecology. But when the park’s chief executive pointed in the distance to the site of ancient B'nei Brak, where five great Rabbis of the Haggadah debated the future of the Jewish people, I was filled, not for the first time, with a sense of having missed out.It is in Israel, nineteen hundred years later, that the future of the Jewish people will again be determined. But the diaspora offers a unique and vital perspective. The diaspora is precisely where the rest of the world is. I suspect that the rest of the world will play more of a part in the future of Israel and the Jewish people than any of us would be comfortable with. Hasn’t it always.
A leading Israeli diplomat in Britain recently chided me for my attempts here to build friendships with the Churches and other organisations. ‘We only have fair weather friends’, he said. ‘So who can we rely on?’ I asked. ‘Only on ourselves and the Americans’, he replied. I have heard versions of that before. Five hours away from Israel, in London, it sounds, at best, a high risk strategy.
British Jewry watched Operation Cast Lead in Gaza with growing unease and dismay. Yes, we know that we live with a hostile media but the pictures made us sick and shaky. ‘What have we gained?’ people asked. ‘What did we learn from Lebanon about asymmetric warfare? About defeating state-sponsored Islamist terror? What have we lost in the court of public opinion?’
I see the subsequent election result as a vote of defiant despair. It was a vote which asserted that Israel has no partner with whom to negotiate a peace based on two states. All Israel can do is settle for the status quo and build the walls of separation higher.
But extreme right-wing nationalism looks ugly at any time and it was an Israeli rabbi who likened the recent march through Umm al Fahm to the Orange marches of Belfast. The Israeli diplomat was confident about the solidity of American support, but Obama and perceived anti-Arab racism do not look like the recipe for an Israel-America love-in.
In March, I stood at a viewpoint overlooking Gaza with a man from Oxfam, a British oleh, and a brilliant Jewish educator from Kibbutz Tsora. The man from Oxfam painted the view of friends abroad. ‘You have let Hamas seize the moral high ground. You have to talk to them and expose them for what they are by giving them authority to govern in Gaza. You have to enlist the help of the international community, make the crossings as secure as possible and then let people in and out. Let the people of Gaza see whether Hamas really has any regard for their interests’.
The British oleh said: ‘You don’t understand. You can’t possibly feel as we do. You’re asking us to take risks with the lives of our children’. The educator turned to me and said: ‘To do nothing is even more risky. We cannot afford to give up on the two-state solution. Time- and the world- is not on our side’.
The leadership of British Jewry has for a long time focused on defending Israel’s cause and the judgements of Israel’s governments. This has served us well since the misrepresentation of Israel’s position has been rife. The media, almost by definition lacks the ability to contextualise and place the here and now in its historical perspective. It has also become obsessed with the ultimately anti-Semitic view that all of the West’s difficulties with the Islamic world have to do with the Israel-Palestine conflict and if that were resolved, Sri Lankan cricketers and tourists to Bali would no longer be in danger.
Anxieties about, for instance, the continued expansion of settlements and the economic gap between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs have long existed. But the collective wisdom has been that to utter such views in public is to place ammunition in the hands of Israel’s enemies. Those who have departed from the party line have usually come from the margins of the Jewish community and if they have not, they have always been successfully marginalised.
Most Israelis seem to feel that Gaza was just another episode in the struggle with militant Islam and the election of a right-wing government which includes Yisrael Beitenu, though problematic, will at best still allow for effective talks with President Obama and at worst offers time for those of more moderate views to regroup before another election.
From here in Britain things look different, more threatening, much more urgent. Furthermore what troubled us most is now well and truly ‘out there’. A change in the policy of British Jewry is irresistible.
The mainstream of the community is utterly, unequivocally and unconditionally committed to the right of Israel to exist within secure borders. But the mainstream also believes that the Palestinians, too, have their right to a secure state, that Palestinians inside and outside Israel must be treated as full and equal human beings, that the enemies of Israel cannot be defeated by traditional state versus state warfare and that democracy and the values enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence must be defended – publicly as well as privately.
The mainstream of our community now feels that it is in the best interests of Israel to make use of the diaspora perspective and tell Israel how it appears from five hours away. Israel cannot “dwell alone” strategically, psychologically, morally, spiritually. It needs friends and we can contribute
best to the retention of Israel’s friends by sharing both our love and our anxieties.
The Reform Movement has a duty to offer leadership to the mainstream. How it looks from Britain is a necessary balance to how it looks from B’nei Brak New Town.
This year the Passover Haggadah’s ‘Higi’a z’man k’ri’at shema’ [the time for morning prayer has arrived] was a wake-up call.
| Next > |
|---|
