My Enemy's Enemy is My Friend?
Monday, 19 January 2009
I am back home in Israel with some new thoughts both about my time in America and about what is happening around me back here at home.
My last few days were spent in Washington DC, a city in the midst of 'Obama fever'. Something between a feeling of great expectations and an undercurrent of annoyance as to the imposition of a ceremony which will bring chaos to the city (but in the spirit of the moment which really feels historical, the dominant feeling is clearly that of great expectation). A wonderful city where I was hosted by a great community, Washington Hebrew Congregation. A few anecdotes from the visit: A wander through Georgetown Day School, a superb educational institution, at least from the quick visit I made, where an eight year old asks me whether I am visiting America because of the 'hostilities' in Israel and I am taken by both the verbal abilities and the wonderful education available to the young people I met. A session with members of the community where I am amazed to learn from the question of one of the participants that some of them assume I am in the US because things in Israel are too difficult. Perhaps the Jewish response they are expecting in a situation which has become dangerous is to move on to somewhere where in the short term life is safer for Jewish people? And I thought we were beyond that type of thinking!
I taught a session I called 'the Moral Frontline' where together with the participants we had a look at some of the underlying issues, the bigger pictures of both the present 'hostilities' and the way we Jews have related to physical danger over the past few centuries. I brought texts from Bialik, 'The City of Slaughter' written after the Kishinev Pogrom of 1903 and Bashevis Singer's Nobel Prize acceptance speech where he proudly talks of the fact that Yiddish has no words for ammunition and weapons of war. So, for the sake of those who still think that we ask the rabbis how to behave after we have been attacked and come out of hiding after the Cossacks have left, as they say, been there, done that, and now we respond differently. As much as we want it, the homeland we want, the moral high ground, is not available in this world today. A homeland where there are no decisions to be made about life and death. A homeland where all moral discussions take place with tea and biscuits in a comfortable living room. A homeland where others are responsible for the moral tone of the society and we can always take a step back and say 'they' are doing a miserable job.
Back here, at home in Israel, we are living through the first day of our unilateral ceasefire. The narrative is being prepared around the 'civilized' world to create Israeli responsibility for what follows our ceasefire declaration. Today, Al Jazeera reported Israeli attacks in Gaza in spite of our unilateral ceasefire. Those good decent people around the world who have bought into the Hamas version of events must really think that we have lost all our marbles: on the one hand we unilaterally declare a ceasefire and then we go ahead and attack the Palestinians in Gaza within less than 12 hours of doing this? Only if you find yourself here today in Israel, are you aware that Kassam missiles and mortars have been fired today and last night as if nothing has happened over the past 24 hours. Kiryat Gat, Kiryat Malachi, Sderot and the kibbutzim around the Gaza strip have all been under attack again. I apologise, I did not realize that a house has just been hit in Ashdod.
Many years ago I had a subscription to the alternative monthly magazine Mother Jones. Mother Jones was the preferred alternative to those of us who felt strongly that another voice was needed which spoke up against the conventional wisdoms of 'Time' and 'Newsweek', which presented the voice of the activist left. I will never forget an article called 'My enemy's enemies are not necessarily my friends'. I continue to believe that we have to work for peace; we have to look beyond tomorrow and work for the day when there will be a leadership of the Palestinian people. We have to reach out to the Palestinians and try and persuade them that this madness does not help anyone. That we do not wish to get involved in another round of this bloodletting where the Hamas hold ordinary people hostage and uses them as human shields. This does not for one moment mean that we should become part of an alliance which looks forward to a world without Israel.
This does not mean that we look forward to a world where the rights of the Jewish people to a homeland are considered expendable. This does not mean that we will bite our lips as the people of Sderot, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beersheva, Rahat, Lakia only suffer from minor injuries with only the occasional fatality, the children stop studying and wet their beds, people learn to run faster whenever they hear the sirens, old people, survivors of the Holocaust relive their traumas, the music on Galei Tzahal and Reshet Bet radio stations are interrupted regularly to warn the people of somewhere down south that a rocket has been launched, a soldier or two is killed, kidnapped or only severely injured.
Unlike the protester in London, 'We are not all Hamas', as we believe in decent behaviour, we will continue to debate the ethical behaviour or otherwise of our soldiers, we will stand up for the rights of women, gays, the right to have a different opinion even if we end up speaking in a number of different voices and we are not all on message and the right to disobey the order to fight for the defense of the Jewish people and to know that you will not be executed for your different voice.
You do not have to be 'on message' with respect to everything Israel has done over the past three weeks, but please remember that your enemy's enemies are not necessarily your friends.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
