Security Risk

Two recent, and related, stories got a surprisingly small amount of press here, and even among the shmoozerati there hasn't been much notice about them. A short while ago, Haaretz publicized the Israeli data base of settlement activity in the West Bank. The punchline, presented nicely in the Times online, along with some neat other stuff, is not good: in some seventy-five percent of the settlements, construction took place without, or contrary to, official permits. In 30 settlements, construction took place on land owned by Palestinians (there's a word for this). Keep in mind, please, that these figures are not just about those settlements labled by the Israeli government as "illegal", but those claimed to be "in accordance with international law."

In thinking about the settlements, it's important to keep in mind the lessons of Gaza. Not the recent war, but the withdrawal. If it wasn't common sense before hand, it was proven by demonstration: settlers assume their homes are permanent.

"Well, duhhh" do I hear you say? Hardly. For years - for decades - there has been the official claim that the settlements are "bargaining chips," with their future status "pending negotiation." But if they're bargaining chips, if the status of the land they're on is uncertain, why establish permanent homes, with schools, synagouges, infrastructure, the whole nine yards, and fill those homes with people who don't plan to move? What the Speigel report demonstrates is that the Israeli government has been engaged in a project - illegal under it's own laws - to informally annex increasingly large chunks of the West Bank.

Now, it's true that lots of countries do and have done lots of illegal things, and many of them - including the USA - are enjoying the fruits of their own land grabs with impunity. The real problem, though, is one of Israel's own safety. Isreal's single greatest security need is a stable, Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, at least moderately prosperous and at least moderately democratic. That being the case, anything that hinders or delays the establishment of such a state endangers Israel and its citizens; threats to the creation of the State of Palestine are threats to continued existance of the State of Israel.

The argument is not whether the settlement project has hurt the prospects for peace, it is only whether it has killed it completely. And yet (and this is the second story) Israel continues to build, unable to face the true costs for what it needs as much as it needs an army.

The existential danger to Israel created by the continued occupation has got to become part of mainstream American Jewish discourse, whether in "insider" conversations synagogues and the meeting rooms of the major Jewish philanthropies, or in public addresses to the Administration. To do less would be disloyal.

gaza talk

Gaza.

And then what do I say? I’ve been observing two entirely different discourses: there’s that of the organized Jewish community, and there’s that of, well, just about everyone else, and, well, you know, there’s not been a whole lot of contact between the two. It’s pretty clear to me that Hamas is a nasty organization, not just in regard to Israel, but in general; only the most naïve anti-Zionist would see a Hamas government as empowering to its residents. Clear, too, that lobbing mortars and rockets at Israeli civilian centers is inexcusable and criminal, not to mention mind-bogglingly stupid as a strategy to get Israel to lift the siege. These two facts are crucial to any discussion of the war.

Yet these two facts neither answer nor preclude two central questions:
1) Was the war a wise and appropriate approach to Israel’s legitimate long-term security needs?
2) Was the war prosecuted in accordance with international law?

You’re all as smart as I am, you have access to the same sources as I do, you can try to answer these for yourselves. But that’s the point – we need to get to a place where we can, indeed, try to answer them.

Concerning the first question, I’d like to note that “Because the bastards deserve it” while necessary, is not, by itself, a good reason to go to war – notwithstanding Bush’s attempt to retroactively apply it to Iraq. I’d also like to note that questioning the wisdom of a country’s policy, even arguing that a policy is wrongheaded and doomed to fail, is not an attack on the country. Nations, even democracies, do wrong-headed things, and it’s worth remembering that the official Israeli report described the second Lebanon war as a blunder, the result of an inadequate decision-making process. In the words of Justice Winograd, “Israel did not use its military power wisely or effectively," Would it have been anti-Israel to say this during the war?

As to war crimes, well, the accusation that the Israeli military may have committed war crimes is an ugly one, and it should be, because war crimes are bad things to do. But they’re bad things even if the good guys do them, and even if the bad guys are committing war crimes, too. This isn’t a zero-sum morality, where if one side is bad they’re entirely bad and the other side is entirely good. God knows (and God does know) that the US isn’t pure, nor is Britain, nor any other country. And we demand an accounting especially when the “good guys” commit them because we want them to remain the good guys – and that doesn’t happen if you begin to believe that goodness and justice are categorical attributes, not qualities that require ongoing commitment.

I’m worried about the long-term security of Israel, because Israel’s most pressing security need – a reasonably stable, reasonably democratic Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza – seems further and further away. But I’m worried, too, about a Diaspora Jewish community that does not have a way of engaging in a serious, reasoned, discussion of Israel. Something, by the way, we’re going to need more and more in the coming years.

arnold jacob wolf z"l

First, here's a story he was fond of telling:
He was a young man in the pulpit in Chicago - this was back in the late 60s or early 70s - and there was a man in town, a slumlord, who treated his tenants horribly. This was a matter of Torah, and Arnold had to preach about it. The thing was, the man was a congregant. Well, Arnold preached, and did everything but come out and name the man outright. After the service, the congregant came up to him. "Boy, Rabbi. You sure gave it to them!"

He marched with King, they said, though I would not hear him talk about until years later ("We weren't brave," he said of those days, "We were scared people doing brave things."). He had fought against the war in Vietnam, and against poverty in the United States, and he spoke - loudly - of the need for a Palestinian state in the West Bank when that was seen as close to treason by most of the organized Jewish community. He was one of the last of the great prophetic social-justice rabbis, and one of the last of the Hillel directors who made the the college campus the location of the most interesting Jewish teaching of the time.

There's a lot by and about him on the Web; zil g'mur, as they say, go and study. But what might not come across is what he taught by the way he taught. It's become a very groovy thing these days for rabbis to lead "discussions" which usually involve letting a couple of congregants say something, and then going blithely on to the point he or she wanted to make in the first place. But Arnold created a space in which every participant had equal access to the text, everyone listened to and responded to everyone else, and such authority as Arnold had came only from his ability to ask better questions and suggest more compelling answers than the rest of us. And so the overarching lesson was that what he did was (in theory) something we all could do, and the existential meaning of a religious teaching within the grasp of anyone who was prepared to do the work.

This belief in the radical competence of each student - which was merely the extension of an overall ethical stance - was combined with a deeply held faith that Torah was important, desperately. It wasn't a game, it wasn't an entertainment. It was about nothing less than repairing a profoundly broken world. More than anyone I've ever known, Arnold seemed to live out the dictum, "It is not up to you to complete the work, but neither are you free to stop trying" - only in his case the work involved breaking down a wall, and the only tool available was his high, hard forehead. And for some reason, there was something about that that made you want to join him. You got the sense that you, too, could make some justice happen, could make the world a little bit better. And you, too, wanted to be part of a Judaism that mattered.

I'm not even touching on who he was to me personally; but that I am a rabbi, and the kind of rabbi I've tried (usually unsuccessfully) to be, has a lot to do with him. I miss him.

you can't keep a good god down

When the Young Heroine introduced me to Terry Pratchett's Discworld, the first book she gave me was Hogfather. It's hard to explain in a sentence if you're not familiar with the series, but it takes place in a cosmos that's very similar to, but not identical with, our own, and the Hogfather is that world's equivalent to Santa Claus. The book is quite wonderful for a number of reasons, oneof which is that you're reminded of how little of the Western Christmas has to do with Christianity and how much with paganism, but there's also this passage (and remember, read "Santa Claus" for "Hogfather")

Was the Hogfather a god? Why not? thought Susan. There were sacrifices, after all. All that sherry and pork pie [left on the table for him]. And he made commandments and rewarded the good and he knew what you were doing...

It's true: the Hogfather, er, Santa, is a god. And we know which one. Making a list and checking it twice? Going to find out who's naughty and nice? That's not a Christmas song; that's U'netaneh Tokef, the solemn prayer from the High Holy Days about the Book of Life. The god who punishes the naughty and rewards the nice, who listens to prayers and gives points for trying, but is ultimately concerned with behavior is, when you get down to it, the God of the Jews.

Ok, ok, we all worship the same God, so let's say, "the God as understood by the Jews". Which is different than the Christian understanding, because one of the main points of Christianity is the idea of "Justification by Faith," which is to say that one cannot get on God's good side through works or deeds; you are justified, or made right with God, through faith [Yes, I do know that this is a gross oversimplification, but still]. And so you have to ask, how does it happen that at one of the two foundational festivals of the God of Faith, the most popular character is an avatar of the God of Works. Or: how is it that in the middle of celebrating the obsolescence of Judaism, it keeps popping up?

And here's what I think: That as attractive as the doctrine might be that you don't have to "do" you just have to believe, and that God's grace is so great and given so freely that all one needs is be open to it, there is something about being human that needs the idea of justice. We can't help believing that it really does make a difference if you're naughty or nice independent of your personal faith. The official doctrine may say what it will about Grace being a totally free gift; there is something deep inside of us that is sure that the difference between a Wii and a lump of coal in your stocking depends on just how good a boy or girl you've been.

This does not necessarily mean that the Jews are saying anything true about God, but it does mean that we are saying something true about being human. Which is that the idea of justice is real, it is as much a part of us as love and beauty. And that there's much more of a universal sense of what counts as "naughty" and what as "nice" than we might otherwise think. Whatever we believe about God or gods or subatomic particles colliding, we are stuck sharing a common moral imagination, a capacity for recognizing the right, and an understanding that that's how we're supposed to live.

(Oh yes, Dick Cheney? If there were a Santa, you'd be in for some serious coal. Ho, ho, ho).

Unforgivable

Just for Hanukkah fun, here's another quiz.

Which is worse: lying to a lot of people about
a) whether another country poses an immanent threat,
b) whether a product is addictive and will kill you, or
c) whether your money is safe.

No peeking, but if you said "c", you get to be in both the Atlantic and the New York Times.

Look, I'm not carrying a brief for Madoff; he's a liar and a thief on an unimaginable scale, and has hurt many, many people. But I find the idea that he's beyond the possibility of atonement, well, bizarre. First of all, I'd have thought that that kind of judgment involved an insight into the mind of both God and the sinner that's beyond most mortals. But let's get technical. This is probably a reflection of my own ignorance, but I'm not familiar with the text that says that God's forgiveness is dependent on making full restitution. The Talmud, after all, explicitly discusses the possibility of atonement for murderers, and even Maimonides talks about the possibility of effective deathbed repentence (when it's probably too late to make any kind of real recompense).

And if it were true that you could only gain forgiveness for what you've repaired, think of how many of us would truly be without hope. I know that there are people I've hurt whom I'll never see again to reconcile with; am I, too, beyond forgiveness? And wouldn't the "pay it all back first" clause privilege the rich over the poor? I mean, if rich man Deevies takes poor man Lazurus' one sheep, he can pay it back, but if Lazurus takes Deevies' Lamborgini to the chop shop, that could be well over a lifetime of earnings right there.

But of course this is silly. Real repentence isn't about what you do, it's about what you become. Of course, that has to lead to action, but the classic Jewish teaching is that teshuvah has to do with a rejection of the kind of self you were for a better kind of self. That begins with an honest appraisal of what you've done, an ownership of your actions and their consequences, and an honest attempt to repair the damage you've done to the world.

What would it be like to look on a life of lies and theft, on the wreckage of private lives and public institutions, to grieve for the choices you've made and pain and loss you've caused, and to know that it's up to you to try to bring healing to the pain you've caused. Near impossible to do, perhaps, but not to imagine. In fact, it's important to try to imagine it, because in that way we get an understanding of what repentence really requires, and what we have to do to deal with our own faults. And is it really unbelieveable that if Bernie spends the last years of his life as a true penitent, learning about the people he had hurt, trying humbly to good works, that God would have room for him?

After all, did subvert the Constitution? Did he promote torture? Did he teach hatred or inspire violence? Did he abuse children? It seems to me - again, without trying to mitigate the severity of Madoff's crimes - that if we're to have a focus for moral outrage that Bernie is a bar too low. After all, he will spend the rest of his life disgraced and in jail, while men like Kissinger and Rumsfeld will live out their days free, wealthy, and in the company of sycophants. And that is unforgiveable.

different from you and me

So, I've been thinking about the bonus John Thain isn't getting, all ten million dollars of it. That's a lot of money. How much? Well, it's more than the total of everything I will earn in my entire life. Ok? His one year bonus on this side, my entire lifetime earnings on that, his wins. And maybe I've missed it, but I haven't seen anything in the news that this is going to beggar him: pull the kids out of school, sell the house and move into an apartment in Queens, anything like that. My guess is that losing out on more than my gross lifetime domestic product in a single year will have no more than a symbolic impact on him. And ya know something? There are people a lot richer than him.

It strikes me that when you have that much more - I mean, that much more - money, your experience of the world must be vastly different. First, there are a whole range of anxieties or frustrations aren't there when there is nothing that is too expensive for you. I certainly don't mean that the rich have no frustrations and no anxieties, of course they do. But the ones that occupied a lot of the emotionaly energy of the people I know even before the recession - can I afford my child's school, can I afford the right doctor or dentist or shrink, will I be able to retire, what would I really like to do if I didn't have to make money - just aren't on their radar. But more broadly - and tell me if I'm wrong - I imagine their entire interface with the world is different. The things they see and do on a daily basis, the people they talk to, the questions life poses them, to what extent do they live in the same world as I do?

It's this that I'm really wondering about - in a society as economically polarized as our is, to what extent is any kind of shared discourse possible? Perhaps our common humanity is enough to make our fundamental experience of life essentially similar, or perhaps the expereinces we share more powerful, more numerous, more important than the ones we don't, so that we really do inhabit the same common space. But I'm not so sure. Someone who has never had an empty cab pass him by or never had to teach his son how to behave with a policeman will never quite get the black experience, and unless it's brought to his attention won't even think about the fact - he won't even know how different his expereince of America is from that of his black neighbor. Americans who think of the police as their protectors and Americans who think of the police as a kind of occupying army or security guards hired to protect a party they're not invited to are not sharing a "commonwealth," let alone a political or cultural discourse. Mightn't vast wealth differences work the same way?

I don't know what the implications might be if I'm right, but because Americans are so hung about about class we haven't begun to talk about it. I think, perhaps, we should.

enemies of the state

Okay kids, here’s a quiz: They throw stones at Israeli soldiers, they deny the legitimacy of the Israeli government, they threaten the security of the Israeli state. The organized Jewish community should consider them

a) Friends of Israel

b) Enemies of Israel

You’ve got ten minutes.

This shouldn’t be too hard, but for far too long we’ve refused to take the radical settler community for the danger that they are. In fact, the Israeli government has frequently subsidized them, subsidizing even those actions that have broken Israeli law. Now, when the government spends money on building infrastructure supporting illegal settlements, or on the defense of illegal settlements, that’s money they’re not spending on social services, or settlement of immigrants, or the like. Which means that the money you and I give to support those services, well, we too are subsidizing those illegal settlers. Again, I’m making the easy case; I’m only talking about those settlers who are breaking Israel’s own law.

And for all kinds of reasons having to do with, I don’t know, the romantic hold of the story of the pioneers, or a belief that Jews should be nice to other Jews (a belief the settlers certainly do not hold), or a fear that at some level they are more authentic Jews than we, we continue to grant them a presumption of legitimacy. Even if they’re misguided, we say, they’re still living out the Zionist dream.

Enough of that nonsense. Zionism is a political movement that had at its heart the establishment of a state. The settlers have abandoned politics for a strange volkish messianism, and they have nothing but scorn for the state, its system of government, and its founding documents.

The settlers are anti-Zionists, and until we start insisting on that basic truth at least in our own internal discourse they will continue their stranglehold on the government.