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Israel, human rights and the silence of [most] American Jews
By Dan Fleshler | March 28, 2008
Those who empathize with the plight of Palestinians under occupation are often puzzled by American Jews’ silence in the face of Palestinian suffering, especially when the suffering results from Israeli actions that much of the world deems to be human rights abuses. A whole industry exists to monitor and refute human rights NGOs whenever they set their signs on Israel. Worse, even mentioning Palestinian misfortunes is suspect in some quarters, as Barack Obama has learned.
But it is not just the pro-Israel right wingers and centrists who either defend or mutely accept the way Israelis treat their neighbors. It is also my camp, the liberals who crave compromise. Some of us marched against the Vietnam war and even against the Iraq war. Some of us give money to help victims in Darfur and shelters for battered women here at home. If we are within the Jewish communal tent, not enough of us can bring ourselves to say very much out loud about the battering of an entire people.
I include myself in this category, guilty as charged, looking back on my own reactions to sundry allegations of Israel’s human rights violations. I think it is important for American Jews who support Israel to stop suppressing their moral instincts, to stop ignoring what is best within themselves, and to start finding a language, a vocabulary to acknowledge the horrors of occupation. But before providing a prescription, we need the diagnosis.
“It blows my mind that my Jewish brothers and sisters, who are with me on Darfur, who were with me on South Africa, can’t bend themselves to deal with injustice to the Palestinians,” said a Protestant minister whom I interviewed for my book. “I just never understood it.”
One simple answer is that American Jews who agree with the minister on most issues view the realities of the region through an entirely different prism, which reflects Israelis’ sense of permanent vulnerability and their fierce determination not to be vulnerable.
American Jews who see themselves as ethical and caring can usually find reasonable explanations and justifications for Israeli activities that the world abhors. The core argument is the same one used in Israel: what appears to be cruel and unjust behavior is usually an unfortunate, unavoidable consequence of The Situation that Israelis and Arabs are mired in. Plus, we have a rooting interest in information and arguments that prop up our craving to believe in the Israelis, while others have a rooting interest in finding ways to blame them. The raw truth is usually the victim.
Object to the missiles that repeatedly killed non-combatants in Gaza or Lebanon, and you will be assured that Israel has done everything possible to avoid collateral damage, Israel has been much more careful about shedding innocent blood than its adversaries, Israel is perfectly within its rights under the Geneva convention to go after enemy combatants that hide among civilians. Besides, you will be told, we can’t be armchair moralists judging Israelis by western, humanistic standards; they live in a tough neighborhood where there is no respect for the weak…Look at how the Lebanese army shelled Palestinian refugee camps unmercifully a few months ago in their fight with militant jihadists..I’ve made those arguments.
Object to anything that al-Jazeera decides to transform into yet another symbol of Zionist bestiality, and eventually you are likely to hear evidence that the truth has been distorted by Palestinian propagandists and their media allies. When Israel assaulted the West Bank village of Jenin during the second intifadeh, at first the international media alleged that hundreds of innocent Palestinians had been massacred and that bulldozers had crushed houses and destroyed property for no discernable reason. Later, media and some human rights groups changed their story; they said there had been no massacre, and most of the Palestinian casualties were armed combatants. The truth was probably somewhere in between, but you could almost hear the sounds of Israel’s friends around the world, including me, breathing sighs of relief.
Another reason for our silence is that the world unfairly singles out Israel for its abuses, real or imagined, and ignores even worse behavior by, say, the armies of central Africa or Sri Lanka or the security services of every Arab country. To liberals with a connection to Israel, the intense, remarkably single-minded focus on the Jewish state by the United Nations Human Rights Council and a large swath of the blogosphere is so suspicious, and so offensive, that we feel reluctant to add to the clamor of its avowed enemies. We certainly don’t want to give rhetorical fodder to those who blithely call for tearing down the “apartheid wall” –not changing the route of the security barrier, but obliterating the whole thing– and refuse to acknowledge that Israelis need protection from those who want to blow themselves up in shopping malls and discos.
But sometimes, what we read about or see on our T.V. screens makes it impossible to counter allegations of indefensible Israeli behavior. When that happens, something besides logic and evidence kicks in, we are left with little except a panicky unwillingness to believe Israelis are behaving as badly as people claim.
So, we look the other way if we come across tidbits like the following, from a B’Tselem press release this past December:
A survey conducted by the Israeli military and published by leading Israeli daily, Yedioth Ahronoth, found that a quarter of soldiers serving at checkpoints in the West Bank perpetrated or witnessed abuse of Palestinians. In response, B’Tselem, said that the numbers are shocking, but not surprising. The organization commends the military for initiating the survey, but states that physical and verbal abuse of Palestinians by soldiers, particularly at checkpoints, has long become routine. In spite of official condemnations, the military does not do enough to ensure accountability and to deter soldiers from engaging in such behavior.According to B’Tselem, most soldiers who harm Palestinians are never held accountable. Law enforcement authorities place numerous obstacles on Palestinians who try to complain against security forces personnel and only a small minority of complaints result in charges against those responsible for abuse.
There must be a reasonable explanation,” we try to tell ourselves. “There must be something terribly wrong with the way this story is being told, even if it is the Israeli army itself that is telling it.”
We try to tell ourselves, “there must be a reasonable explanation for the extra-judicial, execution-style killings of four Palestinians sitting in a car in Bethlehem,” as reported today by Richard Silverstein in Tikun Olam. “Ok, it’s suspicious, but war is hell.”
“There must have been a very good, sound military reason for bombing that power plant in Gaza and inflicting darkness for half a day, for months, on a civilian population,” we try to tell ourselves, even though reasonable people called it a clear violation of international law. “And even if it is a war crime,” we tell ourselves, “why say anything? Israel has enough problems, enough enemies…”
After awhile, though, the evidence accumulates and becomes too troubling to be discarded or wished away. The anguished testimony of the Israeli soldiers in “Breaking the Silence” makes a mockery of willfull denial. “Breaking the Silence” is an explicitly non-political organization that just lets those who have served in the territories speak for themselves about the level of brutality and wanton cruelty. They are not refuseniks. Most of them return to the IDF every year for reserve duty. They want their own society to wake up to what Israeli soldiers are being asked to do, and, sadly, what some of them eagerly volunteer to do. Read what they have to say on the group’s web site.
When the pro-Israel left in this country confronts what Palestinians are subjected to, the standard response is that there is no such thing as a benign occupation. Unless and until there is a political solution, we assert, morally grounded Israeli soldiers and border police will be forced into circumstances where it is difficult and sometimes impossible to be humane, it is difficult and sometimes impossible to be good. I use that argument, all the time, and it is true…up to a point.
But lately, I am tired of relying upon it as the exclusive answer. The problem is not merely that the brutality and humiliation inflicted on Palestinians is an inevitable consequence of occupation; the problem is that is just plain WRONG. Why can’t we say that? What happened to our moral compass?
Yes, those who focus only on Israeli behavior without putting it into context, without appreciating that steps must be taken to protect Israel’s borders, have also lost their moral compass. Yes, the Palestinians have in many ways brought this situation upon themselves [e.g, there used to be a vocal peace camp in Israel; it was shattered by the second Palestinian intifadeh. Now, the prospect of Hamas rockets being hurled at Tel Aviv from the West Bank has made it even harder to put that dovish, Humpty Dumpty back together again]. But once that context is affirmed, the reasons for decrying the brutality and humiliation become compelling and the rationalizations for saying nothing become very hollow.
Rabbis for Human Rights is an Israeli organization that does not hesitate to call some Israeli policies morally reprehensible and contrary to Torah values. A few American rabbis, like Arthur Waskow, are associated with it. But thus far, its message has been unheard or barely noticed, let alone echoed, in the organized American Jewish community.
The unwillingness of American Jews to say, simply, “This is wrong!” has many consequences, in addition to the way it contributes to the corrosion of souls and hearts. What should also be of concern to the mainstream Jewish community is that the silence contributes to the alienation of Jewish college students and young adults from anything remotely connected to Israel. That does not matter to the anti-Zionists who believe the whole enterprise of Israel is illegitimate, but it should matter to anyone who wants to help fix what is broken in Israel.
Yes, speaking out forcefully against Israeli policies and behaviors will add fuel to the fiery rhetoric of those who don’t want the Jewish state to exist. That is undeniable; it is a problem and I have never come up with a solution to it. But a greater risk is that an entire generation of Diaspora Jews will want nothing more to do with Israel. There are a host of Israeli organizations trying their best to monitor and change unjust Israeli policies; instead of connecting our young people with those groups and showing there is a way to be pro-Israel and true to their ideals and values, much of the community either derides or shuns those groups. That is why the
And yet, we know in our hearts of hearts that while such boycotts are not justified on the universal plain of comparisons, there are more than a few elements of truth in what these hypocrites claim. For one segment of the population over whom we have responsibility, we have abrogated any semblance of democracy. It is especially painful that some in South Africa have joined the fray of those who boycott us, because of that country’s moral authority - given how blacks suffered years of unspeakable oppression under white minority rule.
But how would one describe certain things we are doing in the West Bank that have virtually no security value - checkpoints between Palestinian villages and within Palestinians cities; separate roads for Palestinians; thousands of Palestinians arrested under administrative detention; confiscation of Palestinian property for illegal Jewish settlements; a twisted route for Israel’s security barrier that separates Palestinians from their lands and divides villages in half; administrative home demolitions; covert protection for Jewish settlers who harass Palestinians tending their agricultural fields; preventing Israelis who marry Palestinians from living in Israel; banning Palestinians from swimming in natural springs along the Dead Sea?
And yet, despite the above, Israel’s present situation is still not politically analogous to South Africa’s history of discrimination; and so, we confidently argue that “apartheid” is not an appropriate term to apply to what we are doing in the West Bank. But what term would one choose to define a privileged protectionism for a few thousand Jews in the West Bank over a separate and unequal existence for over two million Palestinians?
…We have shamed ourselves as a Jewish state that sought to educate the world that we would not be a nation like other nations and that the Zionist enterprise would fashion a society based on a prophetic vision of social justice. Instead, we have created a moral morass - and, if it takes the hypocritical self-righteousness of some foreign pseudo-intellectuals and pig-headed unionists to open our eyes and alter this unacceptable reality, then something positive will ultimately be served.
Something positive will be served if Americans who want both Israel and Palestine to thrive, side by side, stop keeping their eyes closed and their mouths shut.
Topics: Palestinians, Israel, Zionism, American Jews, Far left, Israeli occupation, Gaza Strip |
March 28th, 2008 at 11:28 am
The same moral ambiguity about Israel has existed for a very long time. Its not a 21st century phenomena.
I don’t know how old you are Dan, but when I was a teenager in the early 70s, the moral ambiguity of occupation was apparent, and nakedly so, when the settlement exercise extended beyond utopianism to state participation in annexation.
Both Israeli and dissident society is largely reactionary, in the sense that politics are the politics of anger from stimulating events. Almost Pavlovian, in the same language that I criticized MM.
Stimulus, response.
Other individual and collective mental responses would yeild more successful outcomes, thinking and compassion.
At the same time, I recognize that groups like Hamas intentionally undertake “irritations” for the purpose of evoking a response. A play on the Gandhi assertion “the duty of a civil disobedient is to provoke, is to evoke a response”.
How to respond to incremental escalation of random violence directed at civilians? I don’t know.
I think we are seeing an absence of leadership on the part of the Israeli state, frankly. That, rather than DO all that can be done to build trust on the street, even relative and reluctant trust, the Israeli state has acted opportunistically.
Why aren’t they more risk-averse (than the precipice approach that can leave them rejected, and in a state of war when Palestine loses patience and declares independance unilaterally), and negotiate a conclusive consentable agreement?
March 28th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
I am, as you might expect, all for telling it like it is when dealing with problemmatic –or abomidable– Israeli actions.
Your blog offers a place to reflect on all that is problemmatic or abominable and still be supportive of Israel and Israelis, which is what makes it so welcome and unusual (I thought you were in the p.r. business. Why don’t more people know about Realistic Dove?).
That said, you’re right about the unsolved, and perhaps insoluble, problem. There are people out there, like our new friend MM, who say that the whole Zionist “enterprise” has never had any legitimacy and that it is dishonest to pretend that Israeli behavior before ‘67 was markedly different than post-’67 behavior. They will just take your remarks and splay them all over the blogosphere as more evidence to be used by those who are obsessed with proving that Israel, as a whole, is an evil that requires more attention than all other evils.
At best, this just leads to a familiar clash of different narratives and an endless argument about history instead of a focus on what MM and I and you agree upon: CURRENT Israeli policies and actions that are wrong. I wish MM could recognize that he and I have much more in common than either of us have with Mort Klein.
At worst, it helps to cement the alliance that is forming between right wing nativists and left-wingers like Phil Weiss and Islamic jihadists…That alliance scares me. (I’m leaving now for the weekend and can’t respond if anyone insults me
March 28th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Bad bad Teddy!!
March 28th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
An alliance bet. Phil Weiss & Islamic jihadists? What are you smokin’??? Talk about incitement.
I think Dan & I come fr. a similar background politically & Zionistically, but I have less patience than he does for the moral temporizing that happens around the issues he describes (& I’m glad he’s losing patience w. it too). I believe in treating Israel as closely as possible to the standards that apply to other western democracies. If Israel doesn’t measure up then it should be criticized w/o regard to how loonies & anti-Semites will react to the criticism.
Unlike many Jews, I don’t see Israel as a weak, endangered entity which must be shielded fr. harsh criticism. Robust criticism is good for a democracy. If there is no criticism then there can be no democracy.
Israel’s enemies are not just on the outside (like Palestinian militants), they can be on the inside as well. When the IDF executes unarmed Palestinian militants as B’Tselem claims, & then tries to tell the world they were resisting arrest or firing back, this does as much damage to Israel as any rocket fired on Sderot.
March 28th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
I received the following email from Arthur Waskow and I asked him if I could post it:
———————————
You wrote:
“Rabbis for Human Rights is an Israeli organization that does not hesitate to call some Israeli policies morally reprehensible and contrary to Torah values. A few American rabbis, like Arthur Waskow, are associated with it. But thus far, its message has been unheard or barely noticed, let alone echoed, in the organized American Jewish community.”
I’m glad to report that this last assertion is not fully accurate. RHR/ North America, which is both a support group for RHR in Israel and an autonomous group in dealing with US invasions of human rights (e.g. US use of torture) has more than 500 members, and did a conference in NYC more than a year ago with more than 200 rabbinic attendees, in which such luminaries as Rabbi David Saperstein spoke. RHR has been endorsed by the Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, & Renewal rabbinical associations. In December 2008 they will be holding a conference in Washington DC on Jewish approaches to human rights that will include non-rabbis. I have my own concerns with the narrow limits in which both RHR’s define “human rights” and their own responses to violations of human rights; but within that circle I think they have made an impact.
Shalom, salaam, peace — Arthur
March 28th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Dan, guess what,I honestly don’t care. They do what they have to do to stay alive, to win. And it’s not up to you sitting in the safety of the upper west side to question how an Israeli soldier does his job. And has far as those four Palestinaisn in the Haaretz article is concerned. I only wish that Israel could dif the mup and kill them again.
March 28th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Dan says: “”"Those who empathize with the plight of Palestinians under occupation are often puzzled by American Jews’ silence in the face of Palestinian suffering,”"”
I am often puzzled why “those who empathize with the plight of Palestinians” engage in ethnic labelling of those with whom they disagree. Why do they mention that those who they criticize are Jews?
Dan says such persons are “puzzled by American Jews’ silence…”
Why not be puzzled by silent persons’ silence? It cannot be that only Jews are obligated to speak out on an issue.
Either everyone is obligated to speak out on an issue, or no one is. And if Jews were obligated to speak out on an issue, I would think that issue would be the bombardment of Sderot and Ashkelon.
March 29th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
It is not “only Jews” who are “obligated” to be a louder voice on criticising Israel’s policy as portends to the Palestinians; but perhaps it can be viewed as the most legitimate defense comes from within your own ranks. Dan, Phillip and Richard have all tried to explain reasons why American Jewry can tolerate some abuses made by Israel and be supportive of human rights per se, and from what I can decipher, more sparks can fly when many more dissident Jews take shape in standing up against Israel’s “pro-Likud” line. Dan did state that today’s time is troubling for Zionists who do want to see Israel have a future as a Jewish state and by being silent when Israel does something reprehensible only gives weight to those who want Israel to back a hardline into disaster.
Everyone is obligated to speak out but unfortunately not everyone’s opinion has the clout that American Jewry does, especially in regards to Israel. There can be a way to being a dissident and be a Zionist in some form too. Although that balancing act has been a tough one, I’m sure there are many who disagreed with many of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and do want the state of Israel to exist. When their voice gets louder, maybe we will see a different aura in respects to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Until then we can be stuck on the justifications that aim to deflect criticism on Israel.
March 29th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Well said, Joshua.
Jonathan, I find your objection baffling. Israel is a Jewish state. Its most active and effective supporters in the U.S. are Jews, many of them in the panoply of organizations that press Congress and the White House for policies that they believe to be in Israel’s interests. Until those of us who are left-of-center and pro-Israel start sending clearer and louder signals to the political elite, little is going to change in the domestic political context of America’s Middle East policies. So our obligation and our burden is greater, no?
March 29th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
How would it be if someone said “Palestinians don’t care if suicide bombers blow up babies. Supporters of the right of Israel to exist are often puzzled why Palestinians are silent about terrorists blowing up Israeli babies.”
Would that be okay?
It might be okay to say “Supporters of Hamas don’t care if suicide bombers blow up babies.”
When you pose the argument in ethnic terms, and impute a disagreeable opinion or trait to an ethnic group, you weaken your argument.
March 30th, 2008 at 6:15 am
If Jonathon doesn’t feel that he is part of a collective, with some (high) responsibility for the political and moral effects of the collectivity that he is a part of, that is his “right”.
As Judaism IS primarily the ethical code that binds us, that would put him in the very difficult ambiguity of deciding to not BE/LIVE Jewish, in the effort to defend Jews. (How many of us select opportunistically, what of our moral responsibility we will undertake and what we will ignore?)
To me that is the difficult moral dilemma that we face, that is the substance of whether Israel will be a Jewish state or a jewish state.
Its not whether Shabbat is Friday night to Saturday morning, or Sunday.
It is the confusion of the unconditional promises of sovereignty over the land, conflicting with the conditional promises “IF you keep my commandments, I will give you the rain in its time”. I don’t regard Torah as a source of land title, but as a map of ethical commitment that results in great men/women and great society.
One is a nut, one is a shell.
March 30th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Jonathan,
So what is Israel? Is it a Jewish state or not? Should it be a Jewish state? The premise of Israel is, in fact, a state defined on the basis of “ethnic terms.” You can’t have it both ways. Either American Jews should have a special ethnic/cultural/religious connection to Israel or they shoudn’t. If they should, than opinions about Israel which you deem to be desirable or undesirable can be “imputed” to them. If they shouldn’t, than you have unwittingly joined forces with MM and others who reject the idea that Jews ever needed a national polity of their own.
March 30th, 2008 at 8:44 am
“”"So what is Israel? Is it a Jewish state or not?”"”
Yes.
“”"Should it be a Jewish state?”"”
If a majority of Israelis want it to be. So far, the answer is yes.
“”"The premise of Israel is, in fact, a state defined on the basis of “ethnic terms.” You can’t have it both ways. Either American Jews should have a special ethnic/cultural/religious connection to Israel or they shoudn’t.”"”
I don’t dispute any of that.
“”"If they should, than opinions about Israel which you deem to be desirable or undesirable can be “imputed” to them.”"”
I don’t have any problem with imputing positive characteristics about Jews. They are loyal, hard-working, patriotic, etc.
It is imputing negative characteristics to Jews that gives me a problem.
“”"If they shouldn’t, than you have unwittingly joined forces with MM and others who reject the idea that Jews ever needed a national polity of their own.”"”
I don’t see why that is the case. If someone wants to criticize the Israeli government, great. If someone wants to criticize supporters of the Israeli government, great.
If someone wants to criticize Jews as a group for supporting the Israeli government, I see that as negative.
In addition, such ethnic appeals, Group X is acting wrongly, can backfire. Members of Group X can think, Oh, I do that, do I? Well if that is what I do then I am going to do it some more.
Accusing Moslems in general of being indifferent to terrorism doesn’t convince any Moslems not to support terrorism. Why not just attack supporters of violent jihad? Or supporters of an Islamic state?
That way Moslems who don’t support terrorism can think, that’s not me.