semitism.net

Gathering with family and friends to celebrate Passover
often leads to discussion and consideration of the place of Israel and the
Jewish community in the world. Through
the prism of slavery and exodus, we learn how far we have traveled since
leaving Egypt, how far we still have to go, and what our individual roles can
be in getting us all where we would like to be. But, it seems, not everyone learns the same lessons. ..

As I wrote last week, we have come far. Here in the American Jewish community, our
collective living standards and our country’s support for Israel and Jewish
causes around the world stand at levels likely unthinkable to most of our
forebears who made the journey to this country. 

But this is not our grandparents’ America, nor their Israel,
and quite simply, I (and I think many others) believe our role in pushing
forward has changed. Plain and simple,
the question that separates the left from the mainstream is what that role is.

Last week, AIPAC’s Executive Director Howard Kohr helped
define the role, in essence the responsibility, he and others in the mainstream
see for Israel and the American Jewish community in dealing with perhaps the
greatest challenge of all: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Occupation,
the reality of what has happened in Israel and Palestine in the last 38, 57,
105 years. 

Nothing. 

When Mr. Kohr spoke before the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee
of the House Appropriations Committee last week, according to the prepared
testimony available on the AIPAC website, he did so with a
"glimmer of optimism about the future of Israeli/Palestinian
relations." Why the optimism? Well, first and foremost, no Israelis were
killed by terrorists in the month of March. And surely this is reason to be optimistic, and relieved. 

But no surprise that AIPAC would tie optimism to Israeli
casualties. It has been noted by many
commentators over time (I think most effectively by writers for the Electronic
Intifada) that, for
example, the media’s use of the terms “quiet” and "relative calm" in
the Middle East nearly always refers to how many Israelis have been killed,
paying no mind to how many Palestinians have been injured or killed, had their
homes demolished or lives disrupted, etc.

Mr. Kohr then qualified his optimism. After describing the lengths Prime Minister
Sharon has been going to in pushing through his disengagement plan, Mr. Kohr
told the committee that, for the plan to be a success, "everyone has a
role to play." 

So, who is "everyone?" The international community (providing economic resources), the
Arab States (making good on what they owe the Palestinians), Egypt (helping
push PA reforms and securing the border), the Palestinians (reforming their
security services, their economy, their political structure) and the United
States (supporting Israel and working with the PA). 

How about Israel? How about the Jewish community? The American people as a whole? 

Apparently, according to the view of Mr. Kohr and AIPAC,
they – we — have no role to play, no responsibility for the future. PM Sharon introduced the disengagement plan,
and that seems to the whole of it. Now,
it’s everyone else’s problem.

I will not address here the ways in which Israel and the
American Jewish community are utterly responsible for the situation, for what
has happened, for what continues to happen and what will happen until the day
there is peace in Israel and Palestine and the bloodshed truly ends. Click on any number of the links on this
website, and you can learn far more than I could ever recite about the
reality(ies), and in a more poignant and painful way. 

But what I will address is everyone who agrees with Mr.
Kohr: Everyone who stands up at their
local synagogue, or JCC, or university when someone – Jew or non-Jew — speaks
about the situation from a different perspective than AIPAC’s and responds to
the presentation of reality with "What about the terrorists?" and
accuses the speaker of anti-Semitism; Everyone who responds to CAMERA or
similar "media watch" group’s directives to inundate NPR or other
media outlets with criticism – and more charges of anti-Semitism — for every
editorial choice with which they disagree; Everyone who turns a blind eye to
the radical Christian right’s support of Israel because, well, it’s support of
Israel, notwithstanding what lies behind their overall agenda; Everyone who
contributes to Jewish organizations, now including some parts of Federation,
who send supplies to the settlements because, well, we know the settlements are
an obstacle to peace, but aren’t the Palestinians a bigger obstacle? Everyone who remains silent about all of it,
and cedes their voice, their money and their vote to AIPAC and others because,
well, the issues are too complicated and you must always do what you’re told is
support of Israel.

And my question back is simple – why? Why must it be this way? Why must "support" for Israel
really mean never criticizing Israel, no matter what it does? Why
"support" means absolving Israel for all of its actions, all of its
responsibilities? Why must “support”
mean falling in behind every mainstream organization that tells you what Israel
needs most? Why must it be up to everyone
else to deal with, and make right, what Israel – and AIPAC, AJCongress and the
rest of the American Jewish community standing behind her – has helped make
wrong? 

I in no way mean to suggest that all of the problems in the
Middle East are Israel’s fault. That
would be absurd. But is it not also
absurd to suggest that none of them are? 

This weekend, we will celebrate the Jewish people’s escape
from Egypt, from slavery, and into a wilderness where, eventually, we could be
free. As I said above, never has this
freedom meant more than it does here and now, in 21st century America.

But I would ask you to remember the next part of the
story. The 40 years. The Jewish people were condemned to wander
for 40 years, to wait until an entire generation died off, because that
generation gave into a dominant view. In Numbers 13 and 14, we learn that when 10 of 12 spies returned from
Canaan and warned that grave danger lay ahead and that the battle would surely
be lost, the people believed them, they wailed in anguish, crying out that it
would have been better to die in Egypt. They refused to question, to believe the other two spies, Caleb or
Joshua – in short, they refused to play a role in their future. They let others guide them, they saw no role
for themselves, and they forgot what they learned in Egypt. And for that, God condemned them to never
set foot in Israel. 

I may not need to be, but let me be plain: Peace, ending the
Occupation and the bloodshed, and removing all of the obstacles to a Palestinian
state is Israel’s role, the Jewish community’s role and all of our
responsibility. Regardless of what Mr.
Kohr and AIPAC tell you or Congress, it is time we accept this role.

If we don’t, if we continue to let our leaders tell us it’s
up to everyone else, we may well be roaming the desert of pain and conflict for
decades more to come. Who will accept
responsibility for that?