Here is a moving email I just received from my friend Brad Brooks Rubin: a report on Jewish activism against the bombing of Lebanon, and on his own struggle with the moral implications of Israel’s actions:
Not sure who to send this to, or how, or even why. What will it matter, after all? But hopefully someone will find it worth reading. It’s not more analysis, not more justification — and not short — but an explanation and a plea.
From where I write this, I can see the White House. Yesterday, with my sign saying “Cease Fire Now,” I could see the Capitol just 14 blocks away and was within yards of powerful members of Congress like Sam Brownback, of Maryland Governor Ehrlich, of James Hagee, the leader of the newest group to rush to Washington to defend Israel, Christians United for Israel, of influential rabbis and Jewish community leaders, and heard nothing more than rabble rousing and modified campaign speeches. I was surrounded by thousands of American Jews, by television cameras, by reporters furiously taking notes for their stories on how loudly everyone in sight supports Israel’s right to do whatever it needs to against Hizballah, against Hamas, against whomever it decides to (except for the one who did decide to talk to me). And, amidst a sea of people who, when you take their talking points and rallying cries to their end, were gathering to support policies that will mean more pain for Israel, I was the one who was told to move across the street because my message was not welcome, that I should go to Hell for wanting to see my people destroyed.
I am just about as close, physically, as anyone else to the array of parties in the United States that are helping us contribute as a nation to making the conflict in Lebanon
worse and worse by the minute. I am just about as close, physically, as anyone else to the people who could decide to make a difference in how this country responds to the crisis, and by very direction extension then, to the crisis itself.
And I feel as if I am on — or maybe should go to — Mars…. |inline
