semitism.net

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….

Because I feel fear, confusion, pain, outrage, and responsibility when only a few around me seem to.

I feel fear at what is to come. Certainly not the fear of Israelis living with the Hizballah rockets falling on their cities and towns, wondering just how many rockets there are, and what Nasrallah means with his rhetoric of having much more in store. And certainly nothing like the fear of the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese who have already been forced from their homes, or the remaining millions afraid of what is to come, with word spreading that Israel may be planning a ground invasion (but don’t worry, another occupation is not planned), their country held hostage by two forces they cannot control. And definitely not the fear of the Palestinians, who have again had their fear and pain and deaths ignored while the world turns elsewhere. And finally nothing like the fear of the Israeli Arabs who, yet again, are not defended, hardly even mentioned, by anyone, yet suffer from all sides just the same. My fear is felt on behalf of all of them, of the whole region, in not knowing what is to come, but knowing that little of it will be good.

And I feel fear at the future of my own American Jewish community, for standing by and watching it all happen with little more than vicarious rage and willing compliance in their eyes and voices.

I feel confused at, well, what to even feel. As usual in the Middle East , there is a lot of wrong and a bit of right to go around. Hizballah’s actions last week in capturing the soldiers, and their continued assault on civilian areas, must be condemned, and its ability to continue on as a force capable of this terror and destruction must be brought to an end. Hizballah must not be allowed to condemn the Palestinians to a fate of terminal occupation. And it seems nearly all of the world did and does agree with those sentiments. How to avoid saying and feeling that we want to see them eliminated?

But then there is Israel ’s response. At a moment when that world feeling and outrage could have been mobilized in support of Israel, to have the world possibly do what it often will not, when Israel could have maintained something of a moral position, when Israel could have at least prepared its citizens and those of Lebanon for what might occur if the world did fail again to step in, it decided to throw that all away and respond with immediate and brutal force — in both Lebanon and Gaza. To yet again forget its myriad past failures to win peace through war, its thousands of dead soldiers and civilians, its thousands of innocent victims, its forsaken allies, its wasted years, its future derailed by a preoccupation with force.

Then there is the official U.S. response of, essentially, let ‘em fight. As if Israel’s stated goals will actually come to fruition. As if standing by while the region plunges into chaos is in our national interest. As if diplomacy means siding with terrorists.

How to make sense of any of it? How to have all of these feelings together — “do something,” “do nothing,” “do anything but that”? How to take none of the more clearly articulated sides in the fight and yet still try to do something about it? How to understand how seductive a force amnesia is for all of us?

How to know whether everything I am feeling is just an overreaction, or at least the all-too-easy critical reaction of someone who does not have to make the decisions, but who can spend all of my time questioning them? How to know whether, if my policy options were actually followed, things might not be infinitely worse, as everyone else around me says they would be? How to know whether I am simply wrong?

I feel pain, feel compassion, for the dead, for the wounded, for their families, their friends, for the dead and wounded to come, for all of the lost opportunities and futures.

I feel pain for the communities on all sides of this disaster that have mobilized for decades to lead to this moment, to a moment when it could happen without any audible objections.

So much pain.

I feel outrage at “leaders” like Rep. Brad Sherman of California . Rep. Sherman, known, among other things, for his belief in the labeling of NPR as “National Palestinian Radio,” has staked out the position that Israel’s use of force may be disproportionate, but if so, only because Israel should be using more force. His press releases have said so, and he repeated this again at yesterday’s rally. Yes, this Democrat on the House International Relations Committee says, more force.

As with so many other in Congress, he is more than ready to see young Israelis sacrifice their lives to kill more Arabs for the goals that he espouses on a stage but that he is unwilling to really make happen in Congress, like saying that trade with China and Russia should be conditioned on those countries’ relations with Iran. He knows full well that the American economy could not withstand such an act, and certainly not the economy of southern California, but why should such realities matter when a political leader has that rarest of opportunities to whip up a crowd in support of, essentially, unlimited bloodshed, with no discernible opposition, because that bloodshed allegedly has a justifiable purpose?

I feel outrage at my community that has, once again, put aside Judaism for Israel (or, rather, for the Israeli government and military). There are many ways that Judaism — or at least excerpted Jewish texts — can end up explaining and even justifying what is happening. But the essence of Judaism is struggle with God, with faith, with justice, and there is a breathtaking lack of internal struggle in our community right now about what is right or just. The only struggle seems to be to see which organization can send out the most e-mail alerts or letters to Congress, can raise the most money, can rush to defend Israel the loudest and clearest. American Judaism has been transformed from Torah and Talmud study to talking points and fundraising appeals. There appeared to be more IDF-logo t-shirts at yesterday’s rally than any emblem of Judaism, or of peace, or of humanity.

And we wonder why our young people feel alienated from any connection to Israel, don’t understand what the rest of us are talking about? For every young American Jew who felt compelled by the mythology learned in Hebrew School or elsewhere to come support Israel at yesterday’s rally, another 2 or 3 are walking away, silently, wanting no part of the bloodshed, of the mindlessness, of the monolithic thinking.

We should all be ashamed.

I feel outrage at what I can hear in the response to the last paragraphs — why don’t you complain about the reaction of Muslims, of Arabs, of their youth, or about the other side at all, or understand that some things must be done for now, just for now, to make everything safer later? What else can Israel do?

Because while their general response may not be better (by chanting “Israel is a terrorist state” at a march in front of the White House, for example), my Judaism is not, and cannot be, dependent on the actions and reactions of Arabs and Muslims, or on a framework of “not now, later.”

Our story, our destiny, our future as Jews is not to be a light of the worst of other nations, but to be a light unto the nations. What sort of light are we now? As Dr. King told us, a time like this is precisely when the measure and nature of that light must be examined.

Hillel did not say “If not now, okay, then later” — he demanded of us “If not now, when?” When, he asked, when? When, indeed? When will it stop because that, in the end, is what Israel must do. Stop.

But most of all, I feel responsible. Sure, I have written a few letters to the editor, some e-mails, some blog posts. Sure, I have done some volunteer work with peace/anti-occupation organizations over the years, have accompanied Israeli military refusers to the Hill, helped organize speaking events and meetings at which refusers and other activists could to talk to people and explain why America and the American Jewish community must change its course. Not just for the Palestinians, or now for the Lebanese, but ultimately for
Israel and Israelis.

Big deal. America hasn’t changed, and neither has the Jewish community. If anything, things feel worse than before, because now they are not even questioning why, saying that there is no need to even listen to anyone else, any other voice.

Perhaps it is the height of selfishness to look at myself at moments like this. No time for that, I should say. But in these circumstances, individual acts feel foreign, feel useless. Perhaps that is why I am no leader.

So still I ask, could I have done more? Could we all have done more? So few people even know there is such a movement of American Jews who disagree with these Israeli policies — and do so on the basis of their belief in and love for the idea of Israel — in the United States , and even fewer hear our voice. What more can I do, can we do, because no matter some of our successes and goals met, we must see that we still have so, so far to go?

And our failure to reach our goal means that the tragedy in Israel , Lebanon, and Palestine goes nearly unchallenged. It means that no one in Lebanon or Palestine knows there are some from within the other side who are trying to help. That so few in Israel enjoy the real benefit of our position in the United States, and what it could really mean, i.e. helping Israel through its most difficult of times with support consisting of more than it does now — which is watching its citizens die, and kill. And sending our moral and financial support for that to continue. Instead, we could be the bulwark of support in a country standing by an ally that recognizes it needs to take hard, difficult, costly, unpopular decisions, ones that may look bleak in the short term, but that are the only choice in the long term.

The failure to reach our goals by 2006 means that, today, we have no voice. We are deaf, mute, and paralyzed. If Israeli peace activists want to find out who to go to in the
U.S. that can help them come here to do more than demand change, but actually help find it, what do we tell them? They need us for this, just as Israel needs the U.S. in order to change, but all we can really say is that there are 50, 100, 200 groups, and not one that can actually do anything for you right now but feel your pain, or tell you where to find a few people who might want to join you in a vigil.

It is time to figure out why that is, and how we can do better.

Someday, my 21-month old son will ask me the question that every parent growing up in a time of strife (and find me one parent who has not) fears hearing — he will ask me what I did to stop it.

Maybe I will try to glamorize what I was able to do in the past. Maybe I will show him some of what I have written in the past. Maybe I will tell him about the refusers I helped in some small way, or better, tell him about their bravery, their courage. A photo of me in a protest somewhere.

I will definitely tell him of the others in Israel, in the U.S., throughout the world, who have done and given so much, who have given everything of themselves, to try to put an end to all of this, and how he should learn from and admire them.

I can only hope he looks at me and says he can do better. That he asks me why I didn’t do more. That he blames me for not seeing to its fruition what I believed in, or at least what I thought needed to be done to try to make it there. There may be many good reasons why I didn’t or couldn’t — his existence being the best of them — but that is still no answer.

Because if he does tell me he can do better, then maybe he will do what I couldn’t. Maybe he will take the good intentions I had and make them reality. I plan to take him to stand in front of the Israeli Embassy this Sunday morning, the 2 of us with a sign of peace, with pleas for Judaism, for mercy, for sanity to return to us. I plan to stand there and explain to him what I tried to do. Maybe there will be a few others there to join us, or maybe it will just be the security forces on 24-hour patrol there.

Most of all, I plan to ask him to take over. Because it now looks as if we must start preparing his generation, yet another generation, to try to achieve what our generation has again failed to.