Archive for August, 2006

After Lebanon, what does “pro-Israel” mean?

Published by
Brad Brooks-Rubin
August 23, 2006 in All Posts. 1 Comment

The fall-out from the Lebanon War has simply been breathtaking, in the breadth and complexity of issues raised. Over half of the Israeli public looks back, sees the hostages not returned, Hizballah’s reputation growing by leaps and bounds in Lebanon and the Arab world, and says that nothing was gained from the bombing. There are loud calls for the resignation or termination of the Prime Minister, the Defense Minister, the IDF Chief of Staff. There are inquiries into the Chief of Staff’s stock deals as the war was getting underway. A few soldiers sit in jail for their refusal to go to Lebanon, others issue petitions and protest that they were not allowed to fight, most Israelis question what has become of their once-vaunted, seemingly invincible army. Beloved author David Grossman’s son killed, along with 30+ others, in terribly bungled operations in the “three terrible days” before the cease fire. The Finance Ministry reports that billions are needed for reconstruction, that pre-war planning and preparation of the citizenry were disastrous. Children in the north of Israel deal with PTSD, families deal with hundreds of deaths and injuries. Others wonder, louder than ever, what has happened to the Israeli left. Israeli Arabs face, as always, ostracism and Faustian bargains on all sides.

That’s a lot to digest. Many commentators opine that it will take a long time to understand just where Israel is after Lebanon — where it is as a country (including the government and army), as a people. Some, like Ari Shavit, have gone so far as to suggest that a complete, top-to-bottom examination of Israel is necessary:

Thus, the challenge of the final days of the war and of the long day that
will come immediately afterward, is to turn Israel into a sustainable state
again. To that end, all the basic questions must be reopened. To that end, a
thorough housecleaning has to be done not only in the systems of the
government, the army and the establishment but in all the systems of our
life. There must be discussion and debate, clarification and clarity. The
Israeli condition must be defined, and what that condition obliges must be
understood.

Consider this again: “The Israeli condition must be defined, and what that condition obliges must be understood.” What a massive task, an incredible admission, an even more incredible mission. To say that your society, your country needs a complete overhaul and reassessment. Certainly the range of issues at play in Israel lends support to Shavit’s theory. And none of the above even gets at the future of the conflict with the Palestinians, the settlers, the religious-secular divide, but those are, of course, as ever-present as before.

Even if you don’t agree with Shavit’s dire call for a complete overhaul, it’s indisputable that Israeli society is as tumultuous today as it has been in quite a long time. So in such a context, with these complex issues on the table, how do we in the United States know what to say or do about Israel? How do you say you are “pro-Israel” when it’s as unclear as ever what Israel itself is.

Well, it appears the answer is to not think about it, and just say you’re “pro-Israel” anyway. At least that’s what our mainstream organizations are telling our college students in the hot-off-the-presses, 130-page resource guide Focus on Israel: Tools for Education, Advocacy and Action on Campus.

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“If Israel finds peace, American Jews may lose their identity”

Published by
Brad Brooks-Rubin
August 21, 2006 in Jewish Culture, Peace Process, Israel History, Jewish Politics and All Posts. 2 Comments

If you’re like me, you had some extra time at the end of last week. As we all know, nothing much gets done in August anyway, and it seems that the entire mainstream Jewish community took last week off, probably since they had been pressed into serious overtime earlier in the month. Although I had naively been expecting the frantic stream of emails and press releases to keep up its wartime pace, I must have missed the “Urgent: Support the Cease Fire Now” messages that were coming out.

So with my Inbox quiet, I decided to take some time and look back. Many of us forget, but not that long ago, things were different in the politics of the mainstream Jewish community. The role of AIPAC and the rest of the Lobby was in real doubt, the connection between American Jews and Israel as tenuous and shaky as it has probably ever been. Looking at what was being said from that time can really help bring both the experience during Lebanon, and more importantly where we go now, into perspective.

For me, the opening to an article in the Jewish Week from 1994 sums it up:

If Israel finds peace, American Jews may lose their identity.

For me, as an American Jew, I simply refuse to allow this to be the case. It should not have been the case then, and it can’t be now. Until the opposite is true, until our identities are lost without peace, then our identities are meaningless.

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The Haunting “Joke”

Published by
Brad Brooks-Rubin
August 17, 2006 in Israeli Politics, Personal Reflections and All Posts. 0 Comments

There is always one image, one quote, one moment from a war that sticks with you, even when you are thousands of miles away from the actual fighting. In this era of being able to see and hear so much of the fighting on TV, read so much about it in the news and blogosphere and on e-mails, we who are not in the middle of the fighting can basically choose to pay as much or as little attenion to war as we choose. For me, the one line that will stick with me from this war was actually not about Lebanon at all.

There were many haunting images and feelings, of course. The scenes of destroyed Lebanese villages, the sounds of Katyushas landing in Israel, Israelis huddled in bomb shelters. The muted, purposeful silence and paralysis of the Bush Administration. Those will stay for years, but for me, I still think about what I read in an article called “For Troops, A Sense of Moral Clarity,” in which Scott Wilson of the Washington Post interviewed a number of soldiers, past and present, about Lebanon. The answers were typical of the feelings 10 days into the war, answers that may be slightly different now. But one soldier’s thoughts hit me square in the eyes, and the bruise still lingers.

Two weeks ago, [Pvt. Alex Gronov, 21], a year and a month into his military service, was firing artillery shells into Gaza to stop rocket fire along what is now Israel’s second front. Those rockets, fired by the military wing of the radical Hamas movement that won the Palestinians’ parliamentary elections in January, are smaller and less accurate than those in Hezbollah’s arsenal. But many have fallen inside southern Israel since Hamas fighters captured an Israeli soldier in Hamas’s own June 25 cross-border raid.

To Gronov, the two fronts belong in different categories.

“This is actually war, not a joke,” said Gronov, a wiry 21-year-old from the southern city of Ashdod. “Hezbollah is far more serious, more dangerous. This is not a joke.”

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“Join in Building ‘American Jews NOT Anonymous’” Revisited

Published by
Brad Brooks-Rubin
August 16, 2006 in Personal Reflections, Activism, The Jewish Right and All Posts. 0 Comments

Steffi’s very kind and very thought-provoking comments to my last 2 posts reminded me of a post from last year, and I hope readers will indulge my thought that it might be useful to repost it and revisit the premise. You can look at the original here but I thought I would just paste the whole thing back in. And, as I say in the first paragraph below, the point of this is not just to read, but mostly to comment and add your voice, your story. I urge everyone to do so; my recent posts on the need for a change in the American Jewish community’s mainstream leadership can only truly be vindicated by a demonstration that people out there really do want a different voice. If more people have found themselves looking for a new voice, a new perspective in the last month, then perhaps this can be of some use (although I have not edited to add anything about Lebanon specifically).

New post to come tomorrow, but in the meantime, please add your comment.

Join in Building “American Jews NOT Anonymous”
May 4, 2005 on 3:35 pm | In Activism, Jewish Culture, The Jewish Right |

Have you raised an objection, or even just a question, to a heavily-biased event on the Israel/Palestine conflict, and then been castigated by your rabbi, community leaders or friends? Have you felt uncomfortable even going to services or listening to High Holiday sermons anymore because of the “Israel right or wrong” slant? Have you written a letter to the editor - of a newspaper, Jewish paper, magazine, newsletter, etc. — critical of some aspect of Israeli policy in the Palestinian Territories and then been slammed for doing so, making you question whether you would do so again? Have you dropped out and become unaffiliated altogether because of a monolithic tone or tenor in the community, or in the public sphere overall, on Israel that makes you uncomfortable? Then please read this post, and add your voice…

Upon rereading my last post, I suddenly was overtaken with a feeling of dread. Have I become (or maybe I have been for years already) just another embittered guy on the American Jewish left, ranting about the same old things as everyone else, paying no heed to everyone else’s “optimism” on the ground? Wah wah, the big bad “mainstream organizations” won’t play fair and include our voices. Wah wah, the American Jewish community’s public voices stand to the right of Sharon now, adhering to the narrowest notions of “support” for Israel. Wah wah wah.

And then as I reread Andrew’s reports of his trip to Palestine last month, I realized that, although I may be just another bitter guy on the left, us bitter (or not so bitter) folk still have so much work to do.

But we can’t do it alone.

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Food Court Generals

Published by
Brad Brooks-Rubin
August 15, 2006 in Personal Reflections, Activism and All Posts. 1 Comment

Last weekend, my family and I decided, at pretty much the last minute, to go to the National Aquarium in Baltimore. It’s about a 45-minute ride in our car from where we live just outside DC, and we took one of the nation’s major highways to get there. We had to get some gas, of course. The Aquarium, if you have never been there, is a magical place. Incredible displays, almost incomprehensible dolphin show (you should have seen my 22-month-old exulting at a dolphin flying through the air, while also trying to understand how it was possible), and thousands of visitors from all over the country come every day. Pretty normal day for a very lucky, very privileged family in the United States in 2006.

In a few weeks, we’ll be commemorating the 5th anniversary of September 11. Everything here was supposed to change after that day; trips like the one we took were not supposed to be routine anymore. We had supposedly lost our innocence.

And maybe we all do stop and think every once in awhile, about the fact that we could be in danger at any moment at the hands of people we do not really understand, for reasons that we do not really, as a nation, comprehend. The immediacy of the danger, the ferocity of the people behind it, the solutions at our disposal –they are all different than any we have faced before.

And obviously everythng did change for the families and friends of the thousands killed in New York, DC, and Pennsylvania. And it did change for much of the Muslim community in the US, which faced some immediate retaliatory discrimination and violence and, still today, has to take a bit more caution.

But how much has really changed for the rest of us, for the “average” American? How many of us choose not to take trips like the one my family and I took last week, or even modify them in any way from what they would have looked like in August 2001 (other than because gas is $3+ a gallon) because of 9/11-related, terrorism-based danger? What is truly different about our routines?

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Israel! Israel! Praise the Lord!

Published by
Brad Brooks-Rubin
August 12, 2006 in Personal Reflections, The Jewish Right, Zionism, Jewish Politics, Judaism and All Posts. 5 Comments

If you are an American Jew who has unambiguously supported the nature and extent of Israel’s military response in Lebanon (it remains to be seen what those will be after today’s UN vote), who is proud to be a part of the “zero dissent” community, who is contributing to emergency funds of American Jewish organizations without a second thought about how or where your money will be spent, I have only one request. The next time you are flipping channels and come upon a Christian televangelist, especially one who is healing the faithful, then I ask you to just stop and watch for awhile. Try not to shake your head or mock, but rather pay close attention.

Because that is now who you are.

Several years ago, I went through an obsession with Christian evangelists and revivalists, both of modern times and of the early 20th century. Growing up as a middle class, educated American Jew in suburban Philadelphia, the obsession began in my early 20s from plain curiosity: I simply could not understand the kind of faith, the nature of theology that could lead people to follow these preachers, to believe so wholly and completely in their every word, in the brand of Jesus they taught. Watching the healings on television became a near ritual for me; I was captivated by the people dropping to the floor and writhing, muttering in tongues, claiming to see from eyes long blind, all from the mere touch of the hand of their preacher.

Shaking my head in disbelief, sometimes mocking as if this was the professional wrestling version of religion, I was always somewhat jealous. My Jewish (such as it was) and secular educational experiences had always taught me to question, to be skeptical of such beliefs, to reject “just swallow this” messages, to shun movements like these, which so clearly fly in the face of modern reality, of Jewish teaching. But, “wow,” I thought, how amazing it must be to really believe like this, to throw modernity away and dive in to a revival. To swallow it all and believe you really do feel better and are saved.

As I listened to the news of the Israeli cabinet’s decision to expand the ground war, for some reason, I thought back to those preachers. And then to the “Stand with Israel” rally I attended in DC a few weeks back and wrote about previously. To the “support Israel” emails I get non-stop, most of which also ask for my money. To the chorus of “don’t question their decisions” that continues a month in to the action that was first going to last 2 weeks, then 10-14 more days, and now, if the ground war expands, at least 30 more days.

The leadership of the American Jewish community — and, for the first time, with the help of those same evangelical Christians — are leading us in an old-fashioned, big tent revival combined with a modern, Oral Roberts-style tearful plea. And I think I am missing out on what may be my one Jewish chance to be healed and saved; that is, no matter which way I head these days in the pro-Israel world — Jewish or Christian right — it looks like I am going to Hell.

Think about it. Christian evangelists (or, frankly, evangelists of any religion, but Christians have been the most prevalent in America) are most successful when they preach three things: there is grave and imminent mortal danger; we have a choice in how to deal with the danger; there is salvation for those who choose the right (i.e., our) way, damnation for those who don’t. And imbuing all of it is a plea for money to support both the way and the message.

Let’s see, in painful (and lengthy) detail, how our American Jewish evangelists on Israel work within this paradigm.

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Five Israeli Soldiers in Jail for Refusing to go to Lebanon

Published by
Brad Brooks-Rubin
August 9, 2006 in All Posts. 0 Comments

Unfortunately do not have time to post much more on this at this time, but wanted to make sure everyone was aware, since it has not been widely reported, that 5 Israeli reservists are now serving in Israeli military prison for refusing to go to Lebanon (as reservists, they serve between 14-28 days, whatever the length of their intended call-up was). Details on the 5 can be found here at the Yesh Gvul website. Yesh Gvul, of course, is the veteran Israeli refuser group that was founded in 1982, during the first Lebanon War.

It is important to note that one of the 5 is Itamar Shapira, younger brother of Yonatan and Zohar Shapira, both heroes of the refuser movement. I have written previously about Yonatan, leader of the Israeli Air Force pilot refusers in 2003, on this site, and you can find a number of other fascinating interviews with him on-line: 2 recent ones on Democracy Now here and here and his appearance on the WBUR/NPR show “The Connection” that he did during a 2004 tour. Zohar led the 13 members of the elite Sayeret Matkal brigade when they announced their refusal to serve in the Territories in late 2003. Both Yonatan and Zohar have been instrumental in the creation of Combatants for Peace, a joint group of former Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters who have come together to call for non-violence — in both societies. And now their younger brother is in jail, refusing “for the security of the citizens of Israel.”

I will say 3 quick things. First, in light of the Cabinet decision today to expand the ground war, we can expect more to follow these 5, and I will do my best to keep an update going. Probably not very many, though, as most who do not want to go can find a silent way to do it that no one will see but the soldier and the commander. Or soldiers will find a way to refuse during the war, as Yonatan reported today on Democracy Now (confirming earlier news reports), recounting that 2 pilots have deliberately missed targets to avoid civilian casualties. Second, if you are outside Israel and want to know how you can support these 5, and all of the refusers, visit the Refuser Solidarity Network.

Finally, my son will have a brother or sister come January, and I am freaked out about it. Hard enough raising one, how on earth to raise 2 children to become good people in this world? I have already been trying to focus on the refusers as overall models, but the news now of Itamar Shapira choosing to go to jail rather than Lebanon, that 3 refuser leaders have come from one family, is all I need to know.

And I hope more and more people in the world — especially in Palestine and Lebanon — will look to the Shapira brothers as the future through which we can build our dreams of peace.

Brad

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