Israel is going to the Polls – But not yet!

Posted on May 8, 2012 by

Nothing is certain in Israel until it is certain, and even then it is not necessarily so.

We went to bed with the expectation that elections would take place in September only to awake this morning to a national unity government including the Kadima party and comprising no less than three-quarters of the members of the Knesset.

All the political commentators without exception have been caught wrong footed and the low esteem in which most Israelis hold politicians has been re-enforced by a crafty manoeuvre, or what we call a kombina, which Prime Minister Netanyahu must have been devising while he was still sitting shiva for his father.

Without holding elections, Netanyahu has broadened his coalition. This will enable him to pass legislation to replace the Tal Law dealing with the drafting of the ultra orthodox charedim without fear of the collapse of his government.

As the price for joining the coalition, Kadima’s leader, Shaul Mofaz, has demanded that the charedim undertake military or national service, that progress be made in negotiations with the Palestinians and that Israel’s convoluted electoral system be reformed. Few believe that all of these clauses in the coalition agreement will be honoured.

The real winners of this kombina are Netanyahu and Mofaz, whose Kadima party would have lost many of its Knesset seats in the forthcoming elections.

It is hard to believe that Mofaz wrote on Facebook just two months ago: “Listen carefully. I won’t join Bibi’s government – not today, not tomorrow and not after I become the leader of Kadima on March 28. This is a bad government…. Kadima under my leadership will replace it at the next elections. Is that clear enough?”

For the time being, at least, Netanyahu can relax and enjoy a level of political stability that must be the envy of his counterparts in democracies around the world.

Whether it is good for Israeli politics and democracy is quite another matter.

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Israel is going to the Polls

Posted on May 7, 2012 by

Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to go to the polls and hold elections on September 4 came as a surprise to most Israelis.

With a total of no less than 74 members, the current government has enjoyed a degree of stability relatively unfamiliar to Israeli politics. Furthermore, with the main opposition party, Kadima, having ousted Tzipi Livni as its leader just six weeks ago and replaced her with Shaul Mofaz, who enjoys little popularity with the electorate, one could well ask why Netanyahu should be in such a hurry to go to the polls.

His coalition partners are unlikely to benefit from elections, which estimates suggest will cost the Israeli tax payer around two-thirds of a billion US dollars, and at first sight one might well wonder what is it all about?

However, the moment one begins to scratch the surface, things appear less rosy.

Firstly, there is what has become known as the Tal Law named after former Supreme Court Justice Tzvi Tal, who headed the commission that formulated the Bill granting ultra-orthodox, charedi Jews exemption from military service. On February 21, 2012, the High Court of Justice ruled the Law to be unconstitutional.

Any attempt to introduce legislation that would have forced the charedim to undertake military or national service of some kind would have immediately led to the collapse of the present government with the withdrawal of Shas (11 MK’s) and United Torah Judaism (5 MK’s) from the coalition. By dissolving the present government Netanyahu is buying time, because no new legislation can now be introduced during the coming months.

Of course, he could have turned to Kadima for support, but he would have been totally dependent upon them for the survival of his government and, perhaps more importantly, he is not interested in losing favour with the religious parties.

However, there are also other issues that are coming to the boil. The massive protests last summer that led to hundreds of thousands of Israelis taking to the streets calling for social justice, lower prices and a fairer share of the nation’s wealth are beginning to re-surface.

Home prices this past year have either remained static or declined all over the country with the exception of Haifa. As a result, the sale of new apartments has fallen dramatically as people wait to see what will happen with the market. Naturally, this has significantly reduced government income resulting from the taxation on property purchases. As a result, there is already talk of the need to increase taxes to balance the budget at a time when unrest in Europe is also impacting Israel’s economy.

As the Knesset goes into recess this week in the 4-month run up to the elections, we may well witness a phenomenon that is normal in most democracies but generally unfamiliar in Israel. Whereas the focus at election time has routinely been on security issues (Should there be a Palestinian state? Are the Palestinians prepared to make peace? Should Jerusalem be divided? etc.), this time we are likely to see social and economic questions as key items in party political election propaganda.

Of course, there is always a wild card in the pack. Any major development on the Iranian front, or political unrest in Jordan, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority or the Gaza Strip would immediately put all of the other issues facing Israel back on the back burner.

However, it may well just be that Israel will now begin to address some of the major demographic and economic issues that have been neglected for far too long and whose resolution is critical to the future of the Jewish state.

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When Israel’s 64

Posted on April 26, 2012 by

David Horovitz wrote an op-ed for the Times of Israel today that is very much worth reading. He asked based upon Paul McCartney’s song essentially this question, “Now that we’re 64, what now?” Horovitz noted two domestic issues that Israel must address that are very relevant to We Are For Israel‘s mission and to most of our supporters personally.

The first is that the relationship between the Israeli government and Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Judaism cannot be maintained:

The Orthodox – increasingly ultra-Orthodox – stranglehold on life-cycle events cannot hold. And the ad hoc arrangements that have produced, for the first time in Jewish history, an entire demographic sector that has abandoned the religious requirement to join the productive workforce, cannot be sustained. It is as untenable for the willfully ill-educated, impoverished members of the ultra-Orthodox community as it is for the rest of the society that is resentfully supporting them.

We Are For Israel and its supporters, overwhelmingly Reform and Conservative Jews, are certainly in agreement with David Horovitz on this. For Israel’s future and for the future of the Jewish people, Israel must become a place where all Jews are free to practice their faith as they see fit in peace and security.

The second issue that David Horovitz raised was that of borders. Horovitz stated that:

We can no longer afford to stave off the search for consensus on our physical dimensions…The refusal of most of our enemies to acknowledge our sovereign legitimacy and adopt policies for a viable reconciliation does not free us of our need to determine our territorial requirements, and to allocate resources accordingly…We need to encourage our people to live where their presence is vital, and tell them honestly where it is counterproductive.

Israel can no longer expect real negotiations to take place. The Palestinian Authority is in no position to enter real negotiations. Therefore, the argument that more isolated settlements and outposts are being allowed to grow unmolested by the Israeli government so that they may be used as bargaining chips in negotiations, as concessions by Israel, is becoming increasingly untenable. These settlements are each a battleground between those who wish to create a two state solution and those who believe it unworthy to try to achieve one. The government of Israel cannot continue to allow those who do not support its commitment to a peaceful two state solution designed to preserve and promote the Jewish nature of Israel from sabotaging that effort out of a fanatical idealism.

Does this mean that Israel should abandon most of the West Bank and concede? No, it means that Israel should determine what it believes its borders should be, or at least what it would like them to be, in a two state solution and then plan the settlement of that territory accordingly without expending huge amounts of resources on areas that not only may not be part of the state in the future, but may be a present strategic and/or diplomatic liability.

With growing concerns about the Egyptian-Israeli peace, the terrible situation in Syria, and certainly about the prospects of Iranian nuclear weapons, Israel has the ability to simply look away from the domestic issues. There are vitally important foreign policy issues. But at 64, Israel does not have the luxury of focusing solely upon foreign policy. In the words of Hatikvah:

As long as the Jewish spirit is yearning deep in the heart,

With eyes turned toward the East, looking toward Zion,

Then our hope – the two-thousand-year-old hope – will not be lost:

To be a free people in our land,

The land of Zion and Jerusalem.

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Tobin and Cohen commentaries on the Jewish community and Sudan

Posted on April 24, 2012 by

Reblogged from Help Nuba:

Two very good commentaries to note today:

Jonathan Tobin wrote an article for Commentary Magazine in which he argued that President Obama and US policy should not abandon South Sudan. Tobin noted that US support and influence helped bring independence to South Sudan. He also pointed out that in the President’s speech given at the United States Holocaust Memorial yesterday, the President stressed “Never again!” Tobin noted that this sentiment now needs to be backed up.

Read more… 230 more words

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In Memoriam – Yom Hashoah 5772

Posted on April 19, 2012 by

This Yom Hashoah, I am reminded by two quotes from Viktor Frankl, survivor of the Shoah and author of Man’s Search for Meaning. The first is this one:

I recommend that the Statue of Liberty be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the west coast.

and the second, this:

Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.

To say that the world reacted appropriately the first time, no matter when you would like to label “the first time” would clearly be false and if by “the first time” one meant the Shoah, we can be assured of that fact. The ability to act, the liberty, did not translate into a responsibility to act and America acted wrongly the first time. The world entire acted wrongly the first time.

The world has not stopped genocide from occurring in nation after nation. We cry out “Never again!!!” but too often without acting to make that a reality. We instead mourn with those suffer while watching silently at a distance. We allow for indifference to rule the public sphere. Our response is too often that the responsibility lies with others. We forget the words of Rabbi Tarfon, who said that “It is not up to us to complete the work, but neither can we desist from it?” Daunting the task, we are nonetheless obligated to take it on. We are obligated to care.

Never again. Never again, we say. Never again will we allow ourselves or others to stand idle while our neighbor bleeds. Never again will we be hopeful that distance and disconnect relieve us of the responsibility to acts of righteousness and to fight against tyranny, oppression, and blind hatred. Never again can we allow racism to result in mass murder or even genocide. Not because of the color of our skin, nor on account of our ancestry, nor for the sake of the way in which we address divinity may we excuse such behavior. If it is not up to us to protest, then who will protest? We must speak out against those who murder innocents for any reason. There is no justification for such actions, not in supposed superiority of race or ethnicity, not because of oppression, not in quest of liberation, not for religious ideals.

Anne Frank hid in an attic in fear for her life. Today, children in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan fight a famine and hide in caves from bombs. I am not comparing the Shoah with events in Sudan, I’m comparing the world’s response to the Shoah to the world’s response to events in Sudan. Anne Frank’s family began its flight from the Nazis in 1933 when they took power in Germany. The family fled to the Netherlands in 1940. They were forced into hiding because of persecution by July of 1942. Their hiding place revealed in 1944, Anne and her sister Margot died of typhus in a concentration camp in March of 1945.

Friends, for the people of Darfur, it is 1944 already. Hundreds of thousands have died in genocide. For the people of the Nuba Mountains, it is 1943 or even early 1944. We have the chance to help, but not a long time left to do so. Many tens of thousands of lives may be saved:

  • If we make sure that humanitarian aid arrives even though the government of Sudan refuses to allow it be delivered.
  • If we prevent Antonov bombers from massacring innocents in villages and fields.
  • If we act now.

We join together with those who care to heed the call of responsibility in fellowship and common concern for the lives being lost in Sudan, innocents being killed for having the wrong skin color, wrong ethnicity, wrong faith. We must make it known that this inhumanity may not be tolerated, that national sovereignty does not grant a government the power to abuse its population without end, and that no ethnicity or religion may be exempted from criticism.

Please consider, if you have not already, signing up to receive email from the organization that I have created to spread the word about the situation in the southern part of Sudan, Help Nuba. Please spread the word in sermons, by email, in Facebook (like “Help Nuba“) and on Twitter (@HelpNuba). We cannot stand idly by. It is our hope, the hope of those with whom I am working on this project: the people of the Nuba Mountains, those from Darfur, those from Blue Nile and those from South Sudan, along with caring friends from around the world of all faiths that by learning, uniting together, and speaking out, we can make a difference. Never again! Help Nuba!

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A Passover Message – Help Nuba

Posted on April 6, 2012 by

During Passover, we remember being there as our people journeyed from slavery to freedom. We remember being there for other events in our people’s history as well. Ezer Weizmann’s 1996 speech to the Bundestagis one of the best Passover sermons, I know. I put this part into my Haggadah:

I was a slave in Egypt. I received the Torah at Mount Sinai. Together with Joshua and Elijah, I crossed the Jordan River. I entered Jerusalem with David, was exiled from it with Zedekiah, and did not forget it by the rivers of Babylon. When the Lord returned the captives of Zion, I dreamed among the builders of its ramparts. I fought the Romans and was banished from Spain. I was bound to the stake in Mainz. I studied Torah in Yemen and lost my family in Kishinev. I was incinerated in Treblinka, rebelled in Warsaw, and emigrated to the Land of Israel, the country whence I had been exiled and where I had been born, from which I come and to which I return.

We remember suffering. We remember every moment of persecution and every moment of elation. We remember those who harmed us and we remember those who helped us. The greatest sin of our age is silent indifference. We cannot stand idly by. And so, when the leaders of our local Nuba Mountain community called me on Tuesday evening and asked for an emergency meeting, I said “How soon can you meet?” When we met yesterday morning and I heard their cries, I remembered our cries. How to help?

I went straight from that meeting back to my office and created Help Nuba as a source of immediate and accurate information about the crisis. I am working with United to End Genocide as well as with leaders of the Nuba community, the Darfurian community, and the South Sudanese community not only here, but internationally to get the news out. Never again. Never again. Here is the video of Governor Ahmed Harun ordering his troops to genocide, orders that are being put in place based upon the testimony of the Nuba community:

Harun tells the troops:

You must hand over the place clean, swept, rubbed, crushed. Do not bring them back alive. We have no space for them.

A commander near by Harun says:

Do not bring them back! Eat them alive!

Harun’s response is:

Don’t create an administrative problem for us.

Then Harun whips up the troops by shouting to them:

Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready?

The soldiers respond:

Allah Hu Akbar! God is great!

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Ingroups, Outgroups and Out of Bounds

Posted on April 2, 2012 by

Peter Beinart, in his 3/18/2012 New York Times op-ed calls for a bizarre response to the insidious anti-Israel B.D.S. (Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions) movement: his very own version of B.D.S! His, of course, is morally superior. Curiously, it’s predicated on the notion that the West Bank (which he sanctimoniously wishes to rename “nondemocratic Israel”) is part of Israel, which has never been the case, with the exception of East Jerusalem. Has Beinart not heard that the Palestinian Authority controls the West Bank in cooperation with Israeli security forces — yes cooperation — with its headquarters in Ramallah? Has he not heard that trade and commerce between the West Bank and Israel are thriving? (He should visit Jenin on a Sunday to see all the Israeli shoppers flocking to its markets.) Would Beinart like to dismantle all the Israeli-Palestinian co-existence organizations that do not adhere strictly to his definition of the “green line” (yes, he has his own definition)? Are we surprised that Beinart places all the blame at Israel’s feet and nowhere mentions Palestinian terrorism, or intransigence and refusal to come to the bargaining table, let alone legitimate Israeli security needs? Rather than considering history — or the future for that matter! — Beinart is stuck in an eternal present defined by his “ingroup” and his perception of the “outgroup,” combined with a mammoth dose of “Jewish guilt” that goes something like this: Jews should never be in the position of having power over anyone else. Maybe celebrating Pesach will remind him what happens when Jews are utterly powerless.

If you ever spent any time on the playground in third grade, or in the cafeteria in seventh grade — places where those who hold the reins of power are easy to discern — you already know a great deal about social identity theory even if you don’t know the fancy lingo that accompanies this field of social psychology pioneered by Henri Trajfel. We humans have a proclivity to form “ingroups” (people with whom we identify and toward whom we have an affinity) and “outgroups” (who are often the subject of our contempt, opposition, and with whom we feel ourselves to be in competition). This all-too-human proclivity breeds prejudices, cronyism and collective narcissism.

Social identity theorists tell us, however, that our individual attitudes and behavior are not determined solely by our “ingroup.” Rather they lie along a continuum between interpersonal behavior and intergroup behavior. In simpler terms: I’m not an automaton of my social group; I choose my attitudes and opinions depending upon how I value and privilege my individual relationships and my membership in a social grouping.

Perhaps the most striking example is one I heard from a man whose family had had been saved by a Christian family during the Holocaust. His elderly grandmother went to the park each day and sat on a bench with another elderly woman, a Christian lady. That’s it. That’s the whole Torah. Here is the commentary: Each day these two old women sat together for an hour talking about their children and grandchildren. They did not visit one another’s homes. Their families never met or socialized. Yet these daily conversations imbued the Christian woman with a deep sense that this Jew was a human being in “her world” about whom she cared. At her insistence, the Christian woman’s family saved the Jewish family. The individual relationship trumped membership in a social grouping — all because two elderly women sat together for an hour each day on a park bench.

This Shabbat we pause in the cycle of Torah readings for the special reading designated for the first day of Pesach. Exodus 12:21-51 recounts the Tenth Plague, from the selection of lambs and gathering of hyssop to dip in the blood and smear on the lintels, to the horrifying account of the death of the firstborn sons of Egypt: “their” children die, but “our” children do not. The ultimate powerless people will be avenged from heaven. From the outset, Moses reminds the people earlier in chapter 12 that what they are doing in crisis mode at that moment, will set the stage for a yearly national remembrance of their redemption. What they do then to protect themselves from the Angel of Death they will repeat and incorporate into a series of practices designed to teach the next generation (and in every generation, the intent is to teach “the next generation”) of God’s capacity for redemption.

This day shall be to you one of remembrance: you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord throughout the ages; you shall celebrate it as an institution for all time…You shall observe the [Feast of] Unleavened Bread, for on this day I brought your ranks out of the land of Egypt; you shall observe this day throughout the ages as an institution for all time… (Exodus 12: 16, 17)
So far, we presume that Moses is addressing the Israelites. But wait:

No leaven shall be found in your houses for seven days. For whoever eats what is leavened, that person shall be cut off from the community of Israel, whether he is a stranger (ger) or a citizen (ezrach) of the country. (Exodus 12:19)
And further in the same chapter:
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron: This is the law of the passover offering: No foreigner (ben neikhar) shall eat of it. But any slave (eved ish) a man has bought may eat of it once he has been circumcised. No bound (toshav) or hired laborer (sakhir) shall eat of it. It shall be eaten in one house: you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house; nor shall you break a bone of it. The whole community of Israel (adat Yisrael) shall offer it. If a stranger (ger) who dwells with you would offer the passover to the Lord, all his males must be circumcised; then he shall be admitted to offer it; he shall be as a citizen of the country (ezrach ha-aretz). But no uncircumcised person may eat of it. There shall be one law (torah achat) for the citizen (ezrach) and for the stranger (ger) who dwells among you. (Exodus 12:43-49)
Torah both acknowledges “ingroups” and “outgroups” but seeks to teach that the boundaries are permeable. People are not “other” if their intent is peaceful and they live their lives with you as neighbors and friends. All rights of citizenship apply to the ger (the resident alien) as much as to any Jew. Torah teaches us that our view should be mediated by how people behavior toward us: are they good friends and neighbors, or do they treat us as the enemy. Our arms and minds should be open, our boundaries permeable.

Peter Beinart seems to have missed this lesson. His “outgroup” is demarcated by the Green Line — a line on a map that he fails to understand was an armistice line (a cease-fire line) and never intended to be a permanent border. In his propensity to ignore history in favor ideology, Beinart has ossified it, as he has calcified his views of what a Jewish nation is. So a quick review:

The 1949 Israel-Egyptian agreement specifically states: “The Armistice Demarcation Line is not to be construed in any sense as a political or territorial boundary, and is delineated without prejudice to rights, claims and positions of either Party to the Armistice as regards ultimate settlement of the Palestine question.” The Jordanian-Israeli agreement is similar.

Prof. Stephen M Schwebel who, in 1967 was deputy legal advisor to the U.S. Department of State, wrote in the American Journal of International Law (1970) that “…modifications of the 1949 armistice lines among those States within former Palestinian territory are lawful (if not necessarily desirable), whether those modifications are… ‘insubstantial alterations required for mutual security’ or more substantial alterations — such as recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the whole of Jerusalem.” In a footnote, he wrote: “It should be added that the armistice agreements of 1949 expressly preserved the territorial claims of all parties and did not purport to establish definitive boundaries between them.”

We all want to see a peaceful and just resolution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. It will only be achieved when we can look beyond “ingroups” and “outgroups” and see human beings with legitimate rights, needs, and aspirations.

Oh, and by the way, you might find it interesting to know that Henri Trajfel, the British social psychologist who pioneered social identity theory was born Mersz Mordche in 1919 in Poland. Facing restrictions placed on Jews seeking education, he left Poland to study chemistry at the Sorbonne. When World War II broke out, he volunteered to serve in the French army. Within a year, he was taken prisoner by the Germans and rode out the rest of the war in a series of POW camps. At the end of the war, Trajfel learned that his entire family and most of his friends in Poland had been murdered by the Nazis. He dedicated the remainder of his life to studying the psychology and interplay of bigotry and intergroup relations.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

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One State Options?

Posted on March 28, 2012 by

There are those who argue that the possibility of a two state solution is eroding, that the more settlements grow and the longer that there is an absence of an agreement, the less likely it is that any two state solution could be achieved. These individuals tend to argue that the result of such failure would be a bi-national democratic state (not Jewish) or a Jewish state in which the Arab population would not have full rights as citizens (nondemocratic).

There are also those who argue that no two state solution makes sense, that the sides will never be able to agree on any division of the land, that all the land belongs to the Jews anyway and that the solution is for the Palestinian population to find freedom elsewhere. These individuals are generally fundamentalists, either Jewish or Christian.

Finally, there are those who argue that all the land belongs to the Arabs and that any recognition of Israel is unfathomable. These individuals will continue to work for the destruction of the Jewish state after any peace agreement might be signed.

The reality is that no single state solution has ever been or could be possible without first fighting a war. There would be massive bloodshed in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank the moment anyone tries to create a single state. The ensuing war would involve nations from throughout the region joining against the Jews in an attempt to force the Jews from the land. At the same time, the Jews, quite likely along with Druze and other minorities, would fight back, potentially forcing large scale flight of the majority of the Palestinian population.

Hence, a single state solution would not result in a “bi-national democratic state” as described by advocates such as John Mearsheimer, but instead in a state dominated by a single ethnic group after the defeat and flight of the other. After such a war, there could well be a Jewish democratic state on the entirety of the land with a limited minority population, but getting there would hellish and the humanitarian consequences (a horrific refugee situation as well as high death totals) would be awful as well as leading to condemnation of the Jewish state for generations to come. There are those who might wish to pursue this option out of zealotry. I do not believe that many in Israel would be willing to do so, but those who might should not be seen as promoting a policy healthy for the nation.

There is no realistic single state solution. The true alternatives to a two state solution are the following:

  • A THREE state solution with an independent Gaza opposed by an independent West Bank with Israel in the middle,
  • A THREE state solution with an independent West Bank opposed by an Egyptian controlled Gaza with Israel in the middle,
  • A THREE state solution with an Egyptian controlled Gaza and a Jordanian controlled West Bank (a smaller version than Jordan controlled previously), or
  • A STATE-SEMI-STATE solution, basically maintaining the status quo indefinitely.

In a State-Semi-State solution the current situation wherein Palestinians have a semi-state with freedom within the territories currently under their control, but have not achieved sovereignty to any significant degree will continue to be the likeliest of alternatives to a two state solution.

Advocates for Israel, for the Palestinians, and for peace for all need to stop trying to convince either side that the alternative to finding a two state solution would be some form of a single state solution. Doing that is not helpful for the pursuit of peace and the likely humanitarian consequences of pushing the creation of a single state too far are very high.

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A Reminder – Where Our Advocacy Differs

Posted on March 26, 2012 by

In August 2010, we published a page addressing our view of how Israel Advocacy should and should not be conducted. It is listed under “Advocacy” on our home page. With all of the discussion about what should be done to promote the peace process, address the Iranian nuclear situation, BDS schemes and a whole host of other issues, I thought it would be good to  share the We Are For Israel Advocacy Statement again.

Where Our Advocacy Differs

Singling Out Israel for Criticism – We believe that it is illegitimate to single out Israel for blame and censure in respect of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Even in the context of “blaming both sides,” offering general criticism of the Palestinians while specifically condemning Israeli policies and actions amounts to a double standard that obscures history in a morally questionable manner.

Seeking Unilateral Concessions from Israel – We believe that pressing Israel alone to make concessions is not only unjustified but frequently motivated by political interests, naivety, ignorance, misinformation or even anti-Judaism. Any concessions should be made in the context of the peace process and should be reciprocal in nature.

Advocating Boycotts, Divestment or Sanctions against Israel – We believe that actions designed to weaken Israel’s economy and harm her society should be viewed as being anti-Israel and must be opposed by Israel advocates. Those favoring these tactics are functionally negotiating for the Palestinian side and diminishing the likelihood that the Palestinians will enter into peace negotiations themselves.

Seeking Action by the United States to Pressure Israel to Yield to Palestinian Demands – We believe that America should support Israel in its efforts to negotiate a secure and lasting peace with the Palestinians by working with Israel and the Palestinians to reach that goal. America should not work against Israel on behalf of the Palestinians by pressuring Israel to accept Palestinian demands while receiving nothing in return. The mere appearance of one-sided pressure on Israel fosters Palestinian intransigence and encourages their refusal to come to the negotiating table. This tactic is neither pro-Israel, nor pro-peace.

Obscuring Palestinian Obligations and Commitments – We believe that heightening awareness of Palestinian obligations and responsibilities is a pre-requisite for advancing the peace process.  We believe this to be an essential part of Israel advocacy. These commitments include actively combating the use of violence against Israel, ending the glorification of those who have committed acts of violence, and ceasing the incitement of hatred against Israel and against Jews, especially in school curricula and in state sponsored media. Peace should be promoted.

Criticizing Israel When Israel Acts to Ensure the Safety of Her Citizens – We believe that Israel has an absolute right to self-defense. The only way to reduce significantly the need for heightened defenses – including the naval blockade of Gaza and the West Bank security barrier – is through the peace process. When difficult choices must be made between the safety of Israel’s citizens and the needs or convenience of Palestinians, the right to self-defense must come first.

Turning Support for Israel into a Partisan Issue – We believe that our advocacy should not be motivated or influenced by political party affiliation. The best course for Israeli advocacy is a non-partisan approach that welcomes support for Israel from all and eschews it from none.

Demeaning or Vilifying Israel’s Elected Leaders – We believe that Israel’sdemocratically elected leaders, no matter what their political leanings, should be treated with respect and offered support in the pursuit of the goals of security, prosperity, and peace.

Careless Words Exploited by Israel’s Detractors and Enemies – We believe that we must consider how others might use, distort or manipulate our words in reference to Israel. We have seen and heard the words of Jewish leaders and organizations, often offered out of concern for Israel, utilized by those who seek to harm her. This is especially so in the case of those promoting the use of boycott, sanctions, and divestment schemes.

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What to Say about the Possibility of Action against Iran

Posted on March 18, 2012 by

In every congregation, rabbis are being asked about the possibility that Israel or the United States might launch military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities in the months ahead. No doubt, many are being offered suggested reactions:

Rabbi, you can’t possibly support military action against Iran!

Rabbi, you know how bad the consequences of military action against Iran would be, right?

Rabbi, you know how bad the consequences of Iran getting nuclear weapons would be, right?

Rabbi, you can’t possibly oppose Israel acting to defend itself if it comes to that!

Of course, the Israeli and American governments have also weighed in. There appears to be some general agreement between the Americans and Israelis on the following major issues:

  1. It would be catastrophic for Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. Public statements by the leaders of both nations stress that “Containment (of a nuclear armed Iran) is not an option.” Not only would a nuclear armed Iran be an intolerable existential threat to Israel, but would force a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, further embolden Iran to promote anti-Western and anti-Israel violence throughout the world, jeopardize the flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf and would likely result in a whole host of other problems.
  2. Any Israeli or American action against Iran would result in a harsh response against Israeli cities at a minimum, but also against American and other Western targets. Casualties from the resulting military exchange could be significant.
  3. Israel has the right to act in its self defense at any time it sees fit to do so.
  4. Sanctions and diplomatic efforts that result in Iran giving up its weapons program are far preferable to military action.
  5. The point at which Israel’s military is no longer able to act against Iran’s nuclear program is much nearer than that of the United States and that the United States will offer Israel increased capability (additional weaponry) so as to close the capability gap. I wrote about this gap for the Times of Israel here. This effort is not to promote an Israeli strike sooner, but to do the exact opposite, namely to delay that action. Though this is counter-intuitive, the fact is that those who wish to avoid an Israeli military strike in the near term should be in favor of the US providing Israel with additional weaponry and enhanced capability to launch exactly such a strike.
  6. There is reason to believe that Iran has not yet made the decision to move forward with creating a nuclear weapon, see this Times of Israel article.
  7. However, according to the most recent IAEA report Iran is indeed working on developing the technologies necessary to create such a weapon if it chooses to do so. This is a vitally important point, because this fact means that Iran continues to shorten the length of time that it would take to create a nuclear weapon once making the decision to go ahead with its creation and strengthens the case that Iran’s intention is to create a nuclear weapon at some point in the future.

I believe that the implications of these facts for us are fairly simple.

  • We, absent access to the relevant classified information, are in no position to determine when military strikes by either Israel or American against Iran’s nuclear program might be essential.
  • Actions that support the effectiveness of sanctions and diplomacy including the threat of grave results (ie. military action) should those efforts fail should be strongly supported so as to avoid the possibility of necessitating military action through undermining sanctions and diplomacy.
  • Israel has no good alternative other than having sanctions and diplomatic efforts be successful. A nuclear armed Iran or the results of military action against Iran would be very bad in the least.
  • Those who are supporters of Israel will either find themselves not needing to worry as much if Iran ceases to advance toward the development of nuclear weaponry or will need to increase support of the Israelis in the event of any military action against Iran by either Israel or America.

Taking all of this into account, the only responsible and reasonable policy for an individual or organization to take regarding this issue is one similar to that taken by ARZA, the Association of Reform Zionists of America, whom I applaud. ARZA sent out this statement on March 12:

“Iran threatens America as well as Israel with its efforts to create a nuclear weapon, its ongoing support of terrorism like the groups in Gaza that are sending rockets into Israel currently, and its support of Islamic fanaticism aimed at the destruction of the West,” stated Rabbi Robert Orkand, President of ARZA, The Association of Reform Zionist of America, after returning from two weeks in Israel as a member of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Boards of the Jewish Agency for Israel and the World Zionist Organization. Iran and the turmoil in the Middle East dominated every conversation with Israeli leaders and foreign policy experts.

“ARZA affirms that Israel must always have the final word on decisions concerning its own defense” remarked Rabbi Daniel Allen, Executive Director of ARZA who was also part of the study mission.

Finally, ARZA joins the Government of Israel in supporting the efforts of President Obama to find a diplomatic way to convince Iran that it should cease all nuclear activity. However, if such an effort is not successful, all means necessary should be used to end the nuclear ambitions of the Iranian regime.

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