If We Are Not For Ourselves?
By Aaron Goldstein (08/16/04)
I cringed as I read Rabbi David Saperstein’s letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell. Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, wrote Powell on August 3rd to urge the United States to compel Israel back to the negotiating table with the Palestinians as a condition of withdrawing from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. Saperstein’s organization claims to represent over 900 congregations across the United States comprising over 1.5 million followers.
The reason I cringed was because Saperstein’s letter was for the most part lucid. Saperstein unambiguously condemned Palestinian suicide bombings. “These attacks are particularly pernicious in that they are the result of an explicit policy of targeting sites frequented by children and families: school buses, discos, beaches, pizza parlors, seders, bar mitzvahs, etc.”
Saperstein also expressed support for the security barrier presently being constructed along the West Bank describing it “as a defensive measure against terrorism.” He even went as far as to dismiss the recent decision handed down by the International Court of Justice against the security barrier. “Israel is correct to ignore this ruling as it fails to consider the primary reason for the barrier, Palestinian terrorism,” wrote Saperstein.
But then the letter goes south when towards the end of the third paragraph Saperstein puts on his rose colored glasses. He begins by condemning Israel’s administrative home demolitions decrying it as a policy “applied preferentially to Jews and discriminatorily against Arabs.” Saperstein then takes the U.S. Congress and the Bush Administration to task for passing two resolutions supporting President Bush’s letter to Prime Minister Sharon supporting his unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. The resolutions and Bush’s letter, according to Saperstein, “fail to address the troubling humanitarian conditions of the Palestinians.” Finally, Saperstein asserts that for peace to take hold any Israeli withdrawal “must be matched by the United States’ vigorous pursuit of a return to the peace process.”
Where does one begin? Does it not occur to Saperstein that demolitions of Arab homes by Israel take place not for the fun of it but because they harbor Palestinian terrorists and weapons? As for the “troubling humanitarian conditions of the Palestinians” does it not occur to Saperstein that this is the fault of a corrupt regime in the Palestinian Authority that would rather broadcast music videos celebrating suicide bombers than spend money on roads, sewers and water? Besides who exactly does Saperstein think who should sit across from Israel at the negotiating table? Arafat? Hamas? Hezbollah? Islamic Jihad? The Al-Asqa Brigades? Saperstein himself admits that suicide bombings are “the result of an explicit policy.” Who does Saperstein think initiating and implementing this policy - the Chileans? If the Palestinians were serious about negotiating in good faith with Israel there would be no suicide bombings and no security barrier.
Rabbi Saperstein is by all appearances is an honorable man. Last month, he, along with the founders of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, were arrested in Washington, D.C. outside the Sudanese Embassy protesting the massacre of Black Muslims by the Sudanese government in the Darfur region. Saperstein embodies both the best and worst elements of American Jewish allegiance to liberalism. He ably answers the second of Rabbi Hillel’s questions, “If I am only for myself then who am I?” With our long history of suffering, it is easy for Jews to identify with the other and seek to address their grievances. The “other” in question could be anyone really. The other could be an ex-slave from the Sudan, a poor child in inner city America, a woman living with HIV or even a Palestinian living in Jenin. In other words, American Jewish liberals like who they perceive to be underdogs. But as an Arab acquaintance of David Frum once told him, “The problem with you Jews is that you root for the underdog – even if the underdog is trying to kill you.”
That brings us to the worst of liberalism where one looks out for the other to the detriment of not only one’s own well being but to the existence of their very being. As the poet Robert Frost once uttered, “A liberal is one who won’t take his own side in a quarrel.” I am afraid this is the condition in which Saperstein finds himself. It is a shame because Saperstein, unlike some other liberals, acknowledges the peril of suicide bombers and the necessity of defensive measures such as the security barrier. But from it he draws entirely the wrong conclusion. Instead of recognizing that one cannot negotiate with those who seek your own destruction he concludes that if we do A, B and C (re: unilateral withdrawal, dismantling all settlements, embrace the Geneva Accord, etc) they will sit down and reason with us and hopefully they will stop killing us. This is the essence of appeasement and it is built on a foundation of wishful thinking. Saperstein can wish for a two state solution all he wants but in a world where Palestinians believe there is no Israel and that there were never Jews in Jerusalem these two states of mind will never meet. Saperstein and too many American Jewish liberals fail to answer Rabbi Hillel’s first and most important question, “If I am not for myself then who is for me?” Not only do Saperstein and most American Jewish liberals not answer the question they cannot bring themselves to ask it.
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