In his latest column for the Jerusalem Post, Daniel Gordis -- a rightly admired Jewish thinker of the conservative ilk -- wades into the war of words between the left-leaning New Israel Fund and the right-leaning campus organization Im Tirzu. He takes as his jumping off point the inflammatory translation of Isaiah 49:17 (promising the Israelites that "your destroyers and despoilers shall leave you") rendering it as "Those who destroy and despoil you will come from amongst you." It's a mistranslation, Gordis, observes, but he also notes that it rings true.
His argument is best summed up when he states emphatically, "The Jewish People is at war" and that in war, people must sacrifice certain liberties, like free speech, for survival.
He writes:
The issue is what a people at war for its very survival can allow itself. The issue is whether as the world's noose tightens around the very notion of Israel's legitimacy, Jews can allow themselves the liberties we might otherwise permit ourselves were we not fighting for our very existence. As the fate of Isaiah's prophecy reminds us, it takes only a few words to move from a vision of a secure future to one in which those who could destroy us come from our very own midst.
I have some serious objections to his argument.
In my experience around the world, the Jewish people are not at war. There are Bosnian Jews building institutions in cooperation with their Muslim and Christian neighbors; there are Ugandan Jews who are at war with Malaria, HIV, and poverty, but not with some eternal anti-Jewish enemy. There are Iranian Jews struggling alongside Sunni, Shiite, Christian, and Baha'i for the very "liberties" their government denies all Iranians. There are Israeli Jews who are trying to build democratic institutions, multi-ethnic schools, and interfaith understanding, all of whom should take serious umbrage at his characterization of the Jews as a people at war. We have challenges, both internal and external. How do we mainstream the concerns and perspectives of non-European Jews? How do we engage a new generation in Jewish life or get younger Jews to care about what happens in Israel? How do we calm the ferocious anger between the Jewish left and the Jewish right? How do we secure ourselves in the face of violent extremism? How do we promote Israel as a legitimate state?
The language of militarism won't do it. Suggesting that criticism will lead to the end of the Jewish people not only sows paranoia and division, it also shares a totalitarian logic with a wide array of past dictators, including Ayatollah Khamenei's critiques of Iran's Green movement. This is not company I imagine Dr. Gordis would want to keep.
More disturbing than this martial rallying cry, however, is his idea that a society at war must curtail its democratic institutions, that the values we hold dear as essential to a good life and a free society can be so easily annihilated by violence or by criticism. This is the Dick Cheney argument in a nutshell, the one that justifies torture and illegal wiretaps and the assassination of citizens without oversight and indefinite detention. As Retired General Donald Edwards has noted in an op-ed "Cheney's Terrorists", these tactics create more terrorists and make people less safe. If you take the Gordis premise as true, and the Jewish people are a people at war, then these tactics are not a way to win.
Even more disturbing about Gordis's argument, however, from a Jewish point of view, is that seeing important societal values as things that can be sacrificed in the face of threats, undermines the spiritual survival of Judaism for the material survival of a nation-state. As Rich Cohen observed in his loving and irreverent ode to Zion, "Israel is Real," the land has been turned into the Temple by contemporary Zionism. Dr. Gordis's fear, like those of the Hebrews of old, is that that the physical Temple, beset by enemies, will be sacked. This would be a tragedy, but it would be worse if Jewish ideals were also toppled in the process.
Having a homeland is vital to a people. Gordis makes an important point when he compares the fate of Tibetans in the 20th century to the fate of Jews in the 20th century, but one thing the Tibetans have mastered, and that I fear that arguments like Gordis's war without end and war that values cannot endure undermines is the spiritual genius of our culture. Jews have not survived for 2500 years because of nation-states, nor because they were not willing to risk life and limb for higher values. They have not survived merely to survive.
I once heard Dr. Gordis speak about the armed conflict in Israel and his children's service in the IDF. He told the audience that he always advised his children to go out and be moral in doing their duty, but not so moral that they end up dead. It's good, realistic advice for a soldier.
"If they are firing at you from a hospital," he advised. "Fire back!" The San Diego audience erupted in cheers when he said this (which demonstrated to me an audience that did not know they were at war either...in war you don't cheer this kind of thing, as I'm sure any IDF soldier could tell you). But he seems to have the same advice for the Jewish people as a whole that he does for a soldier in combat: no value is more important than your safety.
That is a sure way to win a battle and lose a war.
Follow Charles London on Twitter: www.twitter.com/chaslondon
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But then, not everyone is rational; nor do they want to end the crisis on any but their own maximalist terms. I think that it is clear that the Israelis have been, and continue to seek, some compromise that would not endanger their security, or their status as a state for the Jews. The Arabs, and the palestinia
That is why it is necessary to counter each historical misstateme
There is only room for one government within Israel and the occupied territorie
We call for immediate elections supervised by the OSCE and/or the UN to select a body representi
Obviously, we’d like to see that body embrace respect for universal human rights, regardless of religion or ethnicity. It would be great to have fair return and immigratio
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The war commenced upon the terminatio
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Fine work on that Palestinia
So what sovereigni
Ummmmmm...
Through the next 2000 years, they maintained a presence, and never abandoned their land or their capital, hoping and praying always to return.
They have returned.
If they are fireing at you from a hospital, surely you pull back and wait until they come out of the hospital. Unless of course they lives of those trapped in the hospital are worth less than those of a dog. This is unfortunat
First of all, Hamas did fire from a hospital, and set up their military headquarte
To expect any army to accept being shot at, hold their fire, accept the deaths and injuries of their soldiers, because of the criminal actions of terrorists is beyond ludicrous.
And no, they will not, and did not come out of the hospital, because they were continuous
And then there is the warren of escape tunnels, which Hamas needs "building supplies" to be allowed in through the embargo, to re-build.
You love to be a victim in perpetuity
The only society that's been destroyed or is being destroyed is that of Palestinia
You have a story about hearing him speak. Well, I've heard him speak, too, and I came away with his sense of passion and fear for Israel's existence. So, we all have our opinions.
If you read his latest book SAVING ISRAEL, you will get a better explanatio
Mr. Gordis makes it quite clear that he is simply asking the usual voices to consider that we are in the midst of an unpreceden
By that you mean criticism of IDF bombing schools, churches and hospitals. Criticism of the siege on Gaza, criticism of the curfews on Bethlehem, criticism of the detention of 10,000 palestinia
So we should cheer when white phospheros burns some childs lungs so that smoke pours of of his ears?
We should whoop it up when we see images of blown off limbs and guts littering the pavement where an IDF blockbuste
To not applaud the enormous death toll is a "propagand
Im afraid you will find that human beings everywhere
But your disgust is at the insistence of the Jewish people's will to LIVE, not by war, and hate, and violence. Otherwise, you would have spoken up during the 8 years that rockets were needlessly falling on Israeli civilians, largely without response. You would have shouted your horror at bus bombings, and restaurant bombings, and teenagers being blown up in discos, and elderly being blown up at their Pesach Seders.
You didn't.
I know of no better example of pure hypocrisy.
Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinia
Certainly, one must be proud of some Israeli people's tolerance and magnanimit
In most neighborin
I have long been waiting for the time when people can discuss and debate what is happening in Israel without it being such a scorching hot topic. This article feels like the tip of the toe is in the water.
The question is WHY do the Jewish people still feel so "at war"? The more the "war" story is told and retold, the more engrained it becomes. It has been embedded for decades and the cohesivene
The memory of the Holocaust quickly comes to mind, the horrible scenario is within reach and it can quickly stifle people into silence when it comes to debate and discussion critical of Israel.
How do we separate the past from the present in order to have a new future?
The Jewish people have so many exemplary and brilliant survival qualities. War and violence, oppression and aggression are the least desirable behavior of any group of people, yet this seem to be dominant in the ongoing struggle. Perpetual war, neither mental nor actual, is clearly not the path to peace, security and survival for Israel.
i think that is why/what led them to failure the first two times.