I find your moral position...as well as your rage and frustration understandable.
First. As others have said, you may take comfort in the fact that while Israeli behavior has not been saintly in the matter of Israel, it could have been worse. If confronted with this sort of situation the Chinese would not have been so forbearing. Russia and Turkey have dealt and are dealing with similar situations that in no way threaten the overall viability of their nation states. They have been significanly more ruthless. Even Americans have been more ruthless. (Remember the Philippene pacification! ... oh, and the Indians.) And they are the people with the holy city on a hill. So, it could be better, but it could easily be worse too. Second. Those who support the sort of policies and actions you decry are human. Sometimes, most of the time, Jews do behave just like everyone else. The Human condition is universal. As an athiest, it is the Jewish struggle with that condition, morally and spiritually, is what makes God's on-going revelation in and through the Jewish community ... revealing. (<= note paradoxical and ironic self-contradiction.) Furthermore, the narrative and its message are only understandable when due regard is given to the place of history and community, not only in Jewish theology, but in the very art and practice of Being Jewish. Third. As an outsider, one element that I very much appreciate in Jewish theology (as I percieve it) is ownership of foibles as well as strengths and triumphs. I call this Daoudic theology--it allows for negative readings, after the undestanding of King David as a flawed and imperfect hero. It is absent, really forbidden, in Sunni Muslim theology. God's story is *not* revealed through failure. There is a lot I like in the Sunni witness to the human condition, but obligate triumphal theology is not one of them. The sort of critique you talk about appears in minor prophets like Hosea and Amos. But there are other books, I think one is Nahum (I don't keep a Bible handy anymore). Unlike the moral, redemptive prophets this family is triumphal, at times obscenely, jingoistic. If memory serves this includes Obediah and Nahum. Both types of prophet are part of the Jewish message and need to be taken into account. PS: I like the build a huge fence and let 'em rot idea. Better be a hell of a fence though because they'll be trying to get the good land back for some time to come. Fortunately, the Palestians will be busy rotting. This should reduce the requirements for the 'wall'. As for dismantling the settlements, I think I'd rather deal with the PLO any day than the crazy Kahaneist zealots in the settlements. Those Jewish fascists will try to take the whole Israeli state with them if it tries to move them. (If Jeroen wants a NAZI analogy that might hold up I have some suggestions about where he might start looking.) > But it isn't. As a Jew, I am very supportive of Israel. But, as a Jew, I am > ashamed of and infuriated by what Ariel Sharon is doing. This is not how > Jews are supposed to behave. We are not supposed to behave like everyone > else; we are supposed to be better than everyone else. Israel has the power > to crush the Palestinians into the dirt; but it ought not to do so. One, > it's counter-productive. And two, it's just plain wrong. > > There's a very good article on this subject here: > > http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.17F.BW.Dummies.htm > > I don't think Weiner places enough blame on the Arabs for their loathesome > policies and politics; but I don't want to be defensive here. I want to > accept responsibility for what I, as a Jew and supporter of Israel, have > some power over. And that's over Israel. Nothing that I or anyone else can > do is going to change the murderous anti-Semitic hearts of the Jew-haters > and suicide bombers and Nazis that are out there. That does not remove from > Israel the responsibility to do the right thing, and that is to make peace. > There is a prophetic tradition within Judaism of telling the people not > what they want to hear but what they very much do not want to hear. I think > all true friends of Israel, of peace, and of human rights need to be > telling Israel right now to back off. Regardless of what the Palestinians > do (and I do not expect them to do the right thing, certainly not now, > maybe not ever). The best thing for Israel to do is give the Palestinians > their goddamn state and let them fuck it up the way they've fucked up the > Palestinian Authority and the way all the other Arab states have fucked > things up. Israel should accept the Saudi peace proposal, dismantle the > settlements, build a huge fucking fence to keep the Palestinians out, and > get on with their lives. > > > > Tom Beck
