I am an American and an Israeli citizen. I was born in Israel, on a small socialist kibbutz founded by Zionist immigrants. My parents, their parents and the parents before them have all been Jewish. I’m a member of Habonim Dror, a Zionist youth movement with roots in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and ties to illegal settlements in pre-independent Israel (one more thing I share with Seth Rogen). I even participated in Write On For Israel, a program designed to give students the verbal ammunition they need to defend against anti-Israel bombardments. In other words, I should be the quintessential pro-Israel advocate, unflinching in the face of flag-waving protesters in large Chicago rallies.
But even I have trouble coping with the numbers. The 22-day offensive into Gaza is estimated to have killed 1,300 Palestinians and wounded 5,000 more. Tens of thousands have lost their homes. During the attack, conditions in Gaza deteriorated to medieval levels. Swollen prices of scant food and fuel resources led to massive hunger. Two-thirds of Gaza’s 1.5 million people lacked electricity, and some 400,000 still don’t have running water. B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, estimates that more than half those killed were civilians. How do you reconcile all that with 13 dead Israelis?
The typical answer I get from American Jews is about justification. Gaza is controlled by an Islamic government, Hamas, whose charter promises to destroy Israel and replace it with an Islamic Palestine. Thousands of Hamas jihadists smuggle Iranian-bought rockets through tunnels in Egypt, a country that generally looks the other way. The rockets are indiscriminately fired at Israeli civilians, about one million of whom are in range. So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that when Hamas formally ended a six-month truce, fired more rockets and killed a civilian, Israel fought back. Logic says that any nation in the world has an obligation to defend its residents from assault. Yes, the casualties are lamentable, but the basic right to self-defense remains unchanged.
This is usually where the dialogue ends. If you’re an American Jew, the expectation is that you defend Israel as an affirmation of its right to exist. For example, on Jan. 9, about 3,000 people rallied in Chicago in support of Israel. Sallai Meridor, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., prepared a video message for the event.
“In this war against terror, the front is first and foremost in Israel in the south,” he said, as reported by the Jewish United Fund. “But it’s not only there. It’s every place in the world. It is here in Chicago. And in this front, you are the soldiers, you are the officers and there in Chicago you are sending a very important message to the terrorists that terror will not prevail.”
In Gaza, the debate has primarily been: was it an act of disproportionate aggression, or was Israel acting in justifiable self–defense? Our discussion needs to expand to a level where we can answer “yes” to both these questions and move on.
And that’s really the crux of the matter: American Jews feel that if they don’t support Israel unconditionally, they give credence to the attitude that the Jewish state doesn’t have the right to exist. They oversimplify the issue, using phrases like “if the Palestinians put down their weapons today, there would be peace tomorrow; if the Israelis put down their weapons today, there would be slaughter tomorrow.” It’s a hyper-sensitive reaction bred by a culture of perpetual insecurity, and the roots are easy to find.
A cursory glance at Jewish history reveals a consistent, global tendency to persecute and expel the Jews. Zionism and its search for a Jewish state were in motion long before the Holocaust prompted large migrations to Israel. The concept of a Jewish homeland, one that can safeguard Judaism, is essential to understanding Israel. The country is only 85 miles long at its widest point (it takes all of 90 minutes to drive across Israel), and it’s surrounded by hostile nations. It is constantly threatened by terrorist groups who target Israeli civilians.
Pro-Palestinian demands run directly counter to the Jewish defensive intuition. The Palestinians, Arab refugees originally displaced in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, have grown to a population of more than 4 million. In the West Bank, Palestinians face rampant poverty and unemployment. The Gaza Strip, which in 2005 was unilaterally evacuated of all Israeli settlers, is still economically controlled by Israel. In neighboring countries, Palestinians are in varying stages of citizenship and economic restriction, often living in overcrowded refugee camps. With the exception of Jordan, these Arab nations refuse to fully absorb the refugees as equal citizens. Palestinians demand the right of return — they want to resettle the homes their parents left 60 years ago, even though these areas are now either gone or replaced by different families. More importantly, absorbing these masses of angry refugees would make the Jewish people a vulnerable minority in a country that was intended to be their stronghold.
The grand diversity of American two-party politics has only sustained countless cycles of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed. A mainstream attitude toward Israel, dictated by mutual economic interests and cultural-political ties, has made both Democratic and Republican administrations firmly “pro-Israel.” Since Truman, both parties have ensured through funding that Israel maintains a military edge over its enemies, and both have consistently supported keeping Jerusalem a united capital city under Israeli rule. Republican and Democratic platforms urge the isolation of Hamas until it recognizes Israel’s right to exist and ceases terrorist activities.
While the American mainstream media has maintained a supportive status quo, the far left has veered sharply against Israel. This group of journalists, academics, and activists organize anti-war rallies that feature Israeli flags whose Stars of David are replaced with swastikas. Leftist news sources such as Democracy Now! and The Nation portray Israel as a colonial outpost hungry for expansion. Here at Northwestern, an NU Left meeting last week invited panelists to discuss the conflict in Gaza. Israel was blamed entirely, and Palestinian terrorists were portrayed as noble freedom fighters.
American Jews find themselves in a perplexing political situation. The mainstream “pro-Israel” attitude further perpetuates conflict by dissolving any real pressure on Israel, which is allowed to act destructively in a cycle that ultimately creates more hostility and reactionary violence. It convinces Palestinians and Arab nations that Israeli aggression is unchecked and therefore unstoppable. And it doesn’t allow for real criticism of Israeli policy. On the other hand, American Jews cannot possibly support the far-left approach that demands the total dissolution of the Jewish state and absolutely no Palestinian concessions.
The result is a massive number of young Jews who don’t know where they stand. The two vocal groups that emerge after an Israeli-Palestinian crisis are absurd. Staunchly right-wing Jewish communities defend disproportionate acts of Israeli aggression and justify the expanding settlements with Biblical claims to the land. Pro-Palestinian groups refuse to acknowledge the role of Hamas terrorism and seek to make Israel a secular state that will allow the Palestinians to resettle in virtually nonexistent homes. So, for fear of betraying the Jewish state, those American Jews caught in the middle stay quiet. They don’t speak out against the level of aggression in Gaza, and they don’t mention Israel’s obligation to protect its citizenry.
One of the first ways to begin real dialogue is to recognize that extremists on either side are part of the problem, according to Eboo Patel, the founder of Interfaith Youth Core, who wrote an article about the “status quo rules for Middle East engagement.” “Hamas is a destructive force to Israelis, and a destructive force to Palestinians. Muslims should feel no obligation to defend them. The militant settlers are murder to Palestinians, and also murder to Israel. No Jews should feel like they have to defend them either.”
This is the first step in distinguishing loyalty from reason. A Jewish consciousness confident enough with its own identity that it can seriously criticize Israeli policy must be developed. This should be the role of young American Jews. We need to realize that examining Israeli policy isn’t denying its right to exist, but rather helping it move toward a state of sustainable peace and security.
In Gaza, the debate has primarily been: was it an act of disproportionate aggression, or was Israel acting in justifiable self–defense? Our discussion needs to expand to a level where we can answer “yes” to both these questions and move on. Yes, Israel has a right to defend its citizens. In a situation where the international community will not or cannot force acts of terrorism to stop, Israel must act. But lashing out against the entire civilian population of Gaza isn’t just wrong, it’s ineffective. Just 10 days after the truce, Hamas was rebuilding its tunnels and firing rockets that have already killed an Israeli. With every botched attack, Israel loses international credibility. And martyrdom only gets more popular as Palestinians have less to lose.
Yes, Israel’s reaction was unreasonable. But pro-Palestinian activists must stop defending Hamas militants as “freedom fighters.” These inhumane tactics are wholly ineffective at reversing Israeli policy — if anything, Israel’s restrictive system of checkpoints and economic sanctions only strengthens policy. The more threatened Israelis feel, the more likely they are to elect right-wing extremists who truly don’t care for Palestinian human rights and will continue settlement expansion into Palestinian territory.
The young American Jews caught in this debate must be vocal about their discomforts with Israeli extremism. We need to embrace an American administration that will put pressure on Israel to find alternative solutions. And we must appeal to the other side for mutual understanding before real deliberation toward peace can begin.
