RUTHFULLY YOURS

“We are the rungs of a ladder, we are the links to the future; This broadens our vision, yet restricts us; This is a source of pride and a reason for modesty – May we be worthy of our role.” – Israel Eldad

“May we be worthy of our role.” So ends the author’s dedication of THE JEWISH REVOLUTION (1971) to his son, Aryeh. Scholar, writer and active Zionist, Israel Eldad warned the Jewish People against relying upon others to defend them. Boldly asserting it was the consistent miscalculations of “Jewish diplomacy” that had hastened the genocidal fate of millions during the Holocaust, Eldad’s great wisdom underscores the terrible folly of still-ongoing Israeli concessions for “peace.”

This is especially the case today, when U.S. President Barack Obama speaks glowingly of  “a world free of nuclear weapons.”  For Israel, before any such world could be born, a gravedigger would have to wield the forceps. By themselves, nuclear weapons are neither good nor evil. For Israel, they are actually the ultimate guarantor of genocide-prevention.

Prodded first to accept the suicidal agreements of Oslo, and now to buy into the successor surrender documents of a “Road Map,” Jerusalem has seemingly learned little from millennia of darkened Jewish history. Nonetheless, we individual Jews, each and every one of us, wherever we happen to live at the moment, still have genuine and irrevocable obligations to discharge. Recalling an earlier image from Torah, we represent in Eldad’s contemporary metaphor the “rungs of a ladder”  – collective extension to a final and long-foreseen redemption.

Each rung has a precise and indispensable function. We must learn what these functions are.

Consider the following:

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With respect to Jews and Jewish life on an imperiled planet: “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”  Still, we must  never become indifferent to the fate of our fellow Jews in Israel. Never. It is unseemly, to say the least, when we continue with our regular entertainments while our brothers and sisters in Israel are  being slaughtered in their own streets by Arab terrorists (and, indirectly, by American and European supporters of the “peace process”).  Yes, more often than we care to admit, the murderers have been armed by various Israeli governments, and by the United States.

Today, U.S. military advisors train Fatah in Jordan, with the approval of the Netanyahu government in Jerusalem. True, thankfully, the numbers of Jewish terror victims are presently down, but tell that to the fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers and friends of the recently-slain. Shall we expect them to take heart from the broader picture of a temporary quiet? Shall they be expected to draw comfort from abstractions?

Each and every Jewish life is a sanctification; always. Who are we to decide that this now-smaller number of Israeli victims falls somehow within “tolerable” limits? Just as importantly, and let us not be misled, this respite is an utterly false dawn.

I am always deeply troubled that only hours after the latest suicide bomb or rocket attack, American Jews speak unhesitatingly and unashamedly of their vacations, of their stock portfolios, of their children’s accomplishments (heaven knows, always their children’s accomplishments), and of their planned shopping expeditions. It is as if the full community of Israel, the assembled People of Israel, are merely a minor and dispassionate concern. Surely we need to care more; to pay real attention.

As parents, moreover, we must be sure to share this attentiveness with our children. If our children are college students, we must awaken them to the obligation and the blessing to see themselves as Jews, and to partake meaningfully of Jewish campus life wherever possible. This is not always easy, as the attractions of “fitting in” with the dominant campus ethos are considerable, and because Jewish campus life is generally now more about bagels and parties than about Jewish survival.

If our children or grandchildren are about to become Bar or Bat-Mitzvah, we should  try to bear in mind the seriousness of the occasion, and not allow it to become only a convenient pretext for lavish expenditure and vulgar ostentation. Everyone who reads these words will know exactly what I mean. Not long ago, shortly before Chanukah, a multimillion-dollar Bat-Mitzvah was held in a large American city complete with celebrity rock bands and simulated strip tease. To be candid,  a great many American Jews could now learn to be better Jews by studying Buddhism. There is a lot here to be learned.

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We must act to oppose all existential pressures upon Israel, in every customary and permissible fashion available to us in democratic societies. The Road Map, like Oslo before it, is a persistently nefarious expression of such misconceived and inexcusable pressures. Never mind that it’s twisted cartography is still fronted by smiling American presidents, and by assorted Israeli lap dogs. The Road Map still represents nothing less than an Arab/Islamic Trojan Horse, an annihilatory device intended only to complete Israel’s Final Solution.

Israel’s enemies say so themselves, overtly and repeatedly. What more do we need to hear? President Obama will not save Israel. At best, after allowing Iran to go nuclear, while crying out bitterly against Jews who build apartments in Jerusalem, his best offer after the next war will be to help Israel bury its Jewish dead. If the next war is nuclear, courtesy of an irrational national leadership in Tehran and an American unwillingness to go beyond “sanctions,” whole Israeli cities will first have to be converted into cemeteries.

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We must increase our already growing cooperation with America’s Christian Zionists. Many millions strong, these good people of faith do believe in G-d’s promise to Israel. Let us not mince words; their commitment to Israel’s peace and security often exceeds that of American Jews. Personally, I have been deeply impressed and profoundly moved by their unselfish devotion to Israel. Without them, our political voice in the land will assuredly be too weak.  Demography is not on our side, neither in Israel nor in America.

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We must recognize and deplore, publicly, the unique and unforgivable barbarism of Palestinian terrorism. It can never be acceptable to try to justify Palestinian suicide-bombers by citing to alleged legal rights of “self-determination” or “national liberation.” Leaving aside the inherently flawed argument that Palestinians “deserve” a state, neither international law nor ordinary standards of decency can ever allow the deliberate murder of Jewish children. I say this authoritatively, as a professor of international  law, who knows that the phrase, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” is simply an empty witticism.

Too often, especially in universities, the longstanding Jewish inclination to “fairness” goes much too far. We should recall that in a world of over one billion Muslims, fewer than a handful – a very tiny and courageous handful – would ever speak of “Jewish rights,” including even the minimal right not to be maimed and murdered in schools or buses or pizza restaurants. In the academy, where the professors (sometimes Jews as well as non-Jews) continue to speak mostly nonsense about Israel, we must never remain silent. True, a professor who stands openly for Israel today in any major American university will inevitably pay a career price for his/her faith and integrity, but – nonetheless – it is a stand that must never be declined. Naturally the situation is even more dangerous in European universities, where intellectual promise is “normally” assumed to vary inversely with pro-Israel sentiments.

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We must immediately recognize, and reveal widely, that there is no “cycle of violence” in the Middle East, only intermittent Arab/Islamic terror followed by indispensable Israeli counter-terror. If the Palestinian terrorists were to simply and unconditionally stop their murderous attacks on unprotected civilians,  Israelis would never lift another hand against them. It’s that simple.

If, however, the Israelis should ever stop defending themselves prior to such an enemy cessation, the Arab/Islamic enemy would murder every Jew in “Occupied Palestine.” In response to contrived and disingenuous Palestinian arguments that there is some sort of “equivalence” between Arab terror and Israeli counter-terror, we must always recall an essential difference between premeditated murder and required national self-defense. In any domestic society, just because the criminals and the police may both carry guns, they are not the same.

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We Jews must learn to read widely beyond the mainstream press, which is often ignorant of facts on the ground, or – worse – is maliciously inclined toward Israel. In this connection, American Jews must really learn history – Jewish history; Israel’s history; Arab history; Islamic history. Presently, because there is so much historical ignorance amongst us, that Arab propagandists and their allies typically have an easy time debating the issues. As a professor I see the difference every day between the intellectual preparedness of the Jewish students regarding history, which is generally weak, and that of the Arab/Islamic students and their supporters, which is usually far stronger. As a beginning, to be sure, every American Jew and every American Christian Zionist should now be reading  The Jewish Press.

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We must all be willing to speak and write in defense of Israel. This is not just the responsibility of the professors. If it were, we would be hearing even more about the evils of Israel’s “occupation” of “Arab land.” By the way, speaking of “occupation,” the Palestine Liberation Organization was formed in 1964, three years before the 1967 War. What then, precisely, was the PLO seeking to liberate during those years?

Here in the American heartland, only a small handful of Jewish souls make an audible sound about Israel’s survival.  Nowhere is it written that Jewish doctors; Jewish lawyers; Jewish dentists; Jewish accountants; Jewish merchants; Jewish plumbers cannot speak openly and courageously for Israel. The argument that I hear often from friends and acquaintances  -  “I’m sorry, I just don’t know enough. I have a business to take care of” -  is plainly wrong and inexcusable. If you don’t know enough, study more. Now. And if you fear that it will be “bad for business,” be ashamed of yourself – justifiably ashamed of your cowardice, your lethargy (is golf really than important?), and your thoroughly demeaned Jewish spirit.

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We must encourage each other to undertake serious analytic examinations of the issues, and to exercise imaginative thinking for solutions. To a significant extent, the survival problems faced by Israel have an important intellectual dimension. For example, how to achieve any sort of reconciliation with the Palestinians must draw upon difficult conceptual explorations of both culture and trust. Similarly, as Israel will soon face expanding weapons of mass destruction among both its state and non-state enemies,  leaders in Jerusalem will have to figure out optimal strategies of deterrence, defense, warfighting and preemption. As Chair of Project Daniel, a small advisory group to former Prime Minister Sharon that was concerned with chemical/biological/nuclear threats to Israel, I can testify directly to the great difficulty of the intellectual tasks before us. At the same time, don’t think that just because you’re not a Ph.D. strategist or a member of the IDF General Staff,  you are necessarily incapable of offering productive observations.

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We must recognize that Israel now faces, and has always faced, a genuine genocide from its many enemies. It is true, thankfully, that we Jews now have a state to prevent a repeat Holocaust. But it is also true and intolerably ironic that war can now become the instrument of another Jewish genocide. In a very real and palpable geopolitical sense, the creation of Israel – by concentrating such a large percentage of the world’s Jews in such a tiny area – has made such an unspeakable scenario more plausible.

It is now possible to bring gas to the people; it is no longer necessary to bring people to the gas. Moreover, the Arab/Islamic side has never been subtle about its plans to “liquidate” the Jews (the term they have favored since 1948), and we can assume that if left unchallenged, they will at some point have both genocidal capability and genocidal intent. Keep in mind that Israel is half the size of Lake Michigan, and that its Jewish population is largely concentrated along a tiny coastal section of a microscopic country. Keep in mind, also, that Islamic clerics in mosques throughout the world insist in their weekly sermons that Allah has concentrated the Jews in Israel precisely to make possible their next annihilation.

Finally, we must always recall that memory is the heart of redemption, and that we are obligated, strongly obligated, never to forget, to honor the souls of the six million, of the Kedoshim. To do this we must never separate ourselves from the fate of our fellow Jews in Israel. If necessary, and this is critical, we must sometimes actively oppose the “Jewish Establishment” in the United States. Oftentimes, this Establishment seems more concerned with exhibiting its own power and prestige than with its true mission. Certainly there is not much for us to be proud of in this regard during the Holocaust.

The Jewish establishment was largely silent during the Holocaust, and it stubbornly insisted upon support for Oslo from day one, even when it was apparent that Israel’s good intentions would forever be unreciprocated. (Better to assure a seat at the next Israel banquet in New York, preferably close to the visiting prime minister, than to imperil such an advantageous social opportunity by speaking out.) Nor should we ever assume that Jewish candidates for public office are necessarily good for the Jews or good for Israel, or even that they are necessarily honorable or capable in general.

Rabbi Eliezer Waldman once wrote movingly in The Jewish Press of “the eternal flame of Jewish life in Israel.” By working for the redemption of Israel, Rabbi Waldman instructed, we also work to bring a blessing to all the peoples of the world. It follows that we Jews in this country ought never to see a contradiction between our struggle for Jewish survival in the land of Israel, and our deep concern for America and the wider global community. Moreover, like Buddhists, we Jews understand the ultimate Oneness and inter-dependence of all things (the Talmud instructs that “the dust from which the first man was made was gathered in all the four corners of the earth”), and we recognize, incontestably, that our ultimate obligations to Jewish continuity are inextricable from our similarly-sacred obligations to the larger human community.

Saving the Jewish State and saving the world are One and the same.

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LOUIS RENÉ BERES was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971), and publishes widely on Israeli security issues. He was Chair of Project Daniel, and is Strategic and Military Affairs columnist for The Jewish Press.

REMAINING “WORTHY OF OUR ROLE” HISTORY, RESPONSIBILITY, COMMUNITY

As published in The Jewish Press
June 2010

Louis René Beres
Professor of International Law
Department of Political science
Purdue University
West Lafayette IN 47907