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Landed in Tel Aviv
An uneventful day. Thank god.
Arrived at Ben Gurion Airport about 5PM. The flight from Newark was 60% full. Not much English being spoken. There is always something magical to me when I first spot the green fields – a product of modern irrigation technology – poking through the clouds that always seem to be hanging over the coast line. I am not sure what it is – but there is some energy in the air that is special. It makes people want to be in this land. And to possess it.
This time, we approached from the North. To avoid any potential rockets from Gaza of course. The lines for Foreign Passport Control were non-existent. The cabby complained that “there are no tourists. Now, I have to wait three hours at the airport for a fare.”
I look for signs of the war – but frankly, here, there aren’t many. The beach is still filled with bathers, folks are jogging along the Tayelet, and the matkot players are still smacking the balls back and forth. But there is a noticeable quiet. Traffic is light. The hotel lobby is empty. The people are still.
I am here with a group of J Street leaders to show our support for Israel in this time of war. To try to support all of those suffering during the latest chapter in this long conflict. We also want to connect with those Israelis who we really are working for and with – those who see that there is no military solution to this conflict. That the only way to break the cycle is with a negotiated agreement ending in two states for two peoples. Then, perhaps, there will be a chance for real security.
We heard over dinner from Gadi Baltinski, Director of the Geneva Initiative, that 85% of Israelis support this operation. They support the military and the government (for the time being – nothing like a war to increase an incumbent’s popularity), BUT they also don’t think that this will solve the ultimate problem. Never the less, they back the government because they see this war as being the fault of Hamas. And, now, all of a sudden, people are seeing Abu Mazen as the “good” guy. Where were they when he really needed support during the negotiations? “No partner for peace…”
Akiva Eldar, writer for Haaretz and Al-Monitor and, ironically, head of the first annual Haaretz Peace Conference held July 9 just as the rockets began firing, told us that the only solution is a regional one. King Faisal of Saudi Arabia actually wrote a piece in Haaretz a few weeks ago reiterating that the Arab Peace Initiative is still on the table. He implored us to go back to the US and talk with politicians and tell that nothing is more bi-partisan than ending this conflict. After all he said, the idea that ending this conflict was in America’s best interest really took root when George H.W. and James Baker challenged Yitzhak Shamir on building settlements. That was hundreds of thousands of settlers ago.
Tomorrow we head to Jerusalem to hear the take of several MK’s, meet with the US Consul General, and visit some victims of the violence in Hadassah hospital.
So far, no sirens. But last night, I was told, they came about 2 AM.
Why J Street Is NOT “Not pro-Israel”
IDF Soldier looks into Hamas Tunnel – Time Inc
A good friend (whose views skew quite a bit – OK, a lot – to the right of mine) sent me an email this morning:
Subject: “THE PROOF THAT J STREET IS NOT PRO-ISRAEL.
Content: “IF YOU CAN NOT STAND WITH ISRAEL WHILE IT IS UNDER SIEGE, YOU MUST BE PRO-HAMAS! http://www.timesofisrael.com/j-street-explains-pullout-from-boston-pro-israel-rally/#.U8_MEy40bwI.email”
The article he references describes how the Boston J Street chapter was originally a co-sponsor of a Pro-Israel rally, but then pulled out “because its officials did not feel that issues they wanted addressed were sufficiently represented, including grieving for victims on all sides, an emphasis on a diplomatic solution and especially the role of the US Jewish community in advancing such a solution.” The article goes on to say that Jeremy Burton, executive director of Boston’s Jewish Community Relations Council , “told JTA [a Jewish news agency] that speakers at the rally did address suffering on both sides and noted that its immediate emphasis was on Israel’s right to defend itself and Hamas’ responsibility for the current violence.”
- As noted in the article, “J Street has co-sponsored other pro-Israel rallies across the United States during the current conflict.” That implies – correctly – that this was not a position of J Street national, but rather a local issue based on inter-Boston issues. There has been tension within the Jewish community there with J Street for years. It is a good thing, but amazing, that Boston JCRC has J Street as a member but there remains unease with other organizations that belong.
- Recognizing the suffering of innocent civilians on all sides is important (and it sounds like, as it turns out, that this was done at this rally). Noting the very real suffering of innocent civilians in Gaza does not make a person pro-Hamas. Nor does criticizing the government of Israel make one anti-Israel. I would dare say that you are not pro-the current U.S. administration, but that does not make one anti-American.
- The run up to this war began with the very tragic, heart-wrenching, senseless murder of three innocent Yeshiva students, z’’’l. But from what I have read, this event was then used quite cynically by the Israeli government to take down the Hamas infrastructure in the West Bank. On one level this was a good thing – but on another level, it fanned the flames for the current incursion. It also fanned some very dangerous flames of racism and hatred among a group of right-wingers in a horrific way with the revenge killing of an equally innocent Israeli Arab (i.e., also an Israeli citizen) teenager. One of the reasons that it is so important to make sure that pro-Israel rallies not paint every Arab as seeking to wipe Israel off the map is that once the genie of racial hate is let out of the bottle, it is very hard to get back in.
- While it was the rockets that instigated the Israeli air retaliation, thanks in large part to the Iron Dome system, the rockets do not present a strategic threat to Israel. I am not condoning rocket fire by any means nor saying that Israel doesn’t have a right to retaliate – only that a war like this is not a strategic solution for Israel. Because previous operations failed to deter the threat from Hamas, I originally opposed the escalation. However, as the sophistication and extent of Hamas’ tunnel system came to light once the ground operation began, I have totally changed my mind and I personally believe that this war is extremely necessary and the current land operation totally justified. The Hamas’ tunnel system represents a very, very real threat to the security of Israel.
- One of the most important things that this war re-emphasizes however is that the Israeli government has no strategy for dealing with the Palestinians. As much as we all might like it, the 4 million Palestinians are not just going away. One of J Street’s key points is that we must address the long term solution to these issues: a negotiated two state solution. There is no better time than these rallies to focus the American Jewish community on this fact, instead of simply supporting war. I believe that the lesson from prior military actions (Lebanon, previous Gaza wars) is that when you “mow the lawn”, it just grows back higher and longer The Israeli government, and American Jews, should do everything it can to support moderates – including Mahmoud Abbas.
- Finally, you can read J Street’s official reaction to similar criticisms here: http://jstreet.org/blog/post/myths-and-facts-does-j-street-stand-with-the-proisrael-community-when-israel-is-under-attack_1
A Moving Response from Jeremy Ben-Ami on the Tragic Murder of 3 Innocent Kids
Any murder of innocents is clearly tragic. No less so for the three Israeli Yeshiva students. It has captured the hearts of people throughout the world.
Yet, I have been thinking about why every Jewish organization out there is bending over backwards to see who can mourn “more” over these three young kids. By doing so, they are elevating a tragic incident into a political snowball which is rapidly moving towards a violent ending.
Bibi and his government are leading Israel, the American Jewish community and anyone else that can be hoodwinked, down a path of violence and destruction. Violence begets violence – until one side decides to act rationally (rather than with a knee-jerk), or until both sides finally beat themselves into oblivion (viz. WWI 100 years ago). It doesn’t take a psychic to predict that there will be many more innocent Israeli (and Palestinian) victims to come – making a mockery of using all of this mourning for three to justify the killing of scores or hundreds more.
And, it is just sad to see how the American Jewish community has generally taken the bait.
That is why I find Jeremy’s statement, Enough of Tears and Bloodshed, to be honest, poignant and intelligent. Here it is:
Enough of Tears and Bloodshed
July 1st, 2014
By Jeremy Ben-Ami
Over the past two and a half weeks, all of us who care deeply about Israel and seek peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been profoundly moved by the tragedy of the three teenage boys kidnapped and, we now know, murdered in cold blood on the West Bank.
As a father of young children, my heart simply breaks whenever violence snatches young lives, and families and communities are senselessly plunged into mourning.
While the grieving and sorrow have barely begun for the families, the debate over how to respond is in full swing as is, of course, an emotional argument over how the Israeli government should and should not react.
Fear and anger drive part of the debate, with calls for retribution dominating the public discourse. Seemingly easy, emotionally satisfying, answers flow freely: Tear down the houses of the alleged kidnappers’ families. Attack Gaza to root out Hamas’ infrastructure. Build new settlements. Take revenge.
Less free to flow are efforts to place this tragedy in a broader context or to recognize the real and legitimate pain felt on the Palestinian side as well. There is no way out of this spiral of violence and conflict if we can’t start to hear and understand the pain on the other side too.
The New York Times this week ran a moving, but difficult, article about two mothers, Rachel Fraenkel and Aida Abdel Aziz Dudeen. It was written before the discovery of the body of Rachel’s 16-year-old son, Naftali, one of the three murdered teenagers. “I was praying maybe he did something stupid and irresponsible,” Ms. Fraenkel recalled thinking when police came to her door at 4 a.m., “but I know my boy isn’t stupid, and he isn’t irresponsible.”
A few miles away in the West Bank town of Dura, Aida also tried to stop her 15-year-old Mohammed from doing something stupid and irresponsible. She locked the door of the family home to stop him from going out to confront Israeli soldiers after days or house searches and arrests. He got out anyway by jumping out the window and was shot dead, with the key still under Aida’s pillow, when soldiers opened fire on a group of young Palestinians hurling stones at them.
Times correspondent Jodi Rudoren succinctly summed up the gulf between the sides in the way they look at these twin tragedies. “Most Israelis see the missing teenagers as innocent civilians captured on their way home from school, and the Palestinians who were killed as having provoked soldiers. Palestinians, though, see the very act of attending yeshiva in a West Bank settlement as provocation, and complain that the crackdown is collective punishment against a people under illegal occupation.”
As President Obama memorably said in his speech to young Israelis in Jerusalem last year, we must try to see the world through the eyes of the other side. That does not mean accepting their narrative and abandoning our own. But it does mean abandoning the “we’re always right and they are always wrong” view of the conflict and trying to find a solution that begins with mutual compassion.
“Put yourself in their shoes – look at the world through their eyes. It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of her own, and lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements of her parents every single day … Neither occupation nor expulsion is the answer. Just as Israelis built a state in their homeland, Palestinians have a right to be a free people in their own land,” Obama said.
The most important sentence is the last. Until there is a two-state solution, this awful conflict will grind on and on and on, and there will be more tragedies – more Naftalis, more Mohammeds. It’s now two decades since the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin memorably said on the White House lawn that we have had enough of tears, enough of bloodshed. It was his guiding principle to fight terror as if there were no effort to reach peace and to seek peace as if there were no terror.
We at J Street too have had enough of tears and bloodshed.
That’s why we will never stop working for peace, for justice, for reconciliation, for compassion and for an end to this conflict.
May the memories of all our young people be for a blessing.
beyondzerosum 