Finding Clarity
SINGER, SUZANNE F.
PERSPECTIVE Editor's Viewpoint Finding Clarity SUZANNE F. SINGER A grassroots women's group asks w h y Israel should s w a l l ow Palestinian lies a nd apologize f o r t h e Jewish State's...
...Led us to question Israel's presence in its land...
...Despite the terrible loss of life of young Israeli soldiers, it is right and honorable that the army fights as it does—following the doctrine of tohar haneshek, purity of arms—that requires Israeli soldiers, at risk of their own lives, to protect and warn enemy civilians...
...and finally, led us to believe that Palestinian ambitions end at the Green Line and that all the maps in textbooks and on Palestinian office walls showing Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River should be ignored...
...runners in a park—would tear at the hearts of the world...
...youngsters relaxing at a disco, at a caf?, on a pedestrian mall...
...support the army in its tasks, to restore the Zionist spirit and loyalty to Eretz Israel and its heritage, to stop apologizing for our existence and the desire to live in our own country in peace and security—and to create a new discourse in Israeli society...
...It is difficult to say obvious things simply...
...teachers on their way to work...
...PERSPECTIVE Editor's Viewpoint Finding Clarity SUZANNE F. SINGER A grassroots women's group asks w h y Israel should s w a l l ow Palestinian lies a nd apologize f o r t h e Jewish State's existence...
...students asleep at a yeshiva...
...Clarity is more like how I feel when the shofar blasts at the end of Ne'ila on Yom Kippur...
...Bizarre that such a message can be noteworthy, even essential, but that's where the muddy apologetics of many Israeli and American Jews have led us...
...boys searching for wood for their Lag B'Omer bonfire...
...About these things I am clear: The democratically- elected government of Ariel Sharon is acting with the massive support of the people of Israel...
...The words of the Women in Blue and White can be a guidepost: "Our goal is to...
...families sitting down to a seder...
...led us to buy Palestinian claims that the West Bank is not disputed territory but their land, although no nation in the world ever recognized a Palestinian state...
...That's how Lea Shklar from the West Bank community of Ofra explains the message of Women in Blue and White, a new grassroots Israeli movement...
...Never before could I imagine standing side by side with a women's political organization— neither the Woman in Black on the nation-critical left, nor the Women in Green on the strident right, nor the Four Mothers who demanded that Israel's soldiers leave the security zone of southern Lebanon...
...Clarity is not self-righteousness...
...All those truths can and should be examined but not at the expense of standing tall in pride, encouraging our youth who defend us, reminding them that they are helping to protect the only Jewish State in the world, without which, Jews all over the world, will be weaker and more vulnerable than they are today...
...when such attacks resume, as sadly they have, more response must follow...
...It is time to trust our inner sense of clarity, a clarity that stirred the United States in the days and weeks after 9/11, the clarity that President Bush expressed for the world—that evil must be fought and rooted out, that those who support and condone evil must be held accountable, that democracy and freedom must be protected at all cost...
...That clarity led Israelis to think that Israel, too, would be seen as fighting evil and that the terror killings, which have rent the nation's hearts—a baby in her stroller and a toddler in her parents' bed...
...The fast over, the body empty and cleansed, the soul challenged, the trivia of life having been held at bay for 25 hours, there is a sense of being stripped down to basics—at least for a few hours...
...But the Women in Blue and White are saying what I am feeling...
...Not only are the hearts of the world hardened, but unbelievably, in Israel too, the far left finds ways to turn the attacks into charges against Israel's government and its army...
...led us to define Israel's administration of territories captured in a war to defend its survival as "illegal occupation" and to decry the immorality of that condition which almost all Israelis want to end...
...led us to find justification for Palestinian armed attacks and suicide bombs as part of their just fight against our settling their land...
...Our challenge today is to preserve clarity, to speak quiedy and clearly...
...We resist saying that we know what is right We squirm when our friends remind us that Israel has its sins and warts and the Palestinians their just demands...
...Let's say simple obvious things...
...WE ARE TALKING ABOUT those things that are seemingly ordinary, basic, natural, even banal that have ceased to be so...
...We are raised in sophisticated environments where truth is suspect and qualifications honored, where tempering certainty is almost a reflex...
...Operation Defensive Shield came later than it should have but was the just response to attacks by terrorists, trained and supported in the Palestinian cities and towns...
...led us to believe that were Israel to abandon its settlements to create a nondemocratic Palestinian state led by Yasser Arafat that Israel could then live in peace with its Palestinian neighbor...
Vol. 27 • August 2002 • No. 4
