Going Public: Dissent in the American Jewish Community
Gordis, Harold Schulweis, Robert
GOING PUBLIC: DISSENT IN THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMUNITY Last month, considerable controversy was provoked in the Jewish community by the action of 36 American Jews who signed and cabled a letter...
...They are not known for political diffidence or indifference...
...Clearly there is much that is not known...
...Should our analysis prove wrong and our judgments faulty, we have lost a debate...
...Begin may command the support of a majority of Israeli public opinion, but this is not easy to demonstrate...
...Israel is a democracy and its citizens have ready access to the political process...
...nothing can destroy that friendship or the efforts on Israel's behalf that follow naturally from it...
...It means having to work hard to share perceptions and to convince the decisionmakers that we are right and they are wrong...
...At this momentous hour, dissent in private and with Israelis is in order...
...We are pledged to work on Israel's behalf, and we shall never rest in fulfilling our pledge...
...Brzezinski's threats to bring the Carter administration's confrontation with Israel before the American public...
...We will not be called upon to defend our mistakes with our lives...
...Even Mr...
...His rhetoric belongs to another era and to another arena...
...Are we Jews of diaspora then to say and do nothing...
...If there is fear of some erosion in the support of Israel within Congress, the public disclosure now of dissension within the leadership of American Jewry will only increase the politician's doubt as to justification for continuing America's heroic support of Israel...
...May you go from strength to strength...
...I can only say that the Talmudic principle seems to me entirely valid, ein lo ladayyan ela mah she'einav ro'ot, "The judge can only be guided by what his eyes behold...
...We are concerned at the apparent readiness of the nations of the West to abandon Israel...
...Clearly, the Prime Minister of Israel will win no awards for skill in international public relations...
...Sadat, in insisting on a total acceptance of his demands in advance of negotiations, has displayed immobility and, to use the word so beloved of anti-Israel critics, intransigence...
...They can elect and defeat, put into office and throw out of office, those who depend on their votes...
...Rabbi Schulweis sets up a whole series of straw men and therefore has no difficulty in demolishing them...
...We recognize the skill with which President Sadat has successfully captured the American imagination...
...Surely wisdom is not all theirs...
...He doesn't know what he's talking about...
...We are distressed by the dangerous Middle East policies of the American government...
...And they do not want to send their sons off to another war...
...and not only the government but the people in the State of Israel need to be taken into account...
...Public dissent which interferes with Israel's strategies for a secure peace is counter-productive and inadvertently plays into hostile hands which will use it to their advantage...
...However uncertain Israel's diplomatic motivations may be, for diaspora Jews to place political pressure on Israel at this juncture of the struggle is to seriously weaken Israel's hand...
...What is clear is that he was not elected on the specifics of his present platform...
...The decision of the thirty-six Jewish intellectuals to sign their names to a public statement critical of Israel's foreign policy is a serious blunder...
...Sadat...
...They chose the wrong time and the wrong medium to express their opposition...
...We" refers to those of us who, for all our interest, concern and financial contributions, are not there...
...That is why we greet the emergence of a grassroots peace movement in Israel, committed as we are to Israel's safety as well as to peace, with delight and relief...
...They" refers to those whose bodies are always on the line...
...The undersigned are life-long friends of Israel...
...It may yet be possible to restore the lost ground of support for Israel...
...They can debate, petition, hold public rallies...
...On the basis of considerations such as this, no rational discussion is possible on any issue...
...The signatories to the statement refer to "the apparent" revision of the U.N...
...The political issues at hand are not so unambiguous as to justify this public course of action...
...TO: SHALOM ACHSHAV We are heartened by your call for greater flexibility in Israel's negotiating position with Egypt...
...Such an attitude is even more congenial to the present Israeli leadership...
...Schulweis adds that there may be secret factors involved of which we know nothing...
...But the continuing expansion of settlements during the negotiating process, the revision of Israel's interpretation of UN Resolution 242, the apparent insistence that indefinite military occupation of the entire West Bank is a contribution rather than a threat to Israel's security, make our task infinitely more difficult...
...Understandably, the rabbi was very much distraught, but the president, who was very kind, consoled the young rabbi, "Pay no attention to him, rabbi...
...It is because of our commitment that we are distressed by the Begin government's response to President Sadat's peace initiative...
...Rabbi Schulweis argues that his public position may be intended for bargaining purposes only and conveniently makes no reference to the expansion of settlements in Gaza and the West Bank...
...we are disturbed by the fact that the Israeli government is providing those nations with ready-made excuses for their behavior...
...Moreover, it encourages Mr...
...Begin may well be wrong on his interpretation of the United Nations Resolution 242, wrong in the propriety of his theological claims upon Judea and Samaria, wrong in his decisions to invade Lebanon...
...They" refers to those whose voice and vote carry life and death consequences for themselves and their children...
...Here, we present the letter, a response to it by Rabbi Harold Schulweis, a contributing editor of this magazine and Rabbi of Temple Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, California, and a response to Schulweis by Rabbi Robert Gordis, one of the 36 signers, editor of Judaism, and a Professor of Bible at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America...
...Y'asher kochachem...
...Fortunately, there has been no corresponding growth of pro-Arab sentiment among Americans...
...resolution and to "the apparent" insistence on indefinite military occupation of the West Bank...
...It takes flexibility on two sides to achieve success in negotiations...
...He just repeats what everyone else says...
...We share your view that a secure peace is more important than a Greater Israel...
...His condescending lecturing of Foreign Minister Mohammed Kemal, his argumentative response to President Sadat's address to the Knesset, his vacillations over the Sinai settlements, his repeated dependence on the Holocaust which begins to wear thin—all these and more suggest the image of a graceless and bellicose figure...
...We applaud your initiative even as we continue to oppose those aspects of American policy which threaten to diminish Israel's security...
...Israel at this critical moment in its life is being denied its most vital strength in dealing with the President and the Congress: the unity of American Jewry's confidence in the democratic process of the State of Israel and in the desire of its people for a lasting peace...
...They can indicate their support or their displeasure with leaders and policies...
...One individual came up and said, "Rabbi, that was a terrible sermon you preached...
...For our part, we shall continue to support Israel in its struggle for a secure peace in every way we can...
...We did not—and do not—intend to imply that the Arabs have shown the requisite openness and flexibility needed to make peace possible...
...There are issues such as religious freedom and the treatment of minorities where the moral sensibilities of diaspora Jewry deserve appropriate public attention...
...Prime Minister Begin is responsible to the Israeli electorate...
...To be sure, even when the Labor government was in power, the Israeli Establishment preferred to treat American Jewry as a silent, if affluent, partner with no opinions or views of its own...
...Have we no wisdom, no stake of our own in the land...
...it strongly attacks his increasingly evident pro-Arab stand and makes it clear that the statement cannot be construed as representing any weakening of the necessity for security and peace for Israel...
...The issue is us...
...If prestigious Jewish leaders themselves publicly question the moral and political wisdom of Israel's posture towards the Arab states, who can complain if American legislators turn cool towards Israel's requests...
...Who is to say that the apparent intransigence of Israel's public posture is not part of the bartering strategies which attend negotiations, or that the public inflexibility is not designed to counter the public inflexibility of Mr...
...But I contend that our input and influence in shaping Israel's foreign policy is and ought to be limited by the gravity of circumstances...
...we are troubled by the fact that the Israeli government has made it easier for the Carter administration to win support for those policies...
...the wisdom of his policies, particularly from the long-range point of view, are legitimate, indeed necessary subjects for discussion...
...It is not at all surprising that the statement and the signatories have been violently attacked, sometimes in the lowest terms...
...Our original letter was addressed to Israeli reserve officers and therefore it focused on the present stance of the Israeli government...
...On the contrary...
...As the statement makes clear, the initiative came from Israelis and did not originate here...
...I am, it should be clear, thoroughly in favor of strong support for Israel all along the line...
...But there are issues and times when our public opposition could prove to be so inimical to the welfare of the State and its decisionmaking process that self-restraint is the only responsible course to take...
...During such precarious moments when Israel is engaged in crucial negotiations with its lifelong enemies and its putative allies, voluntary inhibition against critical public declarations is the better part of wisdom...
...This is entirely in conformity with the dominant mood of our age which prefers gut reactions to the exercise of reason, and the practice of violence as the ultimate response to moderation...
...To do so without going public is burdensome...
...If they are wrong, they know the price and who will be called upon to pay it...
...It releases the brakes on his resolve to tough it out with the Jewish state...
...There was no need to push against an open door and argue at length that the decision with regard to Israeli policy should be determined by Israelis...
...But the exercise of such self-restraint on such a major sensitive issue is necessary if the representatives of Israel are to successfully conduct their policies...
...What is far more ominous—and this may have encouraged President Carter—is the drastic decline of support for Israel among the American people as indicated in all recent polls...
...Such a time is now...
...It has been heartening to find so many individuals voicing support for our statement to the Shalom Achshav movement...
...Such voluntary self-restraint on the part of diaspora intellectuals is the price one must pay for choosing not to live in Israel as a citizen...
...Not by the remotest stretch of the imagination can this statement be regarded as supporting Carter's position...
...Menachem Begin's courage and patriotism are not in question...
...The essential "sin" of the statement was that it articulated what many—I would say, perhaps most—intelligent observers of the current scene were saying privately, while the situation continued to deteriorate publicly...
...They can publish freely and demonstrate in the streets unafraid...
...GOING PUBLIC: DISSENT IN THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMUNITY Last month, considerable controversy was provoked in the Jewish community by the action of 36 American Jews who signed and cabled a letter of support to Israel's Shalom Achshav ('Peace Now') movement The letter was given extensive coverage in both this country and in Israel, and stirred a debate regarding the propriety of such expressions by American Jews...
...It is possible that when he avers that he will "never return Gaza and the West Bank," he means the opposite...
...It is no doubt frustrating for American Jewish intellectuals not to be listened to by those forming Jewish policy...
...But Begin is not the issue here...
...Perhaps the reason lies in the old familiar story of the young rabbi who had preached a sermon and, together with the president of the congregation, was greeting the congregants after the service...
...The movement for a more flexible policy began with the letter submitted to Menachem Begin by 300 reserve officers of the Israeli Army, then followed by a demonstration of some 20,000 Israelis, and then by 60,000 Israeli signatories on a letter addressed to the Prime Minister...
...our hopes are with you...
...we lament the fact that the actions of the Israeli government have contributed to that success...
Vol. 3 • June 1978 • No. 7
