American Jews and the West Bank
AMERICAN JEWS AND THE WEST BANK Policy has been translated into practice; it is now inescapable that the government of Israel not only intends to annex the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but has...
...It is my impression that a very large number have preferred not to acknowledge what is in fact taking place, because so much pain attends the acknowledgment...
...There is a dynamic to sue!} matters, and it is an inevitable, an inexorable, dynamic...
...But it makes little sense to argue the fact of it...
...There is no escape from that dismal prognosis, save in ways too sinister to contemplate...
...And I know, as well, that there are some in this community who welcome Israel's policies, who share the hysterical vision that gives them birth...
...they are fully aware of the "demographic argument," the projection that estimates that by the year 2000, there will be as many Arabs as Jews in Greater Israel...
...it is irresponsible, reckless...
...If I am correct in that, it becomes necessary to inquire of our own relationship to these matters...
...Hence they expect either to be denied citizenship, or to be victims of a cosmetized version of Meir Kahane's proposal to drive them from the area...
...It is inconceivable to them that the Jewish State would risk its character for the sake of land...
...The 1,300,000 Palestinian Arabs of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip do not desire, and will not make peace with, Israeli citizenship...
...There is not one precedent, from anywhere in the world, that permits us to think that the policies Israel now follows can have a happy ending, a pacific result...
...Others have simply moved toward apathy, hoping to defend against the pain that comes with caring...
...Some day, God willing, Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs, will have moved beyond their hatreds and their fears...
...It is therefore no longer sufficient to express one's concern for Israel's welfare by opposing the foolish policies of the Reagan government or the malicious policies of the Arab states or the evil policies of the PLO...
...On the contrary: The more energetically it is pursued, the less the prospect that there will ever be an end to the conflict...
...In the present circumstances, American Jews who oppose Israel's annexationist course should refrain from entering the West Bank...
...It is not merely Israel's character that is thereby distorted...
...Here, for example, are the words of Justice Haim Cohen, the distinguished and widely respected former Supreme Court Justice who now heads the Israel Association for Civil Rights, reacting to recent events on the Golan Heights: "When I hear these stories about identity cards, I ask myself simply, 'Are these Israelis...
...Some are disturbed by the ethical consequences of the present policies...
...It is, instead, a provocation, a guarantee of permanent conflict...
...Is this the Israel Defense Forces...
...So, distressingly, it is—and so it must inevitably be...
...Nor, for that matter, do they expect that such a citizenship will be offered them...
...At the same time, the Arabs within Israel, some 600,000 Israeli citizens, increasingly endorse and identify with their kinsfolk in the West Bank...
...For surely none would argue that lovers of Zion, witness according to their own best judgment to suicidal policies, are permitted to sit idly by...
...Indeed, there are those in Israel who say that it is already irreversible...
...In early April, one senior Likud official responded to my question regarding annexation with measured surprise: "Of course we mean to annex...
...No, Israel ought not withdraw from the West Bank until there is a fully developed and adequately insured agreement regarding its future...
...There is a difference—a very substantial difference— between continuing the occupation of the West Bank until such time as an agreement becomes possible, and its annexation...
...they have become, lamentably, political statements...
...We are in no hurry to formalize it...
...But such an agreement cannot be contemplated in the present circumstances, and the policy of annexation promises that those circumstances will not change for the better...
...If we intend for our children and their children to be able to visit the place where Joshua entered the land and the place where Abraham is buried, if we intend that there some day be peace, if we intend that Israel be serene, if we intend that the Third Commonwealth be eternal, then we cannot become accomplices in a policy that insures these things will never come to pass...
...L.F...
...At stake there, and in Jerusalem where the plans are made, are the good name of the Jewish people and, ever so much more important, its future, the life of its State...
...I do not know how most American Jews react to these matters...
...Those who hold the view that it is neither right nor wise for Israel to seek to own these lands must draw the appropriate conclusion—quite simply, that Israel does not have the right to invite us to visit there, and that being Jewish does not give us the right to intrude there...
...No, this is a matter that calls for a different kind of action, one internal to the Jewish people, one that gives full expression to both our loyalty and our distress...
...But never doubt that we will do it...
...Visits to the West Bank—again, under the present circumstances—cannot be justified as educational tours...
...Some have suggested the withholding of financial contributions to Israel, as if the policies of a proud country can be bought and sold...
...Jewish ethics and Jewish safety meet in the West Bank...
...it is our future...
...These are painful conclusions, for the land is surpassingly beautiful, and our ties to its places go back to our origins as a people...
...By now, as the resident population has moved from passive acquiescence to active resistance, as the Israeli purpose has shifted from occupation to annexation, it is not possible to speak of "enlightenment...
...Love does not permit silence when these are the stakes...
...It is Israel's safety and security that are now placed in jeopardy, this in the name of fundamentalist perceptions that have become the false messianism of our time...
...But it is not our origins that are today the issue...
...Israel has occupied the territories for 15 years now...
...As Theodore R. Mann, former Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, noted two years ago, "Having to rule over 1,300,000 Arabs and wanting to do so are two entirely different things...
...But I strongly suspect that there are also very many American Jews who tremble for the fate of the Third Commonwealth...
...Our opposition to these must continue, but we cannot hide from the knowledge that the course Israel now follows is not a cure for those policies and the actions which flow from them...
...But numbness is no answer, any more than death...
...Are we mere tourists to this place, or have we a stake in the outcome...
...Such a suggestion is not merely futile...
...Is there a way to express our fears while continuing to express our love...
...Don't you read what we write, hear what we say...
...It is not merely Israel's image that is thereby damaged...
...Most of all, don't you watch what we do...
...The hard times are not softened by summer soldiers...
...Who are we to drink friendly tea with the Gush Emunim settlers who seek to preempt Jewish history and destiny...
...But the corporate stance of the community must be clear, must in no way be permitted to abet policies that imperil Israel...
...the autonomy negotiations have to happen first, and the preparations, on the ground and in public opinion, have to be completed...
...They are a potential time-bomb within Israel's borders—and the fuse has been lit by recent events...
...Ever since 1967, it has become routine, especially for participants in missions, to visit the West Bank, often stopping at one or another of the new Jewish settlements there...
...Each year, some tens of thousands of American Jews visit Israel within the framework of organized missions or as individuals...
...American Jewish organizations that sponsor missions should reconsider their itineraries, lest Israel interpret them as an endorsement of its policies...
...The one is an unpleasant and expensive necessity, the other a subversive and ultimately calamitous folly...
...it is life we seek, hence feeling...
...our purpose must be to enrich the partnership, not to wreck it...
...Classrooms must still be built, the elderly attended...
...It was promised in the Likud platform, it has been endorsed repeatedly by the Likud's principal policy makers, and, most of all, it is expressed daily in the actions of the Israeli government...
...People, here and in Israel, will heatedly debate the wisdom of such annexation...
...Individuals, of course, can make whatever arrangements suit them...
...And those who believe that American Jews should not, have not the right to, intervene in Israel's security affairs—they, too, must appreciate that their visits to the disputed territories are today an intervention...
...Recent and continuing events in the West Bank—and in Gaza, and even the Golan for that matter—offer a modest foretaste of the inevitable consequences of annexation...
...Are these Israeli solidiers...
...Earlier, it was possible to argue that its policies of occupation were enlightened—though even then, they were enlightened only relative to the policies that other occupiers of other places have pursued...
...most believe that those policies, for all the grandiose rhetoric by which they are defended, are a prescription for practical disaster...
...Is this Israeli law that they are imposing?' It is the law of barbarians...
...The question before us is a question of elemental morality and of fundamental self-interest...
...Is there a way to vote "no" to expansionism while voting "yes, always" to Zionism...
...Is there, then, a way for us to show our profound distress with annexa-tionism without turning away from Israel...
...Some day, we will be welcome visitors to Nablus and Hebron...
...But not now, not today, not while annexation is the aim...
...Who are we to gawk out of our bus windows at those who live in these places and are today oppressed...
...Who are we, visitors to the homeland in which we have invested such lavish hopes and energies, to endorse, however passively, Israel's expansionism...
...it is now inescapable that the government of Israel not only intends to annex the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but has already initiated the process...
...As more and more Middle East experts are pointing out, Israel is heading—at best—towards Belfastization...
Vol. 7 • May 1982 • No. 5
