It’s Jerusalem’s Burden, but the World’s to Blame

Oddly, there are more concerns these days about Israeli prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu’s commitment to the peace process than the commitment of the Palestinians. Is it to be taken for granted, then, that the Palestinians – who elected Hamas to power prior to that terrorist group’s power-grab in the Gaza Strip – are more committed than Israel to peace? How about the Palestinian Authority, controlled by the Fatah faction – one of whose former officials, Muhammad Dahlan, recently advised the Hamas movement not to recognize Israel’s right to exist…because Fatah itself hasn’t done so?

The lion’s share of the burden of peace is almost always placed on the State of Israel. Why? Is it because Israel gave up land for peace, and received suicide bombers and rockets in return? Why, pray tell, aren’t as many questions – there should be a helluva lot more – being raised about the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to recognizing Israel and seeking peace? One would think if the Palestinian Authority leadership truly cared about the welfare of their people (more than their own power and prominence), they would have been able long ago to reach a lasting accord with Israel – which gave up land for peace with both Egypt and Jordan.

A disproportionate amount of blame is heaped on Israel for the peace process’s failure thus far, and yet, Benjamin Netanyahu has been able to reach a coalition deal with the Israeli Labor party by agreeing to uphold previous agreements with the Palestinians. If the Palestinian factions of Hamas and Fatah can’t come to an agreement based on a similar arrangement vis-a-vis Israel, it will be their hardline stance, and not any Israeli leader’s, that is the most responsible for further delays on the road to peace. In the past, Israel’s leaders have shown themselves to be true statesmen – worthy, willing and able to make sacrifices to end states of war. 

The same cannot be said of the Palestinians’ leaders.

This is not mere opinion; this is a fact.

Why are Israel’s leaders alone judged by the world media, based on their commitment to peace? This gives a pass to past Palestinian intransigence, including surreptitious arms purchases from Iran (anyone remember the Karine-A incident?) and fanning the flames of anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli hatred on Palestinian Authority-run television stations. Are either Abbas’s Fatah or Haniyeh’s Hamas, which have yet to recognize Israel’s right to exist (a Phase One “Road Map to Peace” provision), to be considered partners for peace, while Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud – which concluded the peace treaty with former arch-enemy Egypt – aren’t?

Such a view smacks of the grossest sort of hypocrisy on the part of the international community. But then, when it comes to the conflict between the Israelis and the Arabs, this isn’t anything new, so we shouldn’t be surprised. Their stance has usually been thus: “When in doubt, blame the Jews and give their enemies the benefit of the doubt.” Nothing’s changed, and until it does, a bewildered world will have only itself to blame for the lack of peace between Jerusalem, Ramallah and Gaza. In fact, the mainstream media and international community are as much to blame for the absence of Israeli-Palestinian peace as the Palestinians themselves.

But then, I am speaking as a commonsensical Jew…and a proudly American-born Israeli. Of course I’m going to say that!

I Miss My Grandma

When I wrote these words on December 31, 2008, for my blog entry “By December’s End”, I was in Daegu, South Korea, thinking at that moment about my Grandma Sis, who had suddenly taken seriously ill back in Tucson, Arizona. I had a sense of foreboding, an abiding worry, and I wrote what I wrote below as much to reassure myself as to stoke an ever-present flame of optimism:

“Seeing as how things generally work themselves out for the better, like this time last year, I’m pretty confident that whatever lies in store for me in the year ahead will give me more in value and memories than it takes away.“

September 2008: Grandma Sis and I in Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

At the time, I did it as a defense mechanism, hoping against hope that I wouldn’t need such reassurance down the line. But even then I knew…or at least I think I knew…that I was kidding myself. Grandma Sis was in a bad way, a seriously bad way, but even if I’d been back home in the southwestern U.S.A., instead of teaching English on the Korean Peninsula, there wasn’t much besides being there at the end that I could have done about it. Fat lot of comfort that brings.

Grandma’s situation had been up and down – it was almost like a sporting match between two top rival teams, or watching a war: Things are looking really bad, then they’re really looking up, and then…the moment of truth. Or, the moment of being hit with the truth that the result is the one you feared the most…in this case, that one of the primary influences on who you are as a person today is no longer with you in this world.

My Grandma and I at Memphis, Egypt in December 2005

For me, that moment came while on the phone with my Dad early Monday morning Korea-time on what was for me January 5, 2009. For all intents and purposes, Grandma had – it was still January 4 back in Tucson – already departed; my family present at the hospital were merely waiting for her to draw her final breath. Dad and I were discussing making travel arrangements to get me home for the funeral, and suddenly he interrupted me: “Jeremy…Jeremy…she’s gone. Grandma’s gone,” he choked out. Just like that, she was gone.

Needless to say, as I stared at my laptop sitting on the desk in my apartment’s kitchen, the emotional dam burst as my Dad out of necessity quickly hung up the phone, mumbling that we’d talk again in a bit. I couldn’t control it, didn’t want to control it. Tears slid down my face and I slid out of my chair and collapsed on the floor, sobbing a monsoon (and cussing up a storm, I might add). I’ve never felt worse at any other moment in my life.

Dad, Grandma and I at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel in November 2005

What was my Grandma Sis to me? My Mom actually put it best when she said, speaking of my Grandma, that “She kept you grounded.” My Grandma Sis put as much love and care and attention into raising me – well, trying to – to be a good, responsible mensch as my parents did. Maybe a bit more, proportionally, because for some inexplicable reason, her praise often meant more to me than that which came from anyone else, and her criticisms stung something fierce. I won’t even go in to how her nagging affected me…

Well, okay, I will – she was like a lighthouse, shining a guiding light for me into a harbor, whether I wanted her to or not, whether I wanted to go there or not.

Like the Queen of England’s political role, Grandma generally stood above the fray in my disputes with my parents; oh, in sentiment I know she agreed with them most of the time and was probably right to do so. I’ve done things, made reckless decisions, angered her deeply. But even so, I was never without the sense that what she offered me and would always offer me was unconditional love. Whether I was living in Arizona, Israel, New York, or now, in South Korea, I knew I could count on that.

November 2005: Myself, Grandma Sis and Montie in Jerusalem, Israel

And now? I’m lost. There’s no other way to describe it, besides feeling a palpable sense of loneliness, an emptiness…a void.

I’m only a Grandson; I can’t imagine the pain my Dad and uncles are feeling. I can’t speak for my cousins. I can’t describe how it feels to be one of Grandma’s siblings, nieces or nephews today. All I know is what I know; all I feel is what I feel. Loss. Emptiness. Loneliness. Confusion. How I wish for that lighthouse with its guiding light to still be standing there, complaining about her stomach troubles, admonishing me to visit the dentist, telling me from over 6,000 miles away how much she misses me and loves me.

Several times I’ve been reminded, in the last day or so, by those from all four corners of the Earth I’m lucky to call my friends, “At least she’s in a better place.” Well yeah, true, but between you and me, I’m kind of annoyed that that place isn’t here, with us right now. I respect God’s wisdom in His taking her when He did, or at least I say I do (He knows the truth), but all the same…that doesn’t, can’t, change the fact that I miss my Grandma Sis more than I’ll ever be able to say in any blog or speech or…whatever.

Grandma and Grandson

Spare Me the World’s Crocodile Tears

As has been the case for years now, men, women and children are being slaughtered in Sudan at the hands of guerrillas working in collusion with Khartoum. And yet, rather than take to the streets to force action, the world reserves its righteous anger for when Israel launches military operations against a terrorist organization ruling over a small strip of land, a terrorist organization that provoked a war not simply by launching rockets after a cease-fire ended, but launching them while a cease-fire was on. Why?

When Muslim terrorists kill innocent Iraqis out shopping or praying, simply because those Iraqis are one sort of Muslim or another, you don’t see mass protests out on the streets of the world, condemning those who carry out such heinous acts (and if you do, you see the blame shifted from the terrorists to the U.S. military presence). But when Israeli bombs kill Palestinian bomb makers in Gaza City, why…just look at worldwide reactions!

Last November, Islamist terrorists committed numerous acts of politically- and religiously-motivated murder in Mumbai, India, and yet…where in Europe were the mass protests against the ideology which fuels such heinous Islamist operations? Jews, in that attack, were in particular singled out for slaughter. Where was the world’s righteous anger then? Simmering? Waiting for the next time Israel took to the skies to defend Jews?

Do those gathering in the streets and protesting Israel’s military offensive actually think they are doing so on behalf of the Palestinian people? I guess they don’t mind that the Hamas organization, since taking over the Gaza Strip, has condemned that territory’s residents – often, with the populace’s support – to incessant poverty, isolation, and…oh yeah!…war! I guess protesters’ inability to turn a blind eye to Israeli missiles translates into an ability for them to do so with regards to Palestinian rockets.

If the international community truly cares for the future of the Palestinian people, and is truly interested in achieving peace between Israelis and the rest of the Arab world, then that international community should support Israel’s efforts to bring a stop to the Hamas rockets which are incessantly striking Israeli territory and which are being launched from Arab-controlled land. I’m not just talking about Governments; I’m talking about ordinary people, who claim to be so upset with Israel but aren’t at all upset with Hamas.

There’s no moral equivalency, whatsoever, between the democratically-elected government of Israel and the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip, who seized by force, undemocratically, the relatively small plot of land they now control. Even when Hamas rockets don’t kill Israelis, the psychological damage to those targeted by them is as great as that suffered by Palestinians dealing with Israeli air strikes brought on Gaza by the rejectionist hate-mongerers of Hamas.

No Government, or no democratic Government at least, should be expected to indefinitely countenance incessant acts of war committed against its territory and people. And yet, such is what most of the world expects of the State of Israel, even as the UN recognizes the freedom of other nations to violate international borders in the pursuit of pirates. Israel held back on this operation, Cast Lead, for a long time. A long, long time.

This is why, right now, I’m tired of hearing the world screech in support of “Palestine”. Israel might not, by appearances, be the most pro-Palestinian nation in the world. But then, Israel is the only country seeking to free the Palestinians from their tendency to never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Israel’s war on Hamas should be the Palestinians’ own; Jews are dying while fighting Palestinians so that Palestinians might be free. Oh, the irony!

When Hamas violated Israel’s borders in 2006 and kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Schalit, the world said nothing. Hamas has both participated in and permitted the launching of rockets at Israel over the years, from territory it long sought to control and now does, and yet the protests have been…almost, but not quite, non-existent. Hamas has done nothing but provoke war and bring bloodshed upon the Palestinian people, and yet it is for Israel that – when it takes to the skies and streets of Gaza in defense of Jews – the world reserves its greatest ire.

Spare me.

A Prayer for Victory…and Peace

Sometimes, I feel as if I can’t quite explain the pride I’m feeling. It’s not a pride born of…well, like I said, I can’t explain it. Or I can, but it’s going to take more than just a few words. It’s complicated, and yet so simple: A stew of emotions, with basic ingredients. More than I can admit to feeling in a long, long time…and this might sound bad, but it’s earnest: I’m proud to be Jewish. I’m proud to be Israeli. And while I’m, as always, proud to be an American, it’s at moments like these when it really hits home just how lucky I am to call the United States of America my home and native land, and how honored I am to consider Israelis my fellow citizens.

I mean, just looking at recent events, it should be easy to see why (of course, I’m a bit biased when speaking about myself, but please…hear me out): Here we are, in a situation in which Jews in their sovereign land have the power to defend themselves, and they are once again using it to great effect. The way Israel conducts warfare is far more noble than the methods of warfare employed by Israel’s enemies; yet another reason for pride. Furthermore, the Government of the United States is displaying the moral clarity which is otherwise sorely lacking with regards to the conflict between Israel and an existential enemy, Hamas. Only victory could be sweeter.

I feel no shame for Israel’s actions, nor the traditional, blind sort of anger others feel toward our – America’s and Israel’s – enemies. I’m angry at what our enemies have forced us to do, sure, but more than that, I pity them. Oh, but do I pity them…

Yes, I pity them, and those among their own people whom they have condemned to constantly living in fear and with the threat of war. However, my pity is pity tempered with determination: Victory in this struggle is a necessity, not only for Israel, but for the Middle East. I feel compelled to question the honesty of those governments expressing knee-jerk dismay at Israel’s military campaign; one would think that if they truly wished to see peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, they would wish Israel the best of luck in its efforts to defang Hamas for the benefit of all concerned, Jews and Arabs, Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Lebanese, etc.

Whose interest is it in, to see Hamas remain able to incessantly, randomly launch rockets with impunity, from territory under its control, at communities in the South of Israel? In whose interest is it, to see Hamas remain in power in Gaza, determining as it does the fate of Gazan Palestinians by way of its rejectionist policies regarding Israel? Have the Palestinian people benefitted from Hamas rule in the Strip? Are we any closer to an honest, comprehensive peace between ourselves and the Palestinians, since Hamas forced Fatah out of power in Gaza? “Operation Cast Lead”, Israel’s current military offensive against Hamas, wasn’t born in a vacuum.

If it weren’t just illegal immigrants the United States had to deal with, coming in from Mexico; if rockets were being launched daily from Juarez or Nogales at communities in the Southwest, you can be damn sure Washington would take some sort of military action to end the threat, and wouldn’t tolerate it for very long either. Look how fast it took Russia to respond to aggressive moves by neighboring Georgia earlier this year. And consider the issue of piracy off the coast of Somalia; attacks and provocations by pirates have led to United Nations Security Council Resolutions authorizing nations to pursue pirates in that region not only by sea, but by land, too.

Hamas bears the ultimate responsibility for provoking this latest war, which is undeniably causing immense suffering to the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. At the same time, however, we must remember that the citizens of Gaza have done little to nothing to alleviate the conditions they are living under; rather than protesting Hamas’s rule, which has brought them only suffering and violence, they’ve supported it. The citizens of Gaza are hardly as defenseless as the mainstream media or sympathetic governments make them out to be…we’re talking about one of the most densely populated and heavily-armed places on the planet. And don’t forget the rockets!

We cannot and should not forget the rockets being launched from the Hamas-ruled territory that is the Gaza Strip, for if it weren’t for the rockets, “Operation Cast Lead” might never have left the planning stages. Israel might have been able to tolerate cold war-style a hostile neighbor in the form of a “Hamastan” Gaza Strip, much as Israel’s managed to make do for over sixty years with formerly hostile neighbors such as Egypt and Jordan, and contemporary hostile neighbors such as Syria, Lebanon…and the Palestinians. But what Israel could not countenance, what the democratically elected government in Jerusalem could no longer tolerate, were the rockets.

And as I’ve said, the United States wouldn’t long tolerate rocket strikes on its territory emanating from a neighbor. No nation, proud of its sovereignty and determined to what it could to ensure the safety of its citizenry, would tolerate as many rockets as Israel has – 3,000 since the beginning of 2008, many of them launched at Israel during a so-called “cease-fire” with Hamas, and prior to the opening of large-scale hostilities, approximately 200 since the end of the “cease-fire” a week ago – before striking back at those or the regime responsible for their being launched. Israel restrained itself as long as it could; the world urged Israel to continue doing so.

But then, the “world” generally uses one standard to judge Israel by, and another to judge itself by. Israel’s leaders, well aware of and dismayed by this fact, decided to once more risk international opprobrium and take easily-justifiable action to defend their country and their people; if you ask me, as one who voted the current Israeli prime minister into office, I find this a far wiser decision than if the government had decided to continue to wait for the outside world’s permission. After experiencing in Israel the mess that was the Second Lebanon War in 2006, this is no small realization on my part. I had long ago lost confidence in Olmert; he’s gained a little back.

Coming just a few weeks before the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States, Israel’s military campaign against the terror regime in Gaza contains, I think, a not-so-hidden message to the incoming Administration, and the world at large: “Israel waited years and years before taking action like this in the Gaza Strip. Finally, Israel’s patience wore thin. The same thing is bound to happen with regards to the threat to Israel posed by an Iran that seeks nuclear capabilities; unless decisive results are achieved by the international community, Israel is more than willing to step up to the plate and handle things itself. Be warned.”

In short, with “Operation Cast Lead”, Israel has said, and is continuing to say, “Enough is enough.”

The State of Israel is, once again, doing what it was meant to do, especially in the wake of the Holocaust: It is providing a platform, a tool – vehicle, if you will – for Jews to take responsibility for their own safety and stand up and fight for themselves, when no one else will stand up for them or fight on their behalf. The sight of Jewish soldiers, fighting on behalf of a Jewish state, in a Jewish army, guided by Jewish principles of morality (e.g., the “purity of arms” doctrine), seeking not to conquer but to pacify, so that peace might one day gain a further toehold in an embattled, embittered, blood-stained land…well, it causes one like me to swell with pride.

And so I say, God Bless the State of Israel. Guide its leaders with Your light and Your truth. Strengthen the hands of those who defend our Holy Land. Deliver them; crown their efforts with triumph. Furthermore, as I’ve said many times before with heartfelt love and pride, God Bless the United States of America. God Bless America, for not only knowing at this moment which side has the moral high ground – but for openly acknowledging and pointing it out as well. From sea to shining sea, and wherever its agents roam, may this land I speak of, under Your Providence, continue to be an influence for good throughout the world.

Amen.

The Inconvenient Truth about Mumbai

It’s been a sad week for Mumbai, a sad week for the families of the innocents who died simply because they were there and were who they were, a sad week for the Republic of India, and a sad week – once again – to be Jewish. What a Chabad rabbi did or could have done to deserve a raid by bloodthirsty terrorists in Mumbai is beyond my comprehension. It simply doesn’t compute…unless you remember who is responsible for the attacks. Know this: Whosoever argues that these attacks could possibly have any justification whatsoever is blind to the realities of the world we live in. Nothing can justify this terror, this utter madness.

These terror attacks are an affront to humanity, but sadly, are also representative of the depths of depravity to which humans can sink to. After all, those who planned and carried out the attacks are not superhuman monsters…they are all too human monsters, with human frailties, human interests, and human motives. No high-minded individual or ideology should countenance such evil; no high-minded ideology, be it political, religious or an amalgam of the two, should be allowed to call itself high-minded when such lowly violence is its calling card.

And yes, folks, equivocate all you like, but events in Mumbai over the past 48 hours were and are acts of evil, perpetrated against tourists and Indians alike. If your only “direct” experience of terrorism was 9/11 or some similar great event such as the Madrid or London bombings, perhaps the horror of the Mumbai attacks doesn’t faze you as much as it should. But for those who have lived with the threat of random acts of politically- or religiously-motivated violence, directed primarily at innocent civilians, little is left to the imagination. The fear, the uncertainty, the calm before the storm…and then, a bomber strikes a falafel stand in Tel Aviv (like I could forget that sound), a bus explodes in Jerusalem, or gunmen seize hotels and places of worship and congregation in India, killing scores of people whose only crime was – in the eyes of the terrorists – being amongst the living!

This is why Jews in America overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama in the late election, but polls in Israel show that the right-wing Likud party’s Benjamin Netanyahu has a strong chance of victory in Israel’s upcoming general election, scheduled for early next year. American Jews can empathize with their Israeli cousins in the Promised Land, but the daily experience of the former is too far removed from that of the latter. Sure, Jews in America see security at synagogues during the High Holidays, but that security presence is only there because the reality of daily life in Israel demonstrates that even now, over six decades since the end of the Holocaust, Jews are still tempting targets for the homicidally-inclined of certain faiths, ideologies and/or ethnicities, wherever they (Jews) are. And, if anyone happened to forget that fact, the takeover of the Chabad House in Mumbai by Islamic terrorists – Jews were singled out, amidst the targeted hotels and tourist spots – serves as a chilling, tragic reminder of that inconvenient truth.

My point?

We the People of the United States have chosen as the next Chief Executive of our Federal Government a man who has expressed few qualms about meeting with those of other governments who directly finance and otherwise support those who organize and carry out such heinous acts of Islamic terrorism as have been occurring presently in India. My fellow Americans, relatively insulated from terrorism as they are – compared to those of other countries – can maybe be forgiven for feeling safe enough to vote into office one with such a stated agenda, but they should be prepared to possibly reap what they have sown, and I – who voluntarily abandoned that insulation, experiencing first-hand in Israel, as an Israeli, what most Americans (who don’t hold passports) can barely contemplate as daily life – will be amongst the first to say “I told you so,” if and when the thinkable (how can it be “the unthinkable,” when it presents itself so often?) comes to pass. God forbid that should happen, but then…what God does and doesn’t forbid to happen isn’t up to us.

My prayers go out to all those who were murdered in these attacks. They were not killed by Islamic “militants”, but by Islamic terrorists. Let us remember that. Let that sink in. Save the political correctness for another day; spare me the apologists’ excuses. As the Foreign Minister of Israel said just a short time ago, “Our world is under attack, and it doesn’t matter if it’s in India or somewhere else. Only when things like this happen do we understand that we are partners in the same battle.” But I digress…and so now in closing, I say to the Republic of India, to Chabad, to my fellow Jews, Israelis and Americans, and to all the other friends, families and countrymen of all the innocents and members of the Indian security forces fighting against the terrorists who lost their lives in Mumbai,

“May the Almighty comfort you amongst the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.”

New Year, Old Problem

As the Hebrew calendar year 5768 spies 5769 on the near horizon, Jews on the far-right fringe in the State of Israel have reportedly issued a 1,100,000 New Israeli Shekel bounty on the head of Professor Ze’ev Sternhell, a past winner of the Israel Prize, and on the heads of any other Jews who are – like the professor – associated with the Peace Now organization. Prof. Sternhell, with whom I’d likely sharply and vehemently disagree on a wide range of issues and challenges facing Israel were we to talk, was lightly injured late this past Wednesday evening by a pipe bomb set at the entrance to his Jerusalem home. Despite my opposition to the more or less delusional agenda of Peace Now and its activists (their’s is largely a fantasy Middle East, not the real one), I recognize a terrorist attack when I see one.

The attack upon Professor Sternhell isn’t the first, and won’t likely be the last, of its kind. But coming as it did on the heels of the most recent terrorist attack in Jerusalem, carried out by an Arab from east Jerusalem who drove his car into a gathering of Jewish soldiers, we can’t and shouldn’t ignore how such an attack carried out in Israel by Jews against another Jew (because of the latter’s political opinions) is indicative of an ancient Jewish illness is afflicting a modern Jewish polity. Were Israel an ordinary country, with an ordinary population, in an ordinary region of the world, perhaps there wouldn’t be any inordinate cause for concern. However, as I remind you and as I promise you I will point out again several paragraphs from now, Israel, her people, and her Land are anything but ordinary.

Now, just what am I getting at?

I think the single greatest fault of the Jewish people, our greatest sin, is our failure to see (in a good way) us as the anti-Semites (in a bad way) do…namely, as being equal in value with each other. It is a fundamental weakness, all too easily exploited by the enemies of Israel (the State, and the People), this ability of a Jew to hate a fellow Jew whose unique predicament, as Jews and human beings, we share. We spend so much time worrying about the Arabs of Israel being a fifth column, but the fact of the matter is, we Jews are all too often potentially a fifth column unto ourselves. We’re all Chosen, yet we rush to divide ourselves with speculation of which of our People are more Chosen than others. What good does this do us?

Who can blame God for siding with the Romans 2,000 years ago during the Great Revolt against the legionary occupiers of the Land of Israel, when Jews were murdering their fellow Jews in His name? And side with the Romans, God certainly did…otherwise, the history of the Jewish people would likely be very, very different, wouldn’t it? Nothing was inevitable about Rome’s victory in Judaea, or the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple. Today, we look at the resistance and sacrifice of the Jews at Masada, who held out against the military might of the Roman Empire, with something akin to reverence. But considered soberly, the mass suicide (mass murder) on that mountain fortress needn’t have happened.

Usually, differences of opinion contribute to a healthy democratic system. Healthy, vigorous debates can force people to actually think about the issues being discussed, meaning elected leaders and ordinary citizens both are potentially deterred from making unwise decisions impulsively, based on emotions or first impressions alone. But when we abandon Reason, sacrificing it upon the altar of Expedience, we do ourselves and all that we hold dear a great disservice. When we presume to speak for God, knowing as we do that God surely reserves the right to speak for Himself, we are guilty of great hubris. We generally look down upon an individual’s self-destructive behavior; how, then, why, can we countenance self-destructive behavior, such hubris, on a national/international scale?

During the days of the Great Revolt, Jews who advocated a cease-fire or peace with the Roman legions were thrown over the walls of Jerusalem by the Zealots. Today, Jews who – regardless of the wisdom (or lack thereof, in certain cases) of doing so – advocate peace with Arabs are targeted by modern Zealots with pipe bombs or shot to death at peace rallies. During the Great Revolt, or the Bellum Judaicum as the Romans called it, some Jews who snuck out of Jewish-held Jerusalem and surrendered to Roman soldiers had their hands cut off by the order of the future Caesar, Titus, because Titus knew what Jews would do to fellow Jews (after the war) who had voluntarily surrendered; they were as good as dead, unless it appeared they’d been captured in battle.

The year 2008 – 5768 – saw Jews around the world and in the Land of Israel celebrate the State of Israel’s 60th birthday, along with millions of non-Jewish supporters of the country. Sadly, over sixty years after Israel’s establishment, there still remain a multiplicity of existential threats to the Jewish state. Every year, it seems, Israel’s leaders must face and/or make decisions which stand to affect not only millions of Israelis, but millions of Jews everywhere (whether they recognize this or not). Even the most mundane of issues debated elsewhere can be given a life-or-death weight of importance in Israel…and for good reason. We’re not just talking about any other country, situated in any other region, are we? (Told you I’d bring it up again!)

No, obviously, we aren’t. We’re talking about the Jewish National Home, situated in the Promised Land – the Land the Bible, and even the Qu’ran, states was given to the Jews, to the Children of Israel, by God. The State of Israel is an imperfect entity, much less Zionist today than it was in, say, the days when Iran and Israel were close allies. Still, more than any other, it is a modern country weighed down by ancient concerns, enfeebled by ancient internal divisions. Besides that, a millennium or two of disenfranchisement and involuntary wandering didn’t exactly (couldn’t adequately) prepare the Jewish people for the responsibilities which accompanied the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty over their Promised Land. My point?

Loathe though we may be to admit it, the State of Israel is an experiment in modern Jewish nation-statehood. We’re (the Jews) being tested, constantly examined by God, to see if – in contrast with our ancient forefathers – we are today worthy of governing over our own affairs in our ancient homeland. For the most part, I’d like to think we haven’t let our Creator down. When Israel’s accomplishments are weighed in the balance against her failures, I’m confident that the good aspects vastly outnumber and outweigh the bad. Even so, this is an ongoing exam, not a one-off deal. Just as the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah went their separate ways due to irreconcilable differences between Jews, modern Israel could be torn asunder by an internal divisiveness we Jews – inside and outside of Israel – must hold ourselves accountable for.

Israel isn’t a Lebanon, and shouldn’t be turned into one. Death threats, pipe bombs and attempted (or successful) assassinations of those with whom we disagree should have no place in our political discourse; such thuggery is unbecoming a civilized country, and lest we forget, “Thou shalt not murder.” Jews inside, and outside, of Israel have enough non-Jewish enemies to deal with; we shouldn’t be our own worst enemy, stabbing each other in the back or shooting ourselves in the feet. Yes, there are life and death issues at stake…but doesn’t the Torah admonish us to choose life over death? In keeping with this, shouldn’t we – preferably sooner rather than later – learn from our own history and heritage as Jews, and not brazenly repeat the mistakes our ancient forebears made?

The answer – if life, rather than death, is our choice – should be obvious, especially as one Jewish year is about to end and another about to begin…and as the Day of Atonement fast approaches…