A
LOST TRIBE
Israel must choose
between right and wrong
The moral
foundation of Zionism is crumbling
The Seattle
Times: Nov.
9, 03
The
Zionist revolution has always rested on two pillars: a just path
and an ethical leadership. Neither of these is operative any longer.
The
Israeli nation today
rests on a scaffolding of corruption and on foundations of oppression
and injustice. As such, the end of the Zionist enterprise is already
on our doorstep. There is a real chance that ours will be the last
Zionist generation. There may yet be a Jewish state here, but it will
be a different sort, strange and ugly,There is
time to change
course, but not much.
What is needed is a new vision of a just
society and the political will to implement it. Nor is this merely an
internal Israeli affair. Diaspora Jews, for whom Israel is a central
pillar of their identity, must pay heed and speak out. If the pillar
collapses, the upper floors will come crashing down.
The opposition does not
exist, and the government coalition, with Ariel Sharon at its head,
claims the right to remain silent. In a nation of chatterboxes,
everyone has suddenly fallen dumb, because there's nothing left to
say. We live in a thunderously failed reality. Yes, we have revived
the Hebrew language, created a marvelous theater and a strong
national currency. Our Jewish minds are as sharp as ever. We are
traded on the NASDAQ. But is this why we created a state? The Jewish
people did not survive for two millennia in order to pioneer new
weaponry, computer security programs or anti missile
missiles. We were supposed to be a light unto the nations. In this we
have failed.
It turns out that the
2,000 year struggle for Jewish survival comes down to a state of
settlements run by an amoral clique of corrupt lawbreakers who are
deaf both to their citizens and to their enemies. A state lacking
justice cannot survive. More and more, Israelis are coming to
understand this as they ask their children where they expect to live
in 25 years. Children who are honest admit, to their parents' shock,
that they do not know. The countdown to the end of Israeli society
has begun.
It is very comfortable
to be a Zionist in West Bank settlements such as Beit El and Ofra.
The biblical landscape is charming. From the window, you can gaze
through the geraniums and bougainvilleas and not see the occupation.
Traveling on the fast highway that takes you from Ramot on
Jerusalem's northern edge to Gilo on the southern edge, a
12 minute
trip that skirts barely a half mile west of the Palestinian
roadblocks, it's hard to comprehend the humiliating experience of the
despised Arab who must creep for hours along the pocked, blockaded
roads assigned to him. One road for the occupier, one road for the
occupied.
This cannot work. Even
if the Arabs lower their heads and swallow their shame and anger
forever, it won't work. A structure built on human callousness will
inevitably collapse in on itself. Note this moment well: Zionism's
superstructure is already collapsing like a cheap Jerusalem wedding
hall. Only madmen continue dancing on the top floor while the pillars
below are collapsing.
We have grown accustomed
to ignoring the suffering of the women at the roadblocks. No wonder
we don't hear the cries of the abused woman living next door or the
single mother struggling to support her children in dignity. We don't
even bother to count the women murdered by their husbands.
Israel, having ceased to
care about the children of the Palestinians, should not be surprised
when they come washed in hatred and blow themselves up in the centers
of Israeli escapism. They consign themselves to Allah in our places
of recreation because their own lives are torture. They spill their
own blood in our restaurants in order to ruin our appetites because
they have children and parents at home who are hungry and humiliated.
We could kill a thousand
ringleaders and engineers a day and nothing would be solved because
the leaders come up from below from the wells of hatred and
anger, from the "infrastructures" of injustice and moral
corruption.
If all this were
inevitable, divinely ordained and immutable, I would be silent. But
things could be different, and so crying out is a moral imperative.
Here is what the prime
minister should say to the people:
The time
for illusions is over. The time for decisions has arrived. We
love the entire land of our forefathers, and in some other time we
would have wanted to live here alone. But that will not happen. The
Arabs, too, have dreams and needs
Between the Jordan and
the Mediterranean there is no longer a clear Jewish majority. And so,
fellow citizens, it is not possible to keep the whole thing without
paying a price. We cannot keep a Palestinian majority under an
Israeli boot and at the same time think ourselves the only democracy
in the Middle East. There cannot be democracy without equal rights
for all who live here, Arab as well as Jew. We cannot keep the
territories and preserve a Jewish majority in the world's only Jewish
state not by means that are humane and moral and Jewish.
Do you want the greater
Land of Israel? No problem. Abandon democracy. Let's institute an
efficient system of racial separation here, with prison camps and
detention villages. Qalqilya Ghetto and Gulag Jenin.
Do you want a Jewish
majority? No problem. Either put the Arabs on railway cars, buses,
camels and donkeys and expel them en masse or separate ourselves from
them absolutely, without tricks and gimmicks. There is no middle
path. We must remove all the settlements all of them
and draw an internationally recognized border between the Jewish
national home and the Palestinian national home. The Jewish Law of
Return will apply only within our national home, and their right of
return will apply only within the borders of the Palestinian state.
Do you want democracy?
No problem. Either abandon the greater Land of Israel, to the last
settlement and outpost, or give full citizenship and voting rights to
everyone, including Arabs. The result, of course, will be that those
who did not want a Palestinian state alongside us will have one in
our midst, via the ballot box.
That's what the prime
minister should say to the people. He should present the choices
forthrightly: Jewish racialism or democracy. Settlements or hope for
both peoples. False visions of barbed wire, roadblocks and suicide
bombers, or a recognized international border between two states and
a shared capital in, Jerusalem.
But there is no prime
minister in Jerusalem. The disease eating away at the body of Zionism
has already attacked the head.
David Ben Gurion sometimes
erred, but he remained straight as an arrow. When Menachem Begin was
wrong, nobody impugned his motives. No longer. Polls published
recently show that a majority of Israelis do not believe in the
personal integrity of the prime minister yet they trust his political
leadership. In other words, Israel's current prime minister
personally embodies both halves of the curse: suspect personal morals
and open disregard for the law combined with the brutality of
occupation and the trampling of any chance for peace. This is our
nation; these are its leaders. The inescapable conclusion is that the
Zionist revolution is dead.
Why, then, is the
opposition so quiet? Perhaps because ... they are tired, or because
some would like to join the government at any price, even the price
of participating in the sickness. But while they dither, the forces
of good lose hope.
This is the time for
clear alternatives. Anyone who declines to present a clear-cut
position black or white is, in effect, collaborating in
the decline. It is not a matter of Labor vs. Likud or right vs. left,
but of right vs. wrong, acceptable vs. unacceptable. The
law abiding
vs. the lawbreakers. What's needed is not a political replacement for
the Sharon government but a vision of hope, an alternative to the
destruction of Zionism and its values by the deaf, dumb and callous.
Israel's friends abroad Jewish and non Jewish
alike, presidents and prime
ministers, rabbis and lay people should choose as well.
They
must reach out and help Israel to navigate the road map toward our
national destiny as a light unto the nations and a society of peace,
justice and equality.
This article, which
first
appeared in English in The Farward, was adapted by Avraham Burg from
an article that appeared in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot and
was translated by J.J. Goldberg.
Easter 'B.C.' Comic strip sparks
controversy among Jews
By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A Jewish opinion
writer has taken issue with the Jewish Anti-Defamation League for
claiming that
the Easter edition of the "B.C." comic strip by Johnny Hart, that ran in hundreds of newspapers on Easter
Sunday,
is anti‑Jewish.
"Johnny
Hart, a believing Christian whom the Guinness Book of World Records
recognizes
as the most syndicated cartoonist alive, is being crucified by no doubt
well-meaning, but thoroughly clueless, comic‑strip aficionados for ‑
Heaven help us! ‑ an Easter‑themed cartoon
that actually focuses on the spirituality of Easter and ignores
chocolate eggs
and big purple bunnies, " Binyamin L. JoIkovsky, editor in chief and
publisher of JewishWorldReviewcom, wrote in an opinion Piece published
in many
newspapers that carry "B.C."
As a
Sabbath-observant Jew rabbinical school alumnus and publisher of the
most‑accessed
Jewish Web site, I see absolutely nothing wrong with Hart's message,"
he
added.
In a telephone
interview on April 11 from his New York office, Mr. Jolkovsky said he
finds it
strange that the Anti‑Defamation League (ADL), which is recognized as
the
world's leading organization in fighting anti‑Semitism, "is now
going after comic strips that are not anti‑Semitic. "
The ADL is
protesting Mr. Hart's Easter strip, which it says portrays Christianity
as
having replaced Judaism.
"We're
concerned. We think this borders on the offensive, because Johnny Hart
is
saying in this comic, strip that Christianity now supersedes Judaism,"
Abraham Foxman, president of the New York‑based ADL, said in a
telephone
interview.
But Mr. Hart, an
evangelical Christian who sometimes uses the "B.C." cartoon to make
religious statements, denies such assertions. 'The God of Judaism and
the God
of Christianity is the same, and the people of Israel are
his chosen people, and Jesus is one of them" he said in a statement on
April 10.
"This is a
holy week for both Christians and Jews, and my intent was to pay
tribute to
both. I sincerely apologize if I have offended any readers, and I also
sincerely hope that this cartoon will generate increased interest in
religious
awareness," said Mr. Hart, who declined to comment beyond the official
statement.
Mr. Jolkovsky
thinks Mr. Hart has no need to apologize.
The strip
causing the uproar features a lit seven‑branch menorah in each frame,
accompanied by the seven last words of Jesus Christ on the cross. As
each of
Jesus' final words is printed, a flame on the menorah ‑ a candelabra
used
in Jewish religious services is extinguished.
"As the
candles burn, the menorah, a sacred and venerated symbol of the Jewish
people,
is obliterated and turns into across, the symbol of Christianity," Irv
Rubin, chairman of the militant Jewish Defense League (JDL), which is
also
disturbed by the strip, said at the JDL Web site.
The ADL and the
JDL both contend that the Easter “B.C.” strip is promoting replacement theology, or the theory that Christianity has
replaced
Judaism as the “chosen” religion.
Said Mr. Foxman: “The menorah has no role or
place in the Christian
religion. But Johnny Hart uses the symbol of Judaism and makes
it
disappear into a cross,” making it appear “Christianity has replaced
Judaism!”
"It's one
thing to preach your beliefs and your faith. But when you do that in a
public
arena, you need to be sensitive to other people’s religions,” he said.
But Richard S. Newcombe, president
of Creators Syndicated Inc., which distributesthe popular caveman comic
strip
to 1,300 and Sunday newspapers, denied the Easter Sunday strip is an
attack on
Judaism.
"That's
ridiculous," he said. "The comic strip is simply calendar recognition
of two important religious: Passover which occurred the week before as
indicated by the menorah, and Easter Sunday which begins the day the
strip is
run, as represented by the cross!”
"Far from
being anti‑Jewish, the strip is simply a celebration of Passover ...
and
Easter,” Mr. Newcombe said.
But Mr. Foxman
of the ADL doesn't buy that. "If that were the case, why not have the
menorah, standing next to the cross? Instead, you have the words [of
Jesus],
'It is finished,' and the cross stands alone," he said.
The JDL urged
newspapers that normally carry "B.C." not to run it Easter Sunday.
In his three‑page
opinion article, Mr. Jolkovsky, former contributing editor of the
national
Jewish weekly Forward, acknowledged he
would be
"outraged" if Mr. Hart “were blaming Jewry for having killed his
savior.” But he said the cartoonist’s message is “one of love, not
hate.”
“I believe Hart
is preaching that, despite Christianity being the majority religion in
this
nation, members of other faiths need not worry as they must in other
lands.
Love thy neighbor,"
Mr. Jolkovsky said adding:
“A comic strip in honor of a holy season that
is not my own doesn’t send a chill down my spine, nor make my blood
boil, even
if it includes Jewish symbols.”
This is not the first time Mr. Hart has
sparked controversy with cartoons having religious overtones. In early
1999,
The Washington Post stopped publishing his Sunday “B.C.” strips because
of
concerns about religious content. The Washington Post then filled the
void.
A spokesman for the Los Angles Times—Which in
the past has pulled some strips with Christian themes during the Easter
season—said that the newspaper canceled all “B.C.” strips effective
April 8,
which was Palm Sunday.
Mr. Hart, in a previous interview with the
Washington Times, said he was the victim of “anti-Christian bias.”