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Rabbi's Corner...
Shabbat Shelach Lecha
Rabbi Lucy HF Dinner
Temple Beth Or
Shabbat Shelach Lecha
Sermon Date: June 4, 2010
Transitions/Flotilla
Numbers 13:30-33
“Caleb hushed the people before Moses and said, ‘Let us by all means go up, and we shall gain possession of it, for we shall gain possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it.’
“But the notables who had gone up with him said, ‘We cannot attack that people, for it is stronger than we.’ Thus they spread calumnies among the Israelites about the land they had scouted, saying: ‘The country we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are of great size.”
Was Caleb right, or was it the leaders of the ten tribes who were right? Our parsha tells us it is Caleb who “wins,” for only he and Joshua were allowed into the land of Israel. They were rewarded for the faith they had that God would help them through all obstacles in their path. Nonetheless, from the day that Joshua and Caleb led the next generation of Israelites into the land they met adversity and hardship. Eventually the adversity scattered the twelve tribes until just the tribe of Judah remained. Ultimately, even the tribe of Judah was driven out.
It is complicated. We would like the world to be simple, straight forward. This is the right thing to do and the other is the wrong; but, it is not always so obvious. Could it be that Joshua and Caleb were right AND, so too, were the leaders of the other tribes?
Let’s fast forward a bit to modern day Israeli leaders trying desperately to protect the people and land of Israel today. The Turkish “humanitarian aid” flotilla and Israel’s response to it has blown up into its own complex web of right and wrong, moral and immoral, oppressive and life preserving.
I’ll begin with some thoughts from Anat Hoffman, the executive director of the Israel Religious Action Center, a human rights organization that stands up for the rights of all who live in the Middle East, whether Jewish, Muslim, Christian, or other. Anat, speaking to a group of American rabbis, opened by sharing the experience of her 14 year old at school. The 14 year olds understood why the blockade was important, but were distressed that deadly force had to be used. They brainstormed some alternatives:
One student suggested:
“They could have made a really loud noise,’ one student suggested, ‘so loud that the people on the boat could no longer stand it.”
Another said: “They should have disabled the boats engines.”
I really like the creative thinking of the student who offered: “They should have used sleeping gas, or laughing gas to get the people under control.” How we all wish we were watching videos of laughing activists now, instead of the violence against the Israeli soldiers and the soldiers response which resulted in the loss of 9 lives.
For those who haven’t followed the Flotilla incident through the news this week, here’s how it unfolded. Here are the facts that have come out so far this week:
• Israel left Gaza unilaterally in 2005 and in return has been attacked by more than 8,000 rockets and terrorist attacks from Gaza, including two rockets preceding the Flotilla incident that landed in Ashdod, Israel this week.
A flotilla of 6 ships organized by two Islamist organizations and supported by the Turkish government announced that they were going to violate the Israeli blockade and deliver “humanitarian aid” to Gaza. These Islamists organizations are linked to fundamentalist jihadi groups including Hamas and Hezbellah.
• Israel offered from the first announcement of the flotilla that it or the Red Cross would deliver any humanitarian aid to Gaza, as it does daily.
• The activists were carrying 10,000 tons of aid. Israel transfers about 15,000 tons of supplies and humanitarian aid every week to the people of Gaza.
• Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh announced: "If the ships reach Gaza it is a victory; if they are intercepted, it will be a victory too.
· Israel successfully and peacefully intercepted and boarded five of the ships and escorted them to Israel where the supplies have been downloaded for direct delivery to Gaza.
· On the sixth vessel as Israelis army personnel were boarding the ship they were attacked by civilians wielding knives, crow bars, and small arms. The soldiers were armed with paint ball guns and small arms. Only after one of the civilians wrestled a soldier’s weapon from him did the soldiers use their guns. Of the 9 activists who died at least two of them had fired pistols at the soldiers.
It seems like Israel should have known they were being set up from the first announcement of the Flotilla. Yet, they were surprised when they boarded the last ship, they were caught off guard by the resistance, and they did not have a viable plan to bring a non-violent resolution to the blockade runners.
Yossi Klein Halevi, scholar at the Shalom Hartman Institute writes: “Israel and the rest of the world seem to be speaking dissonant moral languages. How, Israelis wonder, can pro-Hamas activists wielding knives be confused for peace activists? What is pro-peace about strengthening Hamas's grip on Gaza and thereby reducing the likelihood of a two-state solution? For that matter, what is pro-Palestinian about condemning the people of Gaza to jihadist rule?”
The nations condemning Israel and calling for a UN investigation on the other hand believe that Israel and Egypt’s blockade of Gaza (yes Egypt has its own blockade of Gaza, they also don’t trust Hamas on their border), the nations of the world see Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas in the world, as oppressed and suppressed at the hands of Israel.
Almost all Israelis endorse a two –state vision for Israelis and Palestinians. “Many in Israel, and not only on the left, argue that a Palestinian state is an existential need for Israel—to extricate it from growing pariah status, from the moral dilemmas of occupation, and from an untenable choice between its democratic and Jewish identities.
But at the same time, Israelis also define a Palestinian state as an existential threat. Israelis fear that an independent Palestine would be either unwilling or unable to control terrorists from attacking the Israeli heartland just over the West Bank border. Even primitive Qassam rockets from the West Bank (like those being launched daily from Gaza) could make normal life in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem impossible.”
In addition Israel has always been held to a higher standard than other nations. Nine people were tragically killed in the Flotilla incident this week and it has been on the top of the news all week. Yet how many have heard about the 80 murders at the hands of Islamist gunmen in Pakistan that took place just last week. Islamist gunmen and a suicide squad lobbed grenades, sprayed bullets from atop a minaret and took hostages Friday in attacks on two mosques packed with worshippers from a minority sect in Pakistan. At least 80 people were killed and dozens wounded.” Why have not the nations of the world demanded a UN investigation? Why are these innocent worshippers’ lives lost at the hands of Islamist gunmen less important to the world than the 9 lost in a battle with knives, steel bars and guns with Israeli soldiers?
Israel’s moral imperative, as is every sovereign nation’s is to protect its citizens from attack. Nonetheless, like those 14 year olds how we wish for Israel to find a way to protect its citizens with a softer hand.
I do not claim to offer the moral high ground on the Flotilla incident. I do believe that we are looking in from the outside, like Caleb, Joshua, and the leaders of the tribes, and that it is not a matter of right or wrong, but of finding the validity in all of the perceptions.
Analyst Aaron David Miller invoked Jack Kennedy this week in suggesting that we must be “Idealist without illusion.” We have to work for a better world but going forward with our eyes wide open.
What then can we do, besides holding dueling protests with signs and honking on the street? What can we do to truly be those “idealist without illusion?” Certainly it is illusion to believe that what we say or do here in Raleigh, NC will make a difference in how the world sees the Flotilla incident. However, we might take a page from the book of the recent grassroots movements in 3rd world countries. Through micro loans to micro businesses, like money for a sewing machine that allows someone to make shawls they can sell, and crawl out of poverty. Micro diplomacy, programs that link individual Israeli Jew, Christian and Muslim, can change attitudes. Micro diplomacy like micro business can change individual’s lives, if not yet change the brawling between peoples and nations.
Micro diplomacy programs that exist:
Givat Haviva -- Israeli Arab and Jewish teens
Rabbi Ron Kronish’s Interfaith Coalition – Umbrella organization of micro diplomacy programs across Europe.
The Community Schools – linking Arab and Jewish neighborhoods.
Seeds of Peace - teens studying civil rights movement here and applying it there.
Let us go forward as “Idealists without illusion.” We cannot be paralyzed by the impossible conundrum that the Israeli government and Palistinean leaders see without end. Instead we can find those places where we can plant a seed, change one relationship, open one mind. For well we know though “It is not within our grasp to complete the work, nonetheless, we must never stop trying.”
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