Rabbi Adam Kligfeld: Time to Unite

I have been following the news out of Israel with a mixture of despair, frustration and confusion. I wanted to share some thoughts.

Let me cite the words Professor Alan Dershowitz used to open the opinion-piece he published on Wednesday: “Although the wisdom of Israel’s actions in stopping the Gaza flotilla is open to question, the legality of its actions was not.” Dershowitz goes on to show how Israel’s response to the threat to its Gaza blockade, set up not to deny Palestinians in Gaza basic food and medical needs, but rather to prevent the flow of weaponry to terrorist hands, had undeniable legal force and legitimacy. Others have pointed out what many media outlets will choose to ignore, which is that the nefariousness of the flotilla organizers is made clear by the fact they rejected Israel’s and Egypt’s offer to off-load the goods on their soil, to be first checked for weapons before being sent to Gaza.  As one of the activists declaimed, “This can only end up good for us: we become martyrs or we break the blockade.”  Their goal was to goad Israel into a lose-lose situation, breaking Israel’s lawful blockade or drawing Israel into a public relations nightmare. 

Sadly, they were victorious on the second account. Therefore, my first message to the congregation is that we are, once again, at a moment where Israel has been, and likely will continue to be, vilified and demonized.  Her severest critics are at her throat, intentionally and wantonly conflating what was likely a strategic error with a moral failing, using this tragic encounter to prove that Israel is a pariah state, and should be treated as such. While I agree that love comes along with the right, and perhaps responsibility, to levy warranted critique alongside deserved praise; while I understand that a significant expression of one’s Zionism can be decrying actions and approaches Israel has taken when other routes would have been more fruitful and more representative of the values of the Jewish State; while I do not accept that support for Israel’s every move must always be unflinching and undiscriminating, I also believe that one’s first responsibility to one’s own is to rally in crisis, defending against slander, lies and defamation, putting aside, at least for the moment, left-wing vs. right-wing politics so that we can stand together as a Jewish community. I do believe that what is under attack when Israel’s motives and actions are so bitterly denounced is not just Israel’s right to have acted as it did in this situation, but rather Israel’s right to be, to exist, to thrive, to be maintained as a sovereign Jewish nation with defensible borders. I encourage the entire congregation to find some way this week to show love for Israel, to defend her existence and her right to self-defense even if you harbor serious questions about how Israel chose to respond to the flotillas.

The second point I want to share is still being formed in my heart and mind: the central idea is that I ache, perhaps with more nostalgia than is warranted, for the Israel, and the Israeli leadership of an earlier generation, that seemed to have the combination of savvy and sekhel required to have handled this situation with simply better strategy.  I cannot even venture a guess as to what that strategy would have been.  Let the flotilla through, denying them their headlines and martyrdom, but opening a route for future arms-smuggling?  Find a way to take out the engine of the 6th boat, on which the deadly interaction took place, as they seemingly were able to do for the other 5?  In some ways, the situation seemed lose-lose the moment the boats left Turkey.  And yet even as we pray for Israel to pull itself out of this mire, a mire whose darkness and murkiness stems chiefly from the knee-jerk reactions of those for whom Israel is always singularly to blame, can we not pray also for loftier leadership, a leadership that would anticipate such a crisis before it devolves into a nightmare?  Can we not ask, external obstacles notwithstanding, what it would take inside Israel to have produced from even this seemingly unnavigable diplomatic catastrophe a response less cringe-worthy and more Entebbe-like?

As angry as I am that haters of Israel and, yes, haters of Jewish sovereignty have successfully libeled us again, I am equally angry that Israel has seemingly lost its power, resolve, creativity, determination…something…to define its own narrative.  We, and the world, end up talking about the topics that our enemies want to be raised. A flotilla sails towards Israel, knowing it has succeeded in its campaign before the event itself unfolds. Almost immediately, Israel reacts, the world is up in arms, and the narrative of every synagogue, Jewish organization and Zionist expression is hijacked, sent into damage-control mode, sent scurrying to defend, or explain, or justify, or subtly critique, or pray, or rally or perhaps be struck dumb. We are no longer talking about Ayalim and the determined effort to resettle the Negev; we are talking about sea-commandos. We are no longer talking about Start-Up Nation and Israel’s entrepreneurial spirit and creativity as a magnet for venture capital; we are talking about what is and what is not proportionate force a soldier can use when beaten by a pipe.  We are not, for this day or week, talking about Israel’s leaving Gaza so that Palestinians could self-govern, self-sustain and create a thriving civilization there, given a head-start by the infrastructure Israel left behind; no, this day and this week we speak about humanitarian crises—if there is one in Gaza or not—and we wonder aloud why the flotilla’s organizers rejected Israel’s offer to permit the boats of aid to go through in exchange for a request that some of the aid be sent to Gilad Schalit, the Israeli soldier held in captivity in Gaza for nearly 4 years.

As the week draws to a close, I am emotionally exhausted, my Israel batteries fully spent and my Israel kishkes fully twisted. I pray for the simple justice I associate with Israel given a fair chance to defend herself.  And I pray for visionary leadership within Israel to help vault her back to a situation where Israel, not her enemies, controls her narrative, her story.  I pray for visionary leadership, certainly wiser and more courageous than I, who can see past flotillas, PR mudslides, world anger, despair and pessimism, and begin to build a future in which Israel and her neighbors can live in security, and dignity, and within safe borders, with legitimate hopes that tomorrow will be better than today, next week brighter than this week, next year closer to peace than we are right now.