Many Israelis are watching the television news these days with feelings of powerlessness and shame. They see hundreds of haunted and frightened women and children crowding into the corridor of the Erez crossing and asking to be allowed to flee Gaza through Israel to the West Bank in order to save their lives.
But the defense establishment sees something else: It sees wanted terrorists about to blow themselves up and Iranian agents. The defense establishment apparently has its own vision, which does not let emotional or humanitarian considerations confuse it or cause it to change its rigidly made-up mind. ...
The question of passage for helpless people fleeing for their lives is as old as time. This Sabbath, in the Torah portion Hukkat, we will read of how Moses sent messengers to the king of Edom saying, "Thus says your brother Israel: You know all the hardships that have befallen us ... Now we are in Kadesh, the town on the border of your territory. Allow us, then, to cross your country. We will not pass through fields or vineyards, and we will not drink water from wells. We will follow the king's highway, turning off neither to the right nor to the left until we have crossed your territory" (Numbers 20:14-17). Edom refused to allow those unfortunates to pass and threatened them with the sword.
In a few weeks, we will read the Torah portion of Ki Tetzeh. That will tell us what the Torah's true attitude is to those who shut their gates and their hearts: "No Ammonite or Moabite shall be admitted into the congregation of the Lord; none of their descendants, even in the tenth generation, shall ever be admitted into the congregation of the Lord, because they did not meet you with food and water on your journey after you left Egypt" (Deuteronomy 23:4)....
In the dark days before the Holocaust, it was similarly argued, not without justification, that the German and Austrian refugees fleeing for their lives could include moles seeking to assimilate into the countries through which they passed and sabotage them. ...
[The fear that dangerous Hamas operatives might infiltrate into the West Bank is not baseless. But the Shin Bet security service presumably knows how to properly screen those seeking to pass - if that is what Jerusalem decides to do.]
It is unclear, unreasonable and inhumane that here of all places, right in our backyard, Israel should insist on revealing its closed, ugly face. Let the gates be opened immediately, and Israel will appear as it should be.
In a previous posting, I quoted Israeli author A.B. Yehoshua on "ethical sovereignty and responsibility." What might the application of the Jewish moral tradition to the challenges of ethical sovereignty look like?
One could do worse than this Haaretz editorial, drawing on both the weekly Torah portion and on the Jewish experience of the Holocaust to illuminate a consequential political, security, and moral choice now before the Israeli government.
To say the least, Israel does not invariably get these choices right. For my taste (living in relative safety here in Madison, Wisconsin), it gets far too many of them wrong.
The finely-honed Jewish moral sense has developed over two millennia of relative powerlessness, of identification with (and mostly as) the victim. The restoration of Jewish statecraft (and power over others) is relatively recent, and remains to be adequately tutored by that long-evolving moral sense. (As the relative purity of a victims' morality must also learn from experience with the responsible exercise of power.) Decades as an occupying force have undermined the early Zionist doctrine of "purity of arms" (perhaps always more an ideal than a reality).
All that recognized, I do find it remarkable, and inspiring, that the leading newspaper of an embattled state calls its government to moral account, in the great tradition of the prophets of old, insisting that it learn from the failures of the nations, Biblical and contemporary, and open its gates to those at risk.
No comments:
Post a Comment