In 8th Day Center's ongoing attempt to put the Palestinian-Israeli conflict
in perspective, we offer the following reflection by Rabbi Michael Lerner
on the election of Ariel Sharon as prime minister
of Israel.
========
Ariel
Sharon: The War Criminal Takes Over
By Rabbi Michael Lerner
Many American Jews are responding to the election of Ariel Sharon as
Prime Minister of Israel
with sadness, mourning and disgust. When Ariel Sharon was forced to
resign from his position
as Defense Minister during the Lebanon War, most Israelis felt that
they had finally rid themselves of a man whose record of violence could
no longer be ignored. Though his troops only supervised but didn't personally
do the shooting of the hundreds of civilians in the Sabra
and Shatilla refugee camps, the Israeli public knew of his many other
acts of terror (including
massacres of civilian Bedoins in the Sinai). By standards now being
applied in Kosovo and
Serbia, Ariel Sharon should have been brought to trial for war crimes.
Instead, he now has
been elected Prime Minister.
Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak would like to blame this all on the
Palestinians and their
failure to accept his generous offers. But the reality is that Barak's
offers were mean-spirited and
limited. Barak was elected in a euphoria of hope for peace-and he had
a mandate to move ahead
decisively. Had he announced an unequivocal intention to dismantle
the West Bank settlements,
allow for a limited number of Palestinian refugees to return each year,
and create a climate of
real cooperation to provide Palestinians with the economic infrastructure
to make a Palestinian
state viable, Barak could have built his electoral mandate into a permanent
peace force.
Barak could have appealed to traditional Jewish values like the Torah's
unequivocal
commandment to "Love the stranger." He could have urged Israelis as
a patriotic duty to begin to
create dialogue groups with Palestinians and Israeli Arabs and to explore
other paths for people-
to-people reconciliation. Israeli idealism would have responded had
it been tapped.
Instead, Barak played to his Right. He insisted that he would never
compromise on Jerusalem or
dismantle settlements. He did nothing to prepare the population for
concessions he would
eventually find necessary to make or to build reconciliation.. Nor
were his peace offers as
generous as the media sometimes portrays. Even his last offer would
have left 200,000 settlers,
fully armed and hostile to Palestinians, on the West Bank. Israeli
Arabs contributed mightily to
Barak's electoral victory last time, but Barak refused to give them
even a single seat in his
cabinet on the grounds that having such an Arab would "discredit" his
government. When Israeli
Arabs protested the massive use of force to repress their Palestinian
brothers and sisters rioting
in outrage after Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount last September,
dozens were wounded,
thousands faced pogroms from angry Jewish crowds wondering through
and stoning their homes,
and at least 17 were killed by Israeli bullets,--yet Barak could only
find the courage to apologize
for this in the last three days of the election when he finally realized
how much he had lost his
own base of support. No wonder why so many found it hard to rally to
his support.
The path that Israel is following is no surprise. Countries that seek
to maintain by force the
occupation over another people will eventually drift toward repressive
or even fascistic
leadership. Half way measures of the sort offered by Barak cannot work.
Either Israel ends the
Occupation dismantles the settlements, and gets out of the West
Bank, or it will drift to the
Right until it has the likes of Ariel Sharon at its helm. But with
Sharon, Israel could follow a
path designed to provoke a wave of ethnic cleansing much like that
which caused the Palestinian
refugee problem in the first place. George Bush senior was the only
U.S. President to have the
courage to stand up to the "Israel-right or wrong" lobby that claims
to speak for most American
Jews. Bush Sr. told them to stop expanding settlements or lose US "loan
guarantees" for money
Israel sought to resettle Soviet Jews. When Israeli Prime Minister
Shamir refused, Bush stuck to
his guns, and the result was to create economic pressures inside Israel
which helped elect pro-
peace prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1992.
It seems unlikely that George W. will have similar courage or vision.
Ironically, standing up to
Israel and insisting that it dismantle the settlements, get out of
the -West Bank and Gaza, and
accept publicly part of the responsibility for having caused the Palestinian
refugee problem (and
state its willingness to take back a portion of those refugees small
enough to not upset the Jewish
character of Israel) is the most pro-Jewish thing he could do, though
many Jews wouldn't read it
that way.
The truth is that Judaism and the Jewish people are suffering from the
impact of the Occupation.
The mean-spiritedness in Israel that leads to a Sharon landslide makes
many younger Israelis
wish to leave Israel and settle in the U.S., and many young American
Jews to say "my parents
were Jewish" rather than claim an identity defined by Israelis as oppressors
and people who
think that power is more important than love.
When the American Jewish establishment rallies around such an Israel,
they do more to drive
young Jews into assimilation than any fear of anti-Semitism could ever
do.
So, many American Jews greet the election of Ariel Sharon with great
sadness and mourning-
mourning for Israel and mourning for the soul of the Jewish people.
With Ariel Sharon leading
Israel, the world will be a scarier place for everyone.
Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of TIKKUN: A Bimonthly Jewish Critique
of Politics Culture
and Society , author most recently of Spirit Matters: Global
Healing and the Wisdom of the Soul
(Hampton Roads, 2000), and rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in
San Francisco.
Action
Write President Bush (see Sample Letter below)
president@whitehouse.gov
Sample
Letter
Dear President Bush,
I am writing to encourage you to follow the leadership of your father
in seeking a peaceful
settlement to the Palestinian-Israel conflict.
You will recall that your father was the only U.S. President to have
the courage to stand up to the
"Israel-right or wrong" lobby that claimed to speak for most American
Jews. He told them to
stop expanding settlements or lose US "loan guarantees" for money Israel
sought to resettle
Soviet Jews. When Israeli Prime Minister Shamir refused, your father
remained steadfast and the
result was to create economic pressures inside Israel which helped
elect pro-peace prime
minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1992.
I am calling upon you to follow your father’s example by taking similar
measures to ensure that
Israel dismantle Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, end
Israel’s occupation of the
West Bank and Gaza, accept publicly part of the responsibility for
having caused the Palestinian
refugee problem, and take back a portion of those refugees small enough
to not upset the Jewish
character of Israel.
These are the most pro-Jewish thing newly elected Prime Minster Sharon could do.
Mr. President, failure to do exert your influence in this way could
result in a Sharon led wave of
ethnic cleansing much like that which caused the Palestinian refugee
problem in the first place.
Sincerely,