Stifling debate about Gaza
I’m wondering if Jewish leaders here think the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz is anti-Israel, and maybe hostile to the Jews.
Yesterday the paper editorialized that “Israel needs to rethink its Gaza strategy before it’s too late.”
A year after the Cast Lead operation in Gaza, there’s been a “marked escalation in violence along the Israeli-Gaza border,” the editors wrote. “Gaza erupts whenever Israelis begin to feel that the Strip and its troubles have been forgotten.”
Then they key paragraphs:
The time has come to rethink Israeli strategy in Gaza. The economic embargo, which has brought severe distress to the inhabitants of Gaza, has not brought down Hamas, nor has it freed kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. The siege has only damaged Israel’s image and led to accusations that it has shirked its humanitarian responsibilities in Gaza under international law.
Instead of erring by invoking the default solution of more force, which does not create long-term security or ease the distress of the Palestinians in Gaza, the crossings between Israel and the Gaza Strip should be opened and indirect assistance rendered to rebuild its ruins. The same logic that dictates the government’s actions in the West Bank - creating an economic incentive to prevent terror - can and must work in the Gaza Strip as well.”
What I’m wondering: wouldn’t any American Jewish group making such an argument be tarred as a violator of the pro-Israel orthodoxy, shunned, called “dangerous” to the Jewish state?
I’m not saying Israel’s Gaza policy is wrong.
From my safe perch in Washington, I honestly don’t know what the best solution is to the Gaza-West Bank split, the tightening grip of Hamas on the strip and the fact the terrorist group doesn’t show any sign of moving beyond its goal of wiping Israel out.
I am saying there’s something disturbing about the growing determination to stifle debate in an American Jewish community with a multiplicity of pro-Israel views. Israelis engage in vigorous debate about these issues all the time, but apparently our own leaders believe that support for Israel is so shaky here that we can’t raise issues like whether or not the Gaza blockade is in Israel’s long-term security interests.
I also find it peculiar that when Jewish leaders here talk about Gaza, the only question they address is whether or not Israel is justified in taking harsh measures (their answer: of course, and I don’t disagree).
Lost in the debate: is there any evidence these policies are working? Does history suggest they are likely to work in the long term, or just the opposite? Justifiable policies that produce negative results don’t strike me as a great idea, but perish the thought that we actually talk about that.
Tags: Gaza, Ha'aretz, Israel, Pro-Israel Activism
January 11th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
It is nice to see a a voice or two of sanity… Israel has lost the moral highground. It has come close to loosing its soul…
January 11th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
You are painting with a really broad brush and lots of innuendo. Can you name any examples of debate about Gaza being “stifled”? I’m in the flow of Jewish news and debate here and I can’t think of any.
January 11th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
I think, perhaps, you answered your own question when you said “From my ’safe’ perch’ in Washington…?”
January 11th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Can you explain why exactly you left out the fact that since Cast Lead, the rocket attacks have been more than 90 percent reduced. Are you only concerned about the issues of bringing down Hamas (not declared goal), freeing Shalid (not a declared goal) or “image” (certainly not a goal at all)?
I know you love Israel, so why no recognition of marked reduced Jewish terror and the killing of Jews being the acheived goal.
January 11th, 2010 at 9:04 pm
For further information see: Ta’anit Tzedek - Jewish Fast For Gaza:
“The Jewish Fast for Gaza is an ad hoc group of rabbis, Jews, and people of conscience who have committed to undertake a monthly daytime fast in support of the following goals: 1. To call for a lifting of the blockade that prevents the entry of civilian goods and services into Gaza; 2. To provide humanitarian and developmental aid to the people of Gaza; 3. To call upon Israel, the US, and the international community to engage in negotiations without pre-conditions with all relevant Palestinian parties - including Hamas - in order to end the blockade; 4. To encourage the American government to vigorously engage both Israelis and Palestinians toward a just and peaceful settlement of the conflict.”
http://www.fastforgaza.net/
January 12th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
great question!
is there any evidence these policies are working? Does history suggest they are likely to work in the long term, or just the opposite? Justifiable policies that produce negative results don’t strike me as a great idea, but perish the thought that we actually talk about that.
There’s lots of debate on the fringes and on the left but my experience it is it often met w/accusations we all are working with the motivation of ending Israels existence. Speaking for myself, nothing could be farther from the truth. Hopefully your post will generate some much needed exploration and alternative solutions.
January 13th, 2010 at 8:11 am
I wonder why you are even asking the question “is there any evidence these policies are working?” Why the fence sitting? What a runaround!
You say on the one hand you agree that Israel is justified to take harsh measures. Then you agree that justifiable policies that produce negative results aren’t a very good idea.
It’s a very Zionistic attitude, this runaround. Kind of like Jabotinsky’s closing line in the “Iron Wall (We and the Arabs)”: “In other words, for us the only path to an agreement in the future is an absolute refusal of any attempts at an agreement now.”
If you want a debate, then debate the bottom line: Has it been in Israel’s longterm interest to dispossess and segregate the Palestinian population to create ‘The Jewish State’, or would it have been better to include them in a vibrant multi-cultural society, given that Israel is the homeland to both Jews and Arabs.
This kind of debate for debate’s sake, when it doesn’t make a difference, is par for the course.
Jabotinsky preceeded his closing sentence with what is typical for those trying to have it both ways, and pretty much sums of the inertia- “I am optimistic that they will indeed be granted satisfactory assurances and that both peoples, like good neighbors, can then live in peace. But the only path to such an agreement is the iron wall, that is to say the strengthening in Palestine of a government without any kind of Arab influence, that is to say one against which the Arabs will fight.”
This, my friends, is madness.
January 15th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
The Other Alan Says:
Maybe stop repeating old mantras and find new ones
You want a Multicultural society : Take your palis to Texas and build whatever Multicultural society you want !
By the way :Peace will never come to the middle east - the islamists don’t want infidels no mater what!!