Would Religious Pluralism Bring Peace to Israel?

There's a great article in Yediot on the demands being brought to the Israeli Defense Minister and IDF Chief of Staff: Progressive (Reform) and Masorti (Conservative) Jews want a Reform or Conservative military rabbi.

To any American, it would seem like a bizarre and even unnecessary request.  But, for Israelis who do not enjoy the same Amendment rights when it comes to synagogue and State, the request for pluralistic religious representation is big news that could have a major impact on both the Israeli and the Jewish diaspora's way of viewing and living Jewish life.

Currently the rabbinic services within the IDF are strictly Orthodox.  This means that non-Orthodox Jewish soldiers are required to observe an Orthodox way of life including traditions that limit women's prayer on base and denying the families of fallen soldiers the ability to hold non-Orthodox funeral services.  The argument being put forth by the Progressive and Conservative movements is that "Every soldier who dedicates his time, and sometimes risks his life for the State, is entitled to religious services in accordance to his faith."

In some ways, the argument could be seen as a slippery-slope.  While Muslims are not required to join the IDF, there are a few dozen volunteers who join the ranks every year.  Opening the door to non-Orthodox religious representation could pave the way for Muslim soldiers to call for an Imam in the ranks.  Given the gross politicization of Islam in the Middle East, and the bureaucratic undertaking the IDF would have to conquer in appointing an Islamic cleric to their staff, more than one headache could ensue.  Still, should the risks outweight the worth of religious freedom?   

Should the change take place, it would send a variety of equally important messages to Israel and the Jewish world, as well as to Israel's critics.  Firstly, the acceptance of religious pluralism within the ranks of the IDF would testify to Israel's reputation as the strongest democracy in the Middle East.  Secondly, this action of religious pluralism would send a much-needed message to Jews the world-over:  We all worship the same God and read the same Torah; we can have unity despite our different religious points of view.  Thirdly, the introduction of Jewish religious pluralism within the ranks of the IDF would sound the death-knell for the stranglehold the Orthodox Rabbinate has over the otherwise secular Israeli government.  This is, perhaps, the most politically threatening aspect of the request--and the strongest reason why it should be honored. 

To reach its full potential, Judaism needs to be de-politicized from the Right in Israel as much as the Left in America.  Judaism is, first and foremost, a faith of morals and values that simultaenously informs and transcends political outlook.  When religion itself (any religion, for that matter) crosses the line into the political sphere, human beings feel free to justify their political beliefs and actions in the name of God; division ensues when unity should be the goal.  There's a reason the only leader who ever brought us truly together sang, "Oh how good and how pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity." 

Americans pay special attention to religious freedom for a variety of reasons, all of which boil down to the simple fact that developing a relationship with God and expressing that relationship publicly is a personal choice.  For too long, the Jewish world has been pushed in a variety of directions and made to worry whether we are too Jewish or not Jewish enough.  As the national representative of Jews across the globe, Israel has taken the brunt of this burden.  For all the directions in which Israelis (the majority of whom are in the midst of some level of military service) are being pushed, they should feel the freedom to walk in the direction of faith, and reassured with the knowledge that they will be received with open arms.

Progressive Tikkun Olam: Repair or Destruction?

“You are a bad Jew!  You are a bad Jew!  Have you ever heard of Tikkun Olam?  …This, what you are doing, is NOT healing the world.” 

This finger-pointed accusation made by one left-wing Jew to a right-wing Jew outside the D.C. offices of FreedomWorks went viral last week.  Along with illustrating the over-the-top anger leftists have regarding right wing politics, this brief exchange highlighted the schism that increasingly pervades political dialogue.  Today, it seems that when it comes to politics, two people may disagree and still get along, unless they are radical leftists.  To radical leftists, those who hold an opposing viewpoint are simply accused of destroying the world. 

But can the accusation of “not healing the world” really hold water?

The politic of “Tikkun Olam” can be traced back to the Mishnah, which was codified around 200 C.E.  Mipnei tikkun ha-olam (for the sake of the repair of the world) is commentary relating to what was, essentially, discombobulated bureaucratic procedure; courts would convene, and then cancel; people would randomly change their names; divorces would not be finalized.  The idea behind the Mishnah’s version of “repairing the world” was simply to establish order on the part of governing bodies with the goal of avoiding chaos among the population at large.

Move ahead to the 16^th century and Tikkun Olam is taken to a newer, more spiritual level by Kabbalistic Rabbi Isaac Luria.  His interpretation (in a nutshell) involved human beings repairing the world by divorcing the holy from the physical world through deep, contemplative spiritual acts.  In fact, Luria’s Tikkun Olam didn’t require the repair of the world so much as the ending of it through the transcendence into a completely holy, spiritual realm.

Fast-forward to the 1950s when Tikkun Olam was re-fashioned again, this time by Jewish progressive causes looking to spur on social change.  Applying the idea of repairing the world to the Marxist ideology of oppressor versus oppressed (boss v. worker; majority v. minority, etc.), progressive Jews took an idea meant to de-bureaucratize government and used it as an excuse to establish a huge bureaucracy in the form of a social welfare state:   Repairing the world, one government program at a time.

Even more interestingly, Tikkun Olam took on the concept of collectivity at the sacrifice of individuality.  Like the Protestant Social Gospelists of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, today’s progressive Jews take Biblical teachings on communal responsibility (i.e. Cain and Abel) and, through their socialist lens, re-interpret these teachings to mean that the individual has no right over the collective.  (This, despite the fact that the bureaucracy of social justice calls for varying groups—defined in terms of ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, race, and even religion—to receive entitlements over other groups.) Using a twisted form of Jewish teaching to justify their political beliefs, this progressive version of collectivist Tikkun Olam became the justification for telling any non-progressive that their politics were destroying the world.

 

One look at Biblical history, however, proves the exact opposite to be true:  Time and time again, Israel’s narrative is one of the individual attempting to lead the nation out of collective misery.  The most notable example, Moses, was a total loner.  Born a Hebrew but raised in an Egyptian household, he spent most of his life living among desert tribesman before returning to lead his people Israel out of bondage.  Five minutes into their journey, the Hebrews begged for a return to slavery and spent most of their 40 years in the desert whining about how much better it was to stomp straw into bricks than be free and on their way to their own Mediterranean beach front real estate.

A few generations later, the young nation of Israel begged their prophet Samuel, “Give us a king to judge us like all the other nations.”  This collective desire to be lorded over by another human being translated into a series of largely corrupt lunatics (with one glowing exception) who weakened the kingdom and left it vulnerable to eventual attack and destruction by surrounding tribes and nations who drove the people of Israel into exile.

Of course, a series of prophets repeatedly arose to warn Israel of impending disaster.  These individuals, like the Judges before them, ranged from members of guilds and Temple service to average farmers, but they shared a few common traits.  They each stood out as a lone voice of warning in the crowd, they were pretty much all thought of as lunatics, and the majority of them suffered horrible fates at the hands of the collective population of Israel who just wanted them to shut up.   

In fact, Biblically speaking, Jewish collectivism has clamored for a return to slavery, sought to empower kings, was cool with being governed by corruption, and slandered, ostracized, evicted, and even stoned the only individuals who tried to get them out of their own collective mess.  (So much for trying to be your brother’s keeper.)

The situation didn’t get much better after the Tanakh ended, either.  More corruption in the priesthood led to Israel’s own Vichy of sorts—a Roman rule mediated by a crooked Jewish priesthood that led to a series of Zionist revolts, ending in the destruction of yet another Temple and a 2,000-year long Diaspora.

Interestingly, the Rabbinic reason for why the Jewish nation came upon such a horrible fate is sinat chinam, “baseless hatred”.  In the period leading up to the destruction of the second Temple in 70 CE, Jews in Judea were split into varying factions, many of which turned on each other in the midst of the revolt.   Instead of being one unified force in the face of Roman occupation, these groups drew sides and formed alliances for varying religious and political reasons.  This factional attitude put Israel on a path of self-destruction. 

One Rabbinic teaching likens the nation of Israel to a unified body having distinct parts with their own unique purposes that work in harmony for the greater good of the nation.  “Therefore, when we as individuals actualize our potential, every other individual is uplifted, as well as Jewish people as a whole.”   Compare this to the attitude behind baseless hatred:  “But a person who acts according to his inner conviction that he is correct will never admit his mistake. He believes that the other person or the government is wrong. What mistake is there to admit? He thinks that you are wrong, not him!”   As a result, both “God and our fellow man” are stripped “of their singular importance in the world.” 

In the midst of the Temple’s destruction, Israel’s factions put more faith in themselves than in God, and as a result, put their own religious and political priorities above the needs of the very people they claimed to be fighting for.  (Sound familiar?)  Consequentially, many individual lives were sacrificed in the name of collective callings. 

Whether it meant fleeing from Egypt, foregoing pagan behaviors, or seeking to overthrow occupying forces, for the collective of ancient Israel, enslavement to an oppressor or oppressing ideology continually trumped the freedom of individual choice.  Contrary to today’s progressive spin on Tikkun Olam, the result of favoring the collective was not repair, but repeated self-destruction. 

Thomas Jefferson once said, “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”  When the collective is distributing justice, who is there to ensure that the collective is being just?

 

This article also appeared at NewsRealBlog and Our Last Stand.

ElBaradei: Israeli Facts and Fictions

What is truth?

The agreement spanning the past 140 years of definitions in my dictionary collection is that Truth conforms to fact or reality; Truth is the body of real things, events, and facts.

Yet, according to Wikipedia the popular, open-source online encyclopedia:

“Truth can have a variety of meanings… “Truth” must have a beneficial use in order to be retained within language.  Defining this potency and applicability can be looked upon as “criteria”, and the method used to recognize a “truth” is termed criteria of truth. Since there is no single accepted criterion, they can all be considered “theories”. ”

Compare the two definitions and you’ll see a striking difference.  Historically, reality is truth.   Yet, according to contemporary pop culture, truth is a subjective opinion.  Opinion is truth.

In the interest of ideological inquiry, I decided to contrast the commentary of the right-wing Caroline Glick with commentary from the left-wing Dahlia Scheindlin and Roi Maor published in +972.   

The Subject: Mohammed ElBaradei, leader of the Egyptian opposition.

The Methodology: To take the facts as they stand and compare Glick and Scheindlin’s responses.

The Goal:  Obviously these writers are paid to opine, so the objective will be to define how much of their argument relies on known fact, versus value judgment.

ElBaradei’s role as head of the IAEA

According to Glick, “As IAEA head, ElBaradei shielded Iran’s nuclear weapons program from the Security Council.”  He also, “continued to lobby against significant UN Security Council sanctions or other actions against Iran…”

According to Scheindlin, “During his 12 years as head of the IAEA, [ElBaradei] ratcheted down the increasingly nutty rhetoric calling for military action against the Iranian nuclear program (following a similarly moderate tone before the Iraq war).”  They cite Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice-president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations,  who “accused ElBaradei of covering up Iran’s true nuclear weaponization capacities while he directed the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog,” and conclude, “Israelis and prominent Jews have already begun working to discredit [ElBaradei’s] image…”

The Facts:  In 2009, France and Israel accused ElBaradei of intentionally “omitting evidence that the IAEA had been given [by Western intelligence] about an alleged covert weaponization plan” that involved the building of a nuclear bomb.

ElBaradei on Iran & Iraq

Regarding Iran’s nuclear capabilities and the WMD controversy in Iraq, Scheindlin & Maor opine, “ElBaradei certainly has experience, and so far he was proven right on both Iran and Iraq…”

Glick references a current interview in which ElBaradei, “…dismissed the threat of a nuclear armed Iran telling the Austrian News Agency, ‘There’s a lot of hype in this debate,’ and asserting that the discredited 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate that claimed Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003 remains accurate.”

The Facts:  In 2006, the #2 official in Saddam Hussein’s air force said that WMDs were moved across the border into Syria via civilian aircraft before the 2003 war.  This came out roughly 1 month after Israeli General Moshe Yaalon made it public that Saddam “transferred chemical agents from Iraq to Syria.”

Regarding Iran, the U.S. Government recently arrested an Iranian national “accused of operating an international smuggling network that illegally exported” weapons materials back to Iran to support their ballistic missle and nuclear programs.  As of the end of January, the British Defense Secretary declared that Iran could have a nuclear weapon by 2012, calling Israel’s estimate of 2015 “over-optimistic.”

ElBaradei and the Muslim Brotherhood

Both Glick and Scheindlin & Maor agree that ElBaradei is willing to work with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Glick observed that the Muslim Brotherhood has backed Elbaradei’s “political aspirations.”    She also quotes ElBaradei from Der Spiegel : ‘We should stop demonizing the Muslim Brotherhood. …[T]hey have not committed any acts of violence in five decades. They too want change. If we want democracy and freedom, we have to include them instead of marginalizing them.’”

According to Glick, The Muslim Brotherhood “is the progenitor of Hamas and al Qaida,” seeks to transform Egypt into an Islamic regime, and has defended Hizbullah terrorists.

Scheindlin and Maor reserve comment on the character of the Muslim Brotherhood.  As for ElBaradei, they quote the opinion of one man who had met the “pro-Western liberal moderate” and gathered the impression that the quiet intellectual had “no basis of support” back in Egypt since he’s been away for so long.

The Facts:  The Muslim Brotherhood has a history of hating Israel, having “raised an army to fight Israel in its war of independence in 1948.  Its Palestinian branch was the nucleus for Hamas.”  According to some, it was a Brotherhood agent who assassinated Anwar Sadat after he signed a peace treaty with Israel.  According to others, it was a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which later merged into Al Qaeda.  In a related fact, the Muslim Brotherhood has also supported Al Qaeda.  Their focus isn’t solely on Egypt or the Middle East:  One of the goals of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America is to “establish an effective and stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood which…presents Islam as a civilization alternative.”

ElBaradei, now officially backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, supported the group on American television, remarking to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, “You know, the Muslim Brotherhood has nothing to do with the Iranian model, has nothing to do with extremism, as we have seen it in Afghanistan and other places.  The Muslim Brotherhood is a religiously conservative group.  …We need to include them.  They are part of the Egyptian society, as much as the Marxist party here.”

Conclusions

On all three counts, Glick evidenced a clear ability to quote facts in drawing conclusions.  Scheindlin and Maor evidenced the ability to hand-pick citation and tailor it to the advantage of their opinions.  For example, Glick’s strong suit was in using primary source quotes from ElBaradei to illustrate his relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood.  Scheindlin and Maor’s ability to twist facts in order to suit their personal views was most evident in the case of their “Conspiracy Against ElBaradei” theory that managed to twist a known fact into a smear campaign against ElBaradei championed by “Israelis and prominent Jews”.  As a result, the former produced analysis while the latter expressed value judgments.


My brother once shared with me a professor’s saying, “There’s your truth, there’s my truth, and then there’s the Truth.”  At the time I remember thinking, “If your truth doesn’t chime with the Truth, what good is it?”  Opinion should never be the source of Truth.  However, in the world of 24-hour news and basement bloggers, opinion often draws more attention than fact.  Not to be solely lamented, well reasoned opinion can shine a light on the Truth at hand when done right.

Unfortunately, in this world, “done right” is a matter of opinion.

Originally published @ OurLastStand.com 

A Conservative Response to the Palestine Papers

"It is easier to dismiss claims that run contrary to what you already believe than to perhaps change your beliefs, but that fact alone doesn't invalidate what could be new facts."  That was one friend's response to my questioning of the validity and purpose of the "leaked" Palestine Papers this week.  Instead of recognizing the bias involved in Al-Jazeera leaking documents that Israelis readily concede will give Abbas and the Palestinian government a good standing internationally (and, consequently, continue to frame Israel as the evil, unwilling partner in negotiations), I'm supposed to be willing to concede to "what could be new facts" and change my entire way of thinking about the peace process.


Forget the fact that I've never really talked about the peace process or my opinions of the Palestinian government.  I am Conservative, and therefore right wing, and therefore I distrust the Palestinians and will seek to frame them in as evil a light as possible by my very political nature.


And I thought Leftists were supposed to be the supporters of open minds and open dialogue.


In his reaction to the Palestine Papers, J. J. Goldberg notes the complete lack of a response from the organized Jewish community that he tends to characterize as typically right wing in nature when it comes to supporting Israel, commenting, "The one thing nobody seems able to get their minds around is the idea that Israel might be in the wrong here. That would be much too awkward." 


Truthfully, if Jewish Leftists weren't such rampant environmentalists they'd probably have printed and distributed copies of the leaked documents with instructions to rub them in the faces of any Jewish right wingers they could find hiding under rocks.  Within the next month the Papers will no doubt be published in America by at least one Jewish Leftist organization under the title "Triumph!  Triumph at Last!"


So, what have they really won?  They have papers that allege a Palestinian partner willing to compromise on the Right of Return, Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and joint control of Jerusalem.  No actual peace agreement documents were included in the Papers, which only covered Palestinian discussions.  We don't know if these comments ever reached Israeli ears because we have no documentation to that effect.  We also don't have any official Palestinian verification of the documents in question.


In fact, what we do have is the Palestinian Cheif Negotiator, Saeb Erekat, condemning the release of the Palestine Papers and accusing Al-Jazeera of slander, saying that the leaked documents make him look like a traitor to his people.  According to Erekat, the leaks are the fault of a former CIA Agent and British national who now works for Al-Jazeera.  (Perhaps this is one of the conspiracy theories J.J. Goldberg is trying to blame on the right wing, which is funny; I didn't know Erekat, who claims that the leaks are "punishment for going against the United States in the Security Council" qualified as yet another one of those annoying Israeli & American flag-waving right wingers.)


Still functioning on the assumption that the Palestine Papers are really true, Goldberg does concede that the Palestinians are slightly somewhat to blame:

But that would overlook the Palestinian leadership’s contributions to the mess. They never told their public how much they were willing to give up to achieve statehood. No doubt they wanted to hold off admitting how much they were giving away until they could announce how much they were getting in return. That’s a basic rule of negotiating.


Unfortunately, the Palestinian leaders didn’t just keep their cards hidden. They adopted an emphatic public stance that was the opposite of their negotiating position: no compromise on refugees, no deviating from the 1967 borders, no demilitarization, no Israeli presence on the Temple Mount. The result was that the Palestinian public wasn’t prepared for the realities of peace. Not surprisingly, the leak of the Palestinian negotiating positions in January caused an uproar.

You could approach this in one of two ways: If the papers are true, then the Palestinian government plays one incredible game of poker.  If they aren't true, which is the official Palestinian government stance, then we are only left with what we do see coming out of the Palestinian leadership: an unwillingness to negotiate combined with a militant attitude towards Israel.

Perhaps that is why there has been so little conversation on the Palestine Papers outside of the Left Wing.  It is the Left Wing that consistently looks for hope where there is none, just as they continually assign blame where it doesn't belong.  The one solid conclusion that pragmatic Israeli analysts could draw from the leaks is "that the document leak aimed to harm Abbas's standing within the PA, but instead will raise his standing internationally."  Suddenly, the man who supposedly was willing to negotiate but refuses to verify that claim and stands behind a wall of non-negotiation becomes the international hero. I'm sure the Nobel committee is already taking the leaks into account for this year's nominations.

 

I can't answer for the mainstream Jewish (secretly right-wing cabal) community's lack of response to the Palestine Papers.  I can, however, say that from a Conservative perspective the Palestine Papers are nothing but the same old sorry news coming out of the Israeli-Palestinian sphere.  As for my personal Conservative, crazy right-wing views, it's like I explained to my friend: Like mostly everyone I know, I'm always willing to put a little John Lennon in my CD player. I'm also far too used to these types of stories: "Palestinians are willing peace partners!" only to be followed by "More terror attacks by [insert terror front's name here] on Israelis" followed by "Crackdown on security in West Bank" followed by "[Terror Group] using special ed kid as human sheild suicide bomber" or "rockets fired over Gaza Strip into Sderot" followed by "There will be no talks until the militant action stops!" followed by "Fine then, we aren't negotiating!" 

You either get beaten into submission by this cycle, or you start to say, "You know what? When you want peace, you'll tell the terrorists to knock it off and be the bigger guy, like Anwar Sadat. Oh, wait, no one wants to be the next Sadat. Nevermind."

If you think I'm oversimplifying my case, go back to 2008 when sources claim the Palestine Papers were written.  According to an incredibly well-documented count on Wikipedia, 1,528 mortars and 1,575 rockets were fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip the same year these unverified documents claim the Palestinian government was willing to make serious concessions for peace.  2008 ended in Operation Cast Lead in which Hamas terrorists in Gaza used a remarkable amount of civilians as human shields, with no condemnation or reaction from Abbas or his government.  To the contrary, it was the soldiers of the Israeli Defence Forces who were forced to undergo an ethics investigation after the war which concluded that "soldiers maintained a high professional and moral level while facing an enemy that aimed to terrorize Israeli civilians while taking cover behind uninvolved civilians in the Gaza area and using them as human shields."

When Al-Jazeera leaks some papers that indicate Abbas and his negotiating team condemn the terrorists in their midst who use innocent civilians as shields against peace, and when Abbas and his government walk out of Fatah Revolutionary Councils instead of participating in them, then I'll believe there's a chance for peace.  Until then, I can only go with the most recent reports regarding the Palestinian government's willingness to "negotiate":

"The Fatah council derogatorily rejected recognition of “the so-called Jewish state” or any “racist state based on religion.” It reasserted the “right of return” which, if implemented, would facilitate the end of a Jewish majority within the pre-1967 Green Line by allowing about four million Palestinian refugees and their offspring to settle in Israel proper.

Land swaps as part of a peace agreement were ruled out as well. Large settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria, such as Gush Etzion, Ma’aleh Adumim and other cities located just over the Green Line, consisting of no more than five percent of the West Bank, where about 80% around 320,000 Jews live, must be uprooted and settlers must be expelled, it decided.

...In what sounded more like a battle cry than a declaration, Fatah essentially articulated its intent to do everything short of relaunching an armed struggle to undermine the existence of the Jewish state."

Now, that's what I call giving peace a chance.