This past week, rabbis across the country received a request from the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism to sign a public rabbinic letter to Congress that urged our Representatives and Senators not to cut any foreign aid to Israel as part of the FY2012 budget. The request was co-signed by the rabbinical leaders of four major American Jewish denominations.
As rabbis who received these appeals for our endorsement, we would like to voice our respectful but strong disagreement to the letter. We take particular issue with the statement:
As Jews we are committed to the vision of the Prophets and Jewish sages who considered the pursuit of peace a religious obligation. Foreign Aid to Israel is an essential way that we can fulfill our obligation to “seek peace and pursue it”
We certainly agree that the pursuit of peace is our primary religious obligation. Our tradition emphasizes that we should not only seek peace but pursue it actively. However we cannot affirm that three billion dollars of annual and unconditional aid - mainly in the form of military aid - in any way fulfills the religious obligation of pursuing peace.
This aid provides Israel with military hardware that it uses to maintain its Occupation and to expand settlements on Palestinian land. It provides American bulldozers that demolish Palestinian homes. It provides tear gas that is regularly shot by the IDF at nonviolent Palestinian protesters. It also provided the Apache helicopters that dropped tons of bombs on civilian populations in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, as well as the white phosphorus that Israel dropped on Gazan civilians, causing grievous burns to their bodies - including the bodies of children.
In light of Israel's past and continuing military actions, how can we possibly affirm that our continued unconditional aid fulfills the sacred obligation of pursuing peace?
We also take exception to this assertion:
U.S. foreign aid reaffirms our commitment to a democratic ally in the Middle East and gives Israel the military edge to maintain its security and the economic stability to pursue peace.
In fact our ally, the Netanyahu administration, has even rebuffed mild pressure from the US government to comply with the longstanding US position against new settlements in the West Bank. If we believe that any peaceful settlement requires the end of the Occupation and Israel's settlement policy, how will massive and unconditional foreign aid - and the support of hundreds of rabbis for this aid - promote a negotiated peaceful settlement of the conflict?
An Israeli government that continues to settle occupied territory with impunity will not change its policy as long as it is guaranteed three billion dollars a year. With every other ally, our government pursues a time-honored diplomatic policy that uses "sticks" as well as "carrots." We believe the cause of peace would be better served by conditioning support to Israel on its adherence to American and Jewish values of equality and justice.
We are also mindful that the Arab world itself feels under assault by the US when it witnesses Palestinians regularly assaulted with American-made weapons. With the vast and important changes currently underway in the Middle East, we are deeply troubled by the message that this policy sends to Arab citizens who themselves are struggling for freedom and justice.
We know that many of our colleagues who have signed this statement have taken courageous public stands condemning Israel's human rights abuses in the past. We also know it is enormously challenging to publicly take exception to our country's aid policy to Israel. Nonetheless, we respectfully urge our our colleagues to consider the deeper implications represented by their support of this letter.
Unconditional aid to Israel may ensure Israel’s continued military dominance, but will it truly fulfill our religious obligation to pursue peace?
In Shalom,
Rabbi Brant Rosen and Rabbi Brian Walt
Thank you, Rabbis Rosen and Walt, for pointing out the shamefully obvious.
i second that, thank you very much Rabbi Rosen and Rabbi Walt.
Shalom
Yes, I third that, and also thank Rabbi Rosen and Rabbi Walt for stating the obvious; their courage is inspiring–it is indeed a giant irony that Reform Judiasm is apparently not so chock full of its true representatives of its highest values that they all don’t get up and stand with Rosen and Walt.
While the Zionists call for “piece, piece,” our broadcasters substitute “peace, peace.”
I like this a lot.
From the rabbinical letter: ‘As Jews, we insist that the U.S. do all that it can to continue to be a leader in the world supporting basic human rights and we are unwilling to compromise this for aid to Israel or vice versa.’
The Palestinian territories, now in their fifth decade of Israeli occupation, are a major locus of human rights violations. These range from martial law, to land seizures, to home demolitions, to pervasive restrictions on travel, trade and free movement, to the potential war crimes documented in the Goldstone report. U.S. aid to Israel subsidizes and encourages these ongoing abuses.
So contrary to the rabbis’ claim, they are 100 percent willing to compromise ‘basic human rights’ in pursuit of their objective: continuing U.S. aid to Israel with ‘no strings attached’ to restrain bad behavior. By including this patently false claim in their awkwardly worded sentence, they exhibit an unconscious implication to ‘out’ themselves, even as they shamelessly prevaricate. Caught ya!
Excuse me, those are baseless accusations. What are “basic human rights”? There are more basic and less basic. Those are most grevious violations of human rights:
1. Anti-Semitism (and yes, certain criticisms of the State of Israel are included)
2. abuse of oil tycoons.
When those two types are conflated, we have true crisis, e.g. the martyrdom of Mikhail Khodorkhovsky. Unfortunately, we cannot properly sanction Russia for that outrage.
When only the second type of outrage is committed, we can try to foment a coup-d-etat, like in Venezuela. First they went after oil executives, then after media tycoons, now nobody is safe in Venezuela. And the bastard over there foil a coup-d-etat. Well, one of these days we will have the last laugh.
Important detail: some criticisms, even bitter! of the State of Israel are OK. For example, that in Cast Lead IDF treated Hamas with velvet gloves (a totally inappropriate choice of gloves according to some; what gloves were donned by IDF, what gloves were available etc. is a part of spirited debates that signify a vibrant democracy). But a large part of the criticism is hateful, i.e. is not made from the position of the LOVE and VENERATION of that State.
I think it’s important for prominent US Jews to start distancing themselves from Israel because the next 20 years are going to be very ugly.
The link link to action.rac.org
threw up this nonsense:
“You know that aid to Israel reflects a strong U.S. investment in the peace process, a belief in Israel’s importance as a vital ally for the United States in the Middle East, and an American commitment to a Jewish democratic state”.
The peace process was strangled by Israel. the Palestine papers have the details.
Israel’s relevance as an ally in the region fades as the arab spring proceeds.
Saudi is the only relevant US ally. The US just can’t afford petrol at $4 a gallon. Everything else is secondary.
Lieberman and the settlers are strangling Israeli democracy.
Interesting to see how the rabbis regurgitate the information they get from AIPAC.
Here is the original
link to aipac.org
No mention of tikkun olam.
Courageous and exemplary–Thank you for this!
once again we have jewish citizens of the US failing in their duties as citizens. if they continue to wish to put Israel’s interests ahead of the US they should go live in Israel. if they stay here in the states they need to put the US interests ahead of all other countries.
Yep. As far as the rabbis are concerned, Americans can be thrown out of their homes, pushed onto the dole, and starve under crumbling bridges, as long as the money keeps flowing to Israel.
YEP. And the US tax money must also keep flowing in greatly disproportionate doles under the Homeland Security imprimature–to Jewish American communities across the USA. (And exactly the reverse as to Arab American communities). Neither the Demos or the Repubs care to seriously cut funds to the bloated HS or Pentagon budgets. Instead, they both argue for more funds to both. To protect us everyday Americans, you see?
Jewish American communities across the USA
Let’s be honest. Public Law 94-521 prohibits the Census Bureau from asking questions on religious affiliation. The Bureau’s “American Community Survey” doesn’t collect data on a Jewish Ancestry group, e.g. link to census.gov
The Bureau and Congress use self-reported statistics from the heads of “Major Jewish Organizations” about the number and location of “Jewish communities”. They in-turn over sample in areas where “Jews” are “known” to live. That means they can turn a blind eye to assimilated and secular Jews. So, they tend to find exactly what they are looking for when they bother to conduct surveys.
This analysis has to be suppressed.
And above all those Jewish citizens elected to Congress, where too many of them act as traitors to the the nation they supposedly represent.
Thank you rabbis.
While I think it was good that they maintained their focus strictly on Israel-Palestine, I also think that it is a grave injustice for the US to spend that money when domestic financial cuts are being made daily to the programs that assist the welfare of the tens of millions of US citizens who are un or underemployed and those who lack access to basic medical care.
How is it that Israel can afford national health insurance, but the USA can not? And this despite the fact Israel spends more on its military budget proportionately than any other country? Every day on Fox cable there’s a commercial asking us to give money to save desperately poor Jews in the former USSR countries–it’s always on during the TV hour formerly reserved for Glen Beck; he’s gone, but it’s still there, every day. I know fellow Americans who are in desperate economic & health straits, including ones as old, wrinkled, and white as the Jews shown in the commercial. They seem to be multiplying. We’ve given Israel more than we have any other country in our history–what do we get for this dole at the expense of our own citizens?
“How is it that Israel can afford national health insurance, but the USA can not?”
It seems that the USA and a handful of desperate third-world countries are the only ones who can’t.
Even the most appalling despots in primitive, backward, countries have set up some sort of national health service during the last fifty years. Australia finally got one in 1975, and Iraq had a pretty good service under Saddam.
The link page has two letters. One to the “supporters”, one to Congress. Yes, the letter to Congress is quite verbose, invokes Prophets and Sages and what not, but the letter to supporters is brief and direct. The opening sentence is:
“Support for, and love of, Israel is at the center of many of our rabbinates.”
So here were, “at the center”. Cult of the State. So forget the crap about Prophets and Sages. Kashrut? To the degree it benefits the State. Peace? To the degree it benefits the State.
After all, they are Reform rabbis. They do not take Torah literally, with 629 commandments (or is it 619? no matter). They search for main ethical principles emanating from the Scripture. And many of “our rabbinates” found the CENTRAL principle: the STATE.
Makes me wonder what is wrong with those other rabbinates. I say: never trust a Reform rabbi. Why are those other rabbinates still “our rabbinates”. Treason! Rabbis who tolerate traitors are also traitors! But at least, although faint-hearted, they are patriots. They do whatever they can (which is not much, given the misguided tolerance) to make our homeland worthy of its ally in the Middle East.
piotr, there is something I beg you to consider when judging these Rabbis: by and large, most Rabbis leave little boys alone (I said most, I have no intention of making blanket insults). Oh, I’d be careful of leaving my wife unattended around them, but little boys they mostly leave unmolested. You know what I say: Give credit where it’s due, and predatory loans for the rest.
I simply can’t understand how Reform Jews can support the state of Israel, where the state religious establishment doesn’t recognize their religion. A Reform synagogue was recently burned in Israel by intolerant Jewish fanatics. This is what they think of you there. Israel is the almost only country in the world where Jews can be arrested for praying in public.
A great point, Potsy. Tell it to our Jewish American princesses who happen to be Hollywood movie stars, including those who are biologically only half-Jewish, or not even Jewish under some versions of Orthodox Jewish law. And while you are at it, ask all those de jure (Christian Zionist) and de facto (many new age Christians, and protestant, especially, Christians, e.g., typical Baptists and liberal protestants) Christians, why they support the state of Israel given how Gentiles and Christians included are treated by establishment Israel, not to mention how they are characterized by various orthodox Israelis, especially those in settlements that were born and reared in Brooklyn, etc. In both cases, I fear, it’s a simple matter of faith. Faith can move montains, and Faith may not care, as a practical matter, who the mountains tumbled upon. Being chosen is swell, the young Mickey Roonie might say.