An Ignored Reality

Taking a break today from the impending doom that is the 2024 election to focus on another element of impending doom. Before I launch into another exploration of the Israel-Palestine conflict I have to add this little detail about me, because some people will view what I saw as being anti-semitic or anti-Israel or claim that I’m a Jew-hater.

So …

My wife is Jewish. We raised our children in her faith. For a couple of years, I made the challah for our synagogue’s Friday night service. Challah that was universally lauded by the Rabbi, Cantor, and congregants as the best they had. If I was a religious type, I would be a member of the Jewish faith.

Equally, I believe there should be an Israel. For my family and for Jews around the world. The question though is what Israel should look like, where it should be, and how does it get there while taking into consideration the interests of those who lived on that land who are not Jewish.

Finally, it is impossible to ignore the many ways in which those who occupy the lands around modern-day Israel have made the existence of Israel a challenging thing. Wars, terrorist attacks of every variety, and so many other horrors have given those who live in modern-day Israel a very real sense of insecurity. I can’t deny it. I don’t deny it. And I stand with all of those who say that Hamas must be destroyed. (The only question is … then what? But that’s a topic for another post.)

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What I want to talk about today is this op-ed that appeared in the NYT this week. Michelle Goldberg refers to the extremism of some elements of today’s Israeli government. Goldberg focuses on statemens made by multiple members of the Israeli government. Statements that propose the forced, or voluntary, emigration of Gazans from the Gaza Strip.

Goldberg’s final sentence states:

I’m tempted to say that Ben-Gvir and Smotrich said the quiet part out loud, but in truth they just said the loud part louder.

This begins to get at the truth, but doesn’t really get into it in detail.

What is the quiet part? Or the loud part if you prefer that? It’s rather simple, the idea of driving Palestinians from their land has been a fundamental aspect of Zionism and Israel for decades. And it’s not just the Gaza Strip that they want. Nor is it just the West Bank.

Modern-day Israel does not reflect the biblican land of Israel. Instead, it represents what so many modern countries represent. Line drawing done by colonial powers. Lines that have nothing to do with the desires of the people. Look at a map of the world. Look at how many countries in Africa and the Middle East have borders that are straight lines. Compare those to the borders of South America, Europe and Asia. Look also at the make up of so many of the countries. They are not built around common interests, common religions, or common culturs. It’s almost as if the colonial powers intentionally “created” countries that are designed to ensure conflict and strife in these areas.

But I digress.

Modern-day Israel has no relation to what Jewish people around the world have dreamed of for thousands of years. Part of the Passover tradition is to say “Next Year in Jerusalem.” This phrase can represent different things, but at its core, it represents the Jewish dream of a return to the biblical land of Israel. And what is the biblical land of Israel?

It certainly isn’t what modern-day Israel is. No, the biblical land of Israel, or Eretz Israel, includes the Sinai, all of today’s Israel (including Gaza and the West Bank), Jordan, and parts of Lebanon and Syria. The most ardent Zionists, typically reflected in Israel’s settler community, have not lost sight of this objective. But it’s not just the settlers.

Members of Israel’s government have paid at least lip service to the ideal of Eretz Israel since Israel proclaimed its independence in 1948. During the war that followed, Israeli soldiers drove Palestinians from numerous villages, taking them over, renaming them, and turning them into Jewish villages almost over night. According to Wikipedia,

David Ben-Gurion stated in the early 1950’s that "It has already been said that when the State was established it held only six percent of the Jewish people remaining alive after the Nazi cataclysm. It must now be said that it has been established in only a portion of the Land of Israel. Even those who are dubious as to the restoration of the historical frontiers, as fixed and crystallised and given from the beginning of time, will hardly deny the anomaly of the boundaries of the new State." And the 1955 Israeli government year-book said,"It is called the 'State of Israel' because it is part of the Land of Israel and not merely a Jewish State. The creation of the new State by no means derogates from the scope of historical Eretz Israel".

While there was a period of time when the Israeli government seemed to accept the confines of modern-day Israel, the 1967 war changed that. The outcome of the war led to Israel taking control of what are now known as the Occupied Territories. Subsequent terror attacks and other events also contributed to a rise in the settler movement in the Occupied Territories and, eventually, the building of a security wall, and all sorts of security crackdowns on the peole in the Occupied Territories. It also led to more hard-line governments, beginning with Menachem Begin. These governments have essentially turned a blind eye to the activities of the settler movement.

At one point, those settlers formed a group called Gush Emunim, which primarily focused on settling the Occupied Territories, but also had some elements which pushed for a return to Eretz Israel. They wanted it all. In the West Bank, these settlers are virtually above the law and they, along with Israel security forces beat down the Palestinians who live there — building walls around individual homes, destroying other homes, destroying orchards, denying access to water sources, arresting children, women, and men and holding them for days, weeks and months without charge or trial.

As a result, when Goldberg refers to the extremism of the current Israel government, she is ignoring what amounts to centuries of history in which the beliefs of these “extremists” have always been a component of Zionist and Israeli beliefs. They haven’t always been the majority. They may not even be the majority now. But what they are pushing represents a not-so-rare belief in Israel. And it’s a belief that is growing.

What Americans don’t get because we simply cannot comprehend this is that the conflict there represents thousands of years of history. People in those lands don’t think in terms of next year or the next decade. They think long term. So, today they focus on the Occupied Territories, but their ultimate goal is much more than that. And they are willing to wait decades or centuries for that, just so long as they keep moving towards the goal.

We don’t get this because we don’t have that history. Our time on this land is 400 years. Our time as a country is 250 years. The state I live in didn’t exist 180 years ago. As a result, we are mere toddlers in the world of history and claims to land. We don’t get the long-term nature of these conflicts. We don’t get the HISTORY of these things because we don’t have it in our own world.

So … to Goldberg, today’s statements by Israeli cabinet members appear extreme. In reality, they are entirely consistent with thousands of years of Jewish dreams. Until we recognize that, until we acknowledge that, until we address that, and start doing things differently with respect to this conflict, we are all doomed to failure.

What worries me a lot is that Israel’s current direction ensures never-ending conflict. They are not on a path that will obtain peace and security for the people in that land. What worries me the most is that Israel wants that conflict. They seem to have lost their minds and are willing to endanger the world.