Lerner's Virus

Tikkun magazine editor Michael Lerner is inviting "special people" to a gathering next month in California.

Its aim, Rabbi Lerner e-mails, is "to deal with a difficult issue: the Denial (he uses a capital "D" for added emphasis) rampant in the Jewish world about the role that Israel is playing inflicting pain and violating human rights in Palestine and the way Israeli policies are starting to generate all kinds of anger against the Jewish people." Israelis and American Jews, he goes on, need "to acknowledge what is actually happening on the ground." People have to be able, he argues, "to say, 'yes, I see we are killing x number of Palestinians each day, and they are civilians who were not engaged in terror attacks, and we are doing y damage to their society' -- and then evaluating it and saying whether this is smart or not."

Ideally, I'd have fumed briefly and deleted the invitation -- as we all do those unexpected e-mails that pitch up in our "inbox" and prompt virus warnings. But Lerner's e-mail contains a more virulent virus than those that would destroy our software; it would destroy our moral legitimacy in this existential conflict with the Palestinians.

Shortly before Lerner's invitation landed, I addressed a Shabbat service at Bnai Jeshurun, a vibrant Conservative congregation on Manhattan's Upper West Side. I spoke briefly -- there were two bat mitzvot that day, and we were heading past the three-hour mark -- about the appalling reality we confront in Israel, the relentless attacks on our civilians, and the systematic incitement and financing of such attacks by Yasser Arafat and others in his Palestinian Authority. I explained that by blowing us up throughout our sovereign land, they are explosively persuading Israelis that even the most dramatic territorial compromise will not sate them, and prompting the inescapable conclusion that their goal is to terrorize and, ultimately, overwhelm the Jewish state. I went on to say that Israel had proved its desire for peaceful coexistence -- by electing Ehud Barak in 1999, for instance, and by its readiness to consider negotiations on the basis of the deeply problematic Saudi initiative -- but explained that most Israelis no longer held out the slimmest hope of accommodation with the unreformable Arafat.

I am a passionate but not a deliberately stirring speaker. Yet these remarks were greeted with a prolonged standing ovation, and at the end of the service numerous congregants earnestly thanked me for "finally" telling them "the truth" about what was happening in Israel and how Israelis felt about it. Observing my genuine bafflement, several explained that they had been so battered by inaccurate representations of the situation, on TV, in their newspapers and from some visiting speakers, as to have begun to wonder whether Israel was truly the victim rather than the aggressor -- whether the army's preventive measures, rather than the bombings, lay at the root of the violence. Put down in black and white, that may seem inconceivable. But what with the various boycott initiatives, the diplomatic assaults, and the small but vocal groups of Jews and Israelis endorsing them, even some of Israel's committed supporters are evidently having trouble keeping track of right and wrong.

Which brings me back to Rabbi Lerner. As a would-be spiritual leader and a Zionist, who says he wants Israel to survive as a Jewish state and notes that his own children have served in the army, he shouldn't have much trouble establishing the facts and charting the moral line. And yet as we bury still more innocent victims each day, he, in his missive, insultingly asserts that "the people of Israel . really are not as vulnerable as they perceive themselves to be," and seeks to formulate "a strategy to break through the levels of Denial so that we can help the Jewish people acknowledge what is wrong in what Israel is doing."

I understand the temptation, in defiance of all evidence, to argue that the orchestrated terrorism employed against us is somehow our fault -- because then we would have the power, unilaterally, to create the conditions for its cessation. Would that it were so. While Lerner patronizingly claims that Israelis are broadly supporting current government policy because of their refusal to "look at the facts," they are actually fully aware of the extent of the Palestinian leadership's betrayal; aware that Arafat has never halted terrorism; aware of the hysterical climate of anti-Israel hostility that Arafat has fostered, and deeply aware of all the complex implications of the army's efforts to minimize the consequent daily bids to kill us. In democratic Israel, with its free press and people's army, we have all the facts at our disposal -- unlike the Palestinian public, manipulated by its Arafat-controlled media, fed inflammatory lies, never told of the partnership toward independent statehood that Arafat rejected in its name.

Still, since Lerner thinks, in his condescension and self-deception, that Israelis and their supporters don't know what's going on, let him hold his get-together not, as planned, at a "retreat center" in the San Francisco area, but in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or in a tent at Megiddo junction. Let participants visit the roadblocks to witness the daily humiliations imposed upon ordinary Palestinians. But let them also visit those whose loved ones have been murdered by Palestinians attackers, and hear briefings about the innumerable bombings thwarted by those roadblocks, and about the bomb factories destroyed and the lifesaving intelligence information obtained during the army incursions. Let them be reminded that the stringent security measures were not in place 20 months ago, when Barak was trying to make peace with Arafat, and that they would end, and tens of thousands of Palestinians could return to jobs inside Israel, the moment the attacks on our populace cease. Let them be reminded, in short, that the way to stop the futile deaths on both sides requires a simple end to terrorism, not a complex formulation of strategy.

Best of all, I'd hope that Lerner, on reflection, will recognize that his planned gathering may be interpreted by those who dispatch the bombers as a victory -- Jews buying into the vile falsehood that depicts their terrorism as a desperate resort to violence by a people denied statehood. I'd hope he'll send us "special people" a letter of apology (and then kindly remove my name from his mailing list). Failing that, I hope he'll convene his strategy session in Israel and risk a bleeding body, as we all do each day here, for the sake of his misdirected bleeding heart.

Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 01:19:06 -0400 From: RabbiLerner@tikkun.org

July 14, 2002

Hi. I wanted to share with you some of what I found out in a series of conversations I've been having with people in Congress in the past two weeks. The conversations were off the record and very candid, and for that reason I can't tell you exactly who was involved. But I can tell you what I learned. Here are the key points:

1. There are somewhere between 25-30 Congress people at the present moment who would sign on to the TIKKUN Resolution for Congress as presented in the Strategy section of The Tikkun Community section of our website www.tikkun.org

2. Most agree that they are going to be subject to the same attack from AIPAC and related forces whether they take a faintly pro-peace stance or a strong pro-peace stance: AIPAC will go after and demonize anyone who suggests that Palestinian human rights deserve support and attention in the U.S., no matter how otherwise pro-Israel those people or elected officials might be. For that reason, the stance of The Tikkun Community is not "too radical."

3. What makes the stance of The Tikkun Community particularly appealing is that it includes the call for Israel to be given either membership in NATO or a mutual defense pact with the U.S. That element can be used to offset those who would seek to demean the rest of the package (including withdrawal to the pre-67 borders of Israel with slight border adjustments mutually agreed upon, reparations for Palestinian refugees, troops to intervene and protect each side from the other, etc.) as anti-Israel. Calling for this defense of Israel's security in concrete terms goes a long way to reassure people that our call for security for Israel is not just a meaningless phrase and that our "real" agenda is only to end the Occupation while leaving Israel vulnerable.

4. There may be more Members of Congress who would support this kind of stance, except that they are all certain that this would put their careers in jeopardy. This fear has increased since Jewish pro-Sharon forces managed to run another Black candidate against incumbent Congressman Hilliard and defeat him in a primary a few weeks ago.

The next such primary is that of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, from Georgia, because the same pro-Sharon forces have targeted this African American Democrat for defeat for her strong stance in favor of both Israel and Palestine. I was told by almost every Member of Congress to whom I spoke that people need to a. send money contributions to her re-election committee and to identify that they learned about this through The Tikkun Community and want to help. Equally important-- b. some people need to physically go down there and help her campaign by volunteering time and energy to it. The election is in mid August, so the help is needed now. I was told that people who wanted to help in these ways should call her Congressional Office and from there be directed to her campaign staff--202 334 3121 and ask for the office of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney of Georgia. If McKinney loses, it will be far more difficult to get others to take any risks.

The TIKKUN COMMUNITY does not make recommendations on how to vote, and has not been involved in any study of the candidate's positions at this point. So I am not conveying to you some decision or endorsement, but merely the information I was told by Congress people who support our position on Israel.

5. There is widespread support for our particular approach to strategy, particularly the attempts to get our resolution debated in local city councils.

Congress people informed me that the Democratic party leadership will block any attempt to bring this kind of a resolution to the floor of the Congress, and for that reason they thought that it would very important to loosen things up for us to bring hundreds of people to Washington this coming April 27-29 from every Congressional district in the U.S. Doing so would be an important first step in countering AIPAC's image of invincibilitiy, particularly if we could do this every year for the next many years.

Everyone felt that what the TIKKUN COMMUNITY was trying to do was particularly important, though several wondered if we could actually pull it off (and I made it clear that that depends entirely on you and your friends--because I certainly can't do this without your active involvement, financial support, and emotional commitment to ask friends and people in your community to get actively involved with us).

One of the themes that was continually raised to me by the more skeptical members of Congress was their experience that the progressives and people of conscience who agree with The Tikkun perspective tend to be less willing to express strong convictions in public, challenge biased media coverage, or make it clear to their elected representatives that they really could imagine that this specific issue might decide how they would vote, whereas people on the other side are well organized, have no problem calling the media several times a day and insisting that their perspective be covered, and make it very clear to their elected officials that their votes will go to anyone who supports their perspective no matter what other issues may be involved. In this regard, many pointed out to me the recent alliance between the Jewish establishment and the Christian fundamentalists, many of whom disagree with the Jewish world on every other issue but have become strong allies with Jews because of this Christian support for Israel.

I told them that we at the Tikkun Community were organizing a Rapid Response Team for the media, and that we were organizing Jews and non-Jews to speak out on these issues.

In all, I found great receptivity to our plans, considerable fear about people making themselves too vulnerable in the face of attack, a hopefulness that something could happen. Congress people were particularly hopeful about the fact that Cornel West and Susannah Heschel have joined in leadership positions, and that we were making our organization not only for Jews, but explicitly for non-Jews as well (since, many told me, they doubted that there would be enough Jewish progressives to make a difference, but an organization that also included Christians, Muslims, secular humanists, etc. just might have the clout to make a difference). They wished us well.

So, I hope you'll share this message with others, and I hope that you personally will take the plunge to Join The TIKKUN COMMUNITY (just send us a check for $120, or $40 if you are a student or someone with income of less than $35 k per year). Or send us a tax-deductible contribution. Make check to TIKKUN, and send to THE TIKKUN COMMUNITY, 2107 Van Ness Ave, Suite 302, San Francisco, Ca. 94109. or send us an email or call us with your credit card number (phone: call Liat at 415 575 1200). Membership includes a one year subscription to TIKKUN and a copy of the booklet Healing Israel/Palestine (when it gets completed in the early Fall, 2002).

For a world of peace, justice, ecological sanity, love, kindness, generosity, joy, awe and wonder at the grandeur of creation, and knowledge of our mutual interdependence and of the Unity of all Being.
Many blessings,
Rabbi Michael Lerner