Another day

Another day, another rocket. Another pundit explaining the motives behind the war and the possible outcomes. Another soldier lost to friendly fire, a child lying peacefully as she enters her eternity with her body trapped under what was once her home.
Am I completely insane or has the world gone mad?
What is an absolute right to defend oneself? Where does that right come from? What does it mean to defend oneself? Would it be fine for Stalin to defend himself against all the millions of families who lost loved ones to his horrific regime? Would it be Hitler’s right to defend against the Jews and Gypsies and Homosexuals and political enemies who met their end under his rule?
Sure. I know, “How can you equivocate? Are you comparing Hitler and Stalin to the Israelis?”
No! I am absolutely not. I am a Jew by birth and by choice. I think our rabbis handed us a beautiful tradition and I want to walk in their ways.
Yeshayahu Leibowitz, the great scholar of Talmud writes,
Once the ‘craft of Esau’ has been granted legitimacy, the distinction between the permissible and the forbidden, between the justified and the blameworthy, is very subtle – it is like the ‘handbreadth between heaven and hell.’ We must constantly examine whether we have transgressed and crossed that fine dividing line.
I unequivocally denounce the shelling of Israel by Hamas. I think they are violent fundamentalists, the worst kind. I also know that no person is born Hamas. No infant is born a Muslim or a Jew or a Christian or a terrorist or a soldier. We learn these things in our homes, our families, our public walkways and places of education. We learn them on television, on the Internet, in books and on billboards. We learn to be Jews and Muslims and Christians and terrorists and soldiers, and we can learn to be good neighbors and friends and lovers just the same. This is a matter of will and discipline.
When I was raised in the socialist Zionist movement, I learned that if I will something it is no dream. Why have we lost our will?
I don’t have a dream. I have a plan. I plan to teach my children, and their friends and their siblings and our neighbors and people I will never even meet, far away in distant lands, and in my backyard, I plan to teach them what our sages taught me, not to do onto other what you would not like done to you.
I am not a golden rule person. I do not want to love my fellow as myself. Wouldn’t that be a lot of chutzpah? Why should I decide how anyone should be loved?
I used to sit in the living room of my childhood home listening to the soundtrack of the Broadway musical Hair, and I remember these words which have burned their way into my sensibility. “You know kids, I wish every mom and dad would make a speech to their teenagers and say kids, be free, be whatever you are, do whatever you want to do, just so long as you don't hurt anybody. And remember kids, I am your friend.”
I know the world is not this simple. In my dissertation I wrote about “realistic conflict theory” which raises its ugly head when there are conflicting wills for the same resources, whether they are land, human power, beliefs, legal powers, etc. I put this theory next to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Sure we will fight for a slice of bread or a glass of water if our life depends on it. Sustenance is the base of our needs. But when did land and nationalism and democracy and capitalism and religion become such great needs that we have to kill in their defense.
I don’t like Hamas, but I can imagine how horrible it must be to watch fundamentalist Jews pillage Hebron, attacking school children, breaking windows, calling for the kidnapping of their own countries soldiers, and watching as the government of these Jewish Cossacks trembles before it takes action to limit their progroms.
It must suck to be Palestinian and watch Israelis on their television screens debating the morality of occupying Palestinian lands, most of which were acquired in contravention of Israeli law, while over a quarter million Jews settle this land at great public expense and thousands of Israelis live in poverty. What a scary picture that must be? They must ask themselves why the Israelis hate them so much they would rather break their own laws, and have a large portion of their society live poorly, in order to support a military occupation that violates international conventions and ostracizes them in the world.
I am not saying that leaving the territories, and obeying our own laws, and being civil with our Palestinian neighbors, and treating them with the respect due to all humans, will result in Hamas making plowshares of their rocket launchers. I’m only saying that when we do this, I will have a much easier time sending ground troops into Gaza and bombarding them with artillery if they continue to launch rockets at our cities in the south. That kind of self defense I can understand and support.