Israeli Perspective..........
By Daniel Gordis……Rabbi Daniel Gordis is the director of the Mandel Foundation’s Jerusalem Fellows Program.
This is a different kind of war, and an old kind of war. In the last
war, when they blew up buses and restaurants and sidewalks and cafes,
Israelis were enraged, apoplectic with anger. This time, it's
different. Rage has given way to sadness. Disbelief has given way to
recognition. Because we've been here before. Because we'd once
believed we wouldn't be back here again. And because we know why this
war is happening.
A rocket hit Haifa in the first days of the war, killing no one, but
injuring a number of people. It also tore the face off an apartment
building, leaving the apartments inside eerily exposed, naked, for all
to gaze into. That small block of Haifa, with its shattered shell of a
building, rubble all along the street, citizens dazed as they wandered
about looking at it all, appeared to be exactly what it was -- a war
zone.
And yet, the people in the street stayed near their homes, going
nowhere. The newscaster asked them why they didn't go somewhere else,
where it might be safer. One man answered with statistics. "Why leave
now? We've already been hit. The chances of us being hit again are one
in a million." To which another man responded almost with outrage.
"What do numbers have to do with it?" he asked. And then, he turned to
the camera, almost screaming, pointed to the broken building, and said,
"This is our home. Mi-po ani lo zaz. From here, I am not budging."
And he repeated his refrain over and over again. "This is my home. And
from here, I am not budging." "Mi-po ani lo zaz."
Israelis understand what this is. This is a war over our homes. Over
our homes in the north, for now, but eventually, as the rockets get
better and larger, all of our homes. This is not about the territories.
This is not about the "occupation." This is not about creating a
Palestinian State. This is about whether there will be a state called
Israel. Sixty years after Arab nations greeted the UN resolution on
November 29 1947 with a declaration of war, nothing much has changed.
They attacked this time for the same reason that they did sixty years
ago.
At first, it was the Egyptians, Jordanians and Syrians. We put a stop
to that in 1949, 1956, 1967 and 1973.
Then it was the Palestinians, who bamboozled the world (and many of us
Israelis) into believing that they just wanted a State, and that their
terror was simply a way of forcing us to make one possible. We fought
the terror in 1982 (Lebanon), 1987 (Intifada) and even after Camp David
and Oslo, once again in 2000-2005 (the Terror War). And then, we
actually tried to make the State happen. We got out of Lebanon to put
an end to that conflict. And even more momentous, we got out of Gaza,
hoping that they'd start to build something.
And now, it's Hezbollah. Or more accurately, Syria. Or to be more
precise, Iran. What's Iran's beef with Israel? Territory it lost? It
didn't lose any. And does anyone really believe that Iran cares one
whit about the Palestinians and their state? That's not the reason. We
know it, and so do they.
Now, the bitter reality of which Israel's right wing had warned about
all along is beginning to settle in. It is not lost on virtually any
Israelis that the two primary fronts on which this war is being
conducted are precisely the two fronts from which we withdrew to
internationally recognized borders. We withdrew from Gaza, despite all
the internal objections, hoping to move Palestinian statehood -- and
peace -- one step closer. But all we got in return was the election of
Hamas, and a barrage of more than 800 Qassams that they refused to end.
And then they stole Gilad Shalit. Not from Gaza. Not from some
contested no man's land. From inside the internationally recognized
borders of Israel. As if to make sure that we got the point -- "There
is no place that you're safe. There is no place to which we won't take
this war. You can't stay here."
Because as much as we have wanted to believe otherwise, they have no
interest in building their homeland. They only care about destroying
ours.
Six years ago we pulled out of Lebanon. Same story. In defiance of the
UN's resolution 1559, Hizbollah armed itself to the teeth, and as we
watched and did nothing, accumulated more than 10,000 rockets. And dug
itself into the mountains. And established itself in Beirut,
effectively using the entire Lebanese population as human shields. And,
assuming that there was little that we could or would do, it attacked on
June 12, killing eight soldiers, and stealing Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad
Regev. Not from Southern Lebanon. Not from Har Dov, a tiny hilltop
that's still contested. But from inside Israel. Inside a line that no
one contests.
Unless, of course, they contest the idea of the whole enterprise. Which
they do. And which is precisely the point.
And which is why this incredibly divided and divisive society has
rallied so monolithically around a Prime Minister who until last week
wasn't terribly popular, and around a war that may or may not accomplish
all its military objectives. It explains why, even as the air raid
sirens go off across the country, and may eventually start their wail in
Tel Aviv, too, as people dash across streets, panicked, trying to find
the nearest bomb shelter, no one complains about the government. No
one's complaining about the amount of time it's taking the air force to
put a stop to this. It explains why all over this city, advertisements
on bus stops have been replaced with a photo of an Israeli flag and the
phrase Chazak Ve-ematz -- "be strong and resolute" (Moses' words to
Joshua in Deut. 31:7). [I've posted it at
www.danielgordis.org/Site/Site_Photos.asp if you want to see what it
looks like.] Even the people who've lost family members, who are
interviewed while still overwrought with grief, have no complaints about
the government or the army. "Finish this job," they effectively say.
"We'll stick it out."
But behind the defiance lies sadness, a tired and experienced renewed
loss of optimism, a wondering if it will ever, ever end. Because we
know what they want. It's not the Golan Heights. It's not the West
Bank. And it's not a State. We know what they want, and we know why
they want it.
On TV the other night, one of the news shows started off with a brief
comedic episode. It showed two guys, looking and acting Israeli to the
hilt. One of them was speaking in a heavy caricatured Sephardic North
African accident, spitting toothpicks as he carried on, telling his
friend, over and over and over, "mi-po ani lo zaz. This is the only
place where Jews can be safe, he insisted. This is the place we must
stay. From here, I'm not moving." And then the camera panned back,
until gradually, you realized that the background you were staring at
was the London Bridge, and the Tower of London. It would have been
funny, if it weren't so sad.
It's sad, because deep down, people are starting to wonder. Would going
there be the only way to get beyond their hate? We got out of Lebanon.
We left Gaza. Olmert was elected after he openly declared his intention
to give back the majority of the West Bank. But without intending to,
we called their bluff. And now we know: the issue isn't their
statehood. It's ours.
The sadness comes from the clarity. We can sign peace treaties, and
withdraw, and arm ourselves. But nothing's enough. You sign a treaty
with Egypt, but then Syria takes over Lebanon and uses Hezbollah as its
proxy. You get peace with Jordan, but Iran joins the fray. You learn
to defend your border, so they attack you from well within their
countries. It feels relentless, because it is. It feels like it never
ends, because it doesn't. It doesn't feel like the seventh war. It
feels like a continuation of the first. Could it be that we're right
back where we started?
Maybe that's why nobody I know actually laughed at the Tower of London
skit.
Is this like the first war, because we could win it and still not have
security? What if, as even the army says is likely, Hezbollah is left
wounded but still intact at the end? What, we just wait until they
decide to lob more missiles at Haifa, or Safed, or even Tel Aviv? Bomb
shelters will once again be part of the reality of Israeli kids? Have
we returned to the late 40's and 1950's, when border towns had to live
with the ongoing dread that Fedayeen would sneak across the border and
kill people? Except that now, in an era of missiles, most of the
country is a border town.
This is like the first war because Israeli citizens, in the middle of
the country, are getting killed by a foreign "army." In 1956, 1967 and
even in 1973, we mostly took the war to the border. And then to their
territory. Israel's civilian population centers, even in those horrible
conflagrations, were left more or less intact. But not in 1948, and not
this time. Haifa is the front. Safed is the front. Nazarath is the
front. And they're all burying people. Adults, and children. Jews,
and Israeli Arabs. And Tel Aviv, if you believe Nasrallah, may well be
next.
And it's like the old wars because all our hopes to the contrary
notwithstanding, the casualties are mounting. Just days after the
Israeli pundits were discussing whether or not a limited ground
incursion might be necessary, whether or not the air force could do this
on its own, there are troops on the ground in Lebanon. Thousands of
soldiers, the papers say this morning. And in the few days since
they've gone in, kids have been coming back in body bags. These are
elite units, and though we're told that they're having some successes in
finding and destroying the bunkers built into the mountain, they're
encountering heavy resistance. And not all of them are making it home.
We've been here before, too. We'd thought we were done with that.
For the first few days of this new war, Israelis were relieved to see
the footage of a hundred Israeli planes over Lebanon at any one point.
We'd show them that they'd miscalculated. We'd put a stop to this.
We'd get our stolen boys back. A decisive victory, like in days of old.
With fewer casualties on our side. But well into the second week of
the war, we don't have our boys back. And soldiers are dying, and
coming home without legs. And the victory hasn't been decisive. And
Israeli cities are still being shelled, and traumatized Israeli kids by
the thousands are still sleeping in bomb shelters. Just like in the
first war.
And it's like the first war because the news is broadcasting photos of
lines of Arab refugees fleeing the fighting in Beirut, heading north, or
to Syria. Israeli TV is showing footage of a former city that looks
much more like Dresden than Beirut. There are probably some Israelis
who couldn't care less, but the ones that I talk to, work with and share
a neighborhood with, do care. They understand that we probably have no
choice, for Hezbollah has decided to use Beirut as its human shield, and
for years and years, Lebanon did nothing to stop them. Or even to try.
And we have no choice but to survive.
But the Israelis I talk to all day long are still saddened by the
miles-long lines of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Lebanese
refugees, fleeing their homes and rubble filled neighborhoods with white
flags hovering outside their cars even as Israeli war planes roar
overhead. Simply on a human level, we know that the suffering is
incalculable. That, too, looks like that old black and white footage
from the War of Independence. And as a problem for Israel, we know,
Arab refugees don't disappear. They attack, we respond, they flee. And
then the problem becomes ours.
And even though Jerusalem is, so far, beyond the reach of the rockets,
even here, the air has started to take on a war-like feel. A colleague
of mine, in her 40's, cancelled a meeting yesterday because her
real-estate agent husband was just called up and sent to the Egyptian
border. A friend I met later in the afternoon cut a meeting short
because his son was getting a few hours off. The kid hasn't even
finished basic training, but was sent out to Samaria to guard an outpost
so that more experienced kids could get sent to the front. And we were
going to try to get together with other friends this morning, but they
can't. Their twenty year old son got called up from his yeshiva, and
sent to south of Hebron, and they're going to try to get out there to
bring him some food for Shabbat. And our daughter won't be home for
Shabbat -- she's got guard duty on base. With the other two kids away
for the summer, we're home by ourselves. The house feels empty, hollow.
Like the towns in the north.
And so it goes. Another all out war, when it could have been different.
If they'd wanted something else. But they don't. Not the Iranians,
not the civilians in Syria interviewed on CNN who spoke with admiration
of Nasrallah, not the Palestinians on the West Bank who've posted his
picture everywhere, and not even the Israeli Arabs in Nazareth who, from
the depths of their mourning, blame Israel and not Nasrallah for the
loss of their children.
So it's the seventh war (Or the eighth, if you count the War of
Attrition. Or the ninth, if you count the first Intifada). And the
first war. It's all the wars. They're all the same, in the end,
because we can't afford to lose. We can't afford to lose, so we won't.
More decisively or less, with more destruction of Lebanon or less,
sooner or later, we'll win it. We have to. The whole enterprise is at
stake.
It's the seventh war, or the eighth. And the first. When the 1973 Yom
Kippur War was at its height, Yehoram Gaon went to the front and sang
the now famous lyrics, Ani mavti'ach lach -- "I promise you, my little
girl, that this will be the last war." They never play that song
anymore. Because no one believes it. There will be no last war.
It's the eighth war, or the ninth. But it isn't the last war. It's the
first war, all over again. We've got this war for the same reason that
we had all the others. We have this war for the same reason that people
in Haifa are still saying "mi-po ani lo zaz." We got this war for the
same reason that we got the first, and the second.
We know why they attacked then. And we know why they're still
attacking. And we're determined to hold on for the same reason that
they're so determined never to stop. There's one reason, and one reason
only:
The Jewish People has nowhere else to go.
(c) 2006 Daniel Gordis |
