Not by might, not by power, not by hate

Not by might, not by power, not by hate

By Lyn Payne

Associate Editor

[I wrote this op-ed for the Jan. 22, 2009 issue of the Heritage, during a time of massive media bias against Israel because of its war with Hamas in Gaza. No apologies for wearing my love for that beautiful and tough little country on my metaphorical sleeve:]

A beautiful thing happened the evening of Jan. 5, and a viciously ugly one at the beginning of the following week.

On Jan. 5, some 750 people, mostly Jews but also many non-Jewish friends of Israel, assembled in the sanctuary and social hall of Congregation Ohev Shalom in Orlando to rally in support of Israel in its war with Gaza: its fight to make its citizens safe after eight years and some ten thousand rockets launched literally into their backyards.

In their addresses to the crowd, the representatives of the Greater Orlando Board of Rabbis were as eloquent as I have ever seen them, sometimes verging on the prophetic. We can all be proud that we live in a community that has such rabbinic leaders. One by one, they each spoke truth to power, decrying the biased coverage in the general media that often paints the Hamas terror organization—openly bent on Israel’s destruction—simply as “militants,” or even as freedom fighters against Israeli “aggression.”

Our rabbis gave every one of us an assignment that night: To go forth and proclaim the justice of Israel’s cause—its right to live in peace and to defend itself—to friends, co-workers, the media and the world. They recalled the fact that Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza three and a half years ago, wishing only for peace with its Palestinian neighbors. They pointed out the massive documentation that shows the extent to which Israel routinely tries to avoid civilian casualties. Rabbi Aaron Rubinger, who hosted and organized the evening, noted a little-reported fact: “Before Israel aims a rocket at any building where known terrorists hide, Israel not only drops leaflets, Israel actually calls the inhabitants of that building and text messages them, warning them to get out.” Few if any other countries can make such a claim, and yet Israel in these last few weeks of the Gaza war has been condemned with a litany of slurs and vilification from world governments, “peace” organizations and media that has approached the anti-Semitic.

Sometimes this Israel-hatred is so vicious as to appear absurd to an objective observer, as in the case of the group of 300 British academics who proclaimed in the Guardian newspaper that it was essential for Hamas to win the war against Israel. Really? They would prefer an Iran-supplied and supported group—one that hides behind its own civilians in schools, mosques and hospitals, that kills and maims its political rivals, that has destroyed the economic infrastructure that could have brought its people a better life—to the Western-style democracy whose hospitals treat Palestinians, Israelis and all others equally on the basis of need; whose newspapers and courts are living witness to all its citizens’ right of dissent; and whose universities and businesses have supplied Britain’s own citizens with lifesaving medicines and technological advances? Really?

As Rabbi Rubinger said that night about Hamas’ use of human shields who have been tragically and inadvertently killed and wounded as Israel seeks to target only the combatants: “The leadership of Hamas is practicing the very worst form of child abuse and the very worst form of violence against women. For shame.”

And shame also on those who stood in Lake Eola Park on Saturday, Jan. 10, who demonstrated against Israel with words and images that attacked the Jewish state’s very right to exist. Despite their statements to the contrary, their very presence there gave aid and comfort to Hamas. I interviewed some of the rank-and-file members of that demonstration, and observed and listened to many more. There were many of Palestinian background, and no one with a heart and conscience could remain unmoved by their fear for friends and family caught up in the hell that is Gaza; no one who has a child could keep his or her heart from reaching out to the pictures of children bloodied and crying in pain.

Yet the sad truth, as has been the case from the beginning of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is that these children’s own leaders, who should be protecting them and giving them a chance at life, have condemned them to death. Through sheer intransigence and hatred for Israel and the Jewish people, Hamas and other militant Palestinian groups have thrown all their people’s chances into the sea. When Israel left Gaza in 2005, at enormous financial and emotional cost, the Palestinians could have chosen to live in peace, to use the infrastructure Israel left behind, to cooperate economically and technologically so that everyone could have benefited. Instead, they elected a terror group to lead them, and rained rockets and mortars on the citizens of southern Israel, who simply wanted to be left alone.

The historical record is clear: Israel has never fought a war of conquest, only wars of defense. It seeks no additional land, only the chance to be at peace. Each time I’ve visited, I’ve been astonished at the number and extent of the cooperative projects—humanitarian, scientific, cultural—that Israeli universities and individuals have initiated with their Arab neighbors. Last August, when I visited Hadassah Hospital outside Jerusalem, I saw firsthand the comradeship and mutual devotion to saving lives that flourishes among the medical staff, who are Jews, Christians and Muslims, some of them residents of the Palestinian territories. In the pediatric ICU, I saw three young children being lovingly tended by the staff and watched over by their parents: an Orthodox Jewish child, an Ethiopian Jewish child, and a Palestinian child.

So when I found myself surrounded by signs equating the Star of David with the swastika, saying the Israelis were practicing “genocide” in Gaza, were bent on “occupation” of Palestinian lands, were “terrorists,” had the situation not been so serious it would have been laughable.

For these demonstrators, most of whom had, we can only assume, good intentions but scant sophistication about the reality of the world, were aiding and abetting terror as surely as if they were sending checks to Hamas. Several told me they had no quarrel with Jews, only with “Zionists.” One told me that “the good Jews” were not counter-protesting that day (which happened to be Shabbat, our holy day of rest), because “good Jews” were not Zionists. I beg to differ: To be a “good Jew” is to be a Zionist, because were there no Israel, there would soon be no Jews. History has taught us that our only hope of collective survival lies in being “a free people in our own land.” To condemn Zionism is to directly and unequivocally condemn every Jew on earth to death. To say, as these protestors did, that Israel is an “illegal” state with no right to exist, is to tell us that we have no right to live.

Contrast this with the spirit in the Ohev Shalom sanctuary the week before. Yes, there were words of passion and power denouncing the violence of Hamas; but those words were necessary, measured and more than appropriate. And they in no way condemned the Palestinian people or wished them ill. Cantor Jacqueline Rawiszer led us in a stirring “Hatikvah,” a song of hope; Rabbi David Kay and Cantor Allan Robuck sang bittersweet songs in English and Hebrew that ached with the longing for peace; Rabbi Rubinger proclaimed with authority, “We are here to say to the Palestinian people, let us live in peace.” And Rabbi Steven Engel closed with, “May peace be upon Israel … and upon the Palestinian people.”

In that well-known and well-loved sanctuary at Ohev, I felt uplifted and encouraged, and filled with immense pride in my Jewish community and in all who had created that spirit-filled evening. Doing my grim journalistic duty the following Shabbat in the park, I felt the chill of fear: not of the thousand protesters around me, but of the power of their words to incite hatred. But hate eventually consumes itself, while the spirit of love I felt in that sanctuary continues to burn brightly in the hearts of all who were there, and to further the cause of righteousness.