In his letter of March 24th (“A disconnect in the dialog“) David Cohen makes a strange interpretation of my criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, claiming that such criticisms “demonize and objectify” that country, thus introducing his own disconnect in whatever dialog he hopes for. Yet Israel can blame only itself, not its critics, for the world’s disapprobation.
I had pointed out how deftly Mr. Cohen, the ADL, and the Jewish Federation had managed to change the subject from Gaza to anti-Semitism. Mr. Cohen saw this as “writing off [my Jewish friends and neighbors] as genocidal partners of an apartheid state.” I’m not in the habit of using such incendiary rhetoric, but friends can disagree.
Cohen goes on that the Jewish Holocaust is singular in history. I wish he were right, but of course there is the Armenian genocide – which his own employer, the ADL, actually denied. And there have been many more, starting with King David’s slaughter of the Amelekites and including genocides in our own lifetimes in Cambodia, Bosnia, and Rwanda.
There is nothing singular about the human capacity of violence, injustice and brutality. And it is indeed shocking, after all Jews have endured through the centuries, that a Jewish state could be guilty of human rights abuses. But it’s a fact, and one that Mr. Cohen wants to filter through “lenses,” explain by past persecutions, and diminish by assigning equal blame to oppressor and oppressed.
I’ll happily accept Mr. Cohen’s challenge to acknowledge that not every violent act is Israel’s fault. Israelis in Sderot are justifiably frightened from countless home-made rocket attacks that have killed several civilians.
But does this mean any sensible person must assign equal blame to both parties? Do Palestinians have racist policies that take Israeli homes and land? Did Palestinians kill 1500 Israelis in the Gaza offensive? Do Palestinians control Israel’s borders and internal checkpoints in their own land? Did Palestinians build a “Berlin Wall” on Israeli farms? There are fundamental injustices underlying this conflict that have yet to be acknowledged by Israel’s defenders and professional lobbyists, of which Mr. Cohen is one.
I would in turn challenge Mr. Cohen to acknowledge the reality and Israel’s responsibility for the Palestinian “catastrophe,” the Nakba, which “cleansed” 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland in 1948. But Cohen seems to believe that dialog is only possible if no one criticizes Israel or asks it to confront some ugly realities.
In fact, the Nakba is a fitting event to consider next month at Passover, which re-tells the story of persecution and the flight from oppression. Recalling both the Exodus and the Nakba, we are reminded us that oppression is universal and that when our religious texts call on us to pursue justice: “justice, justice shalt thou pursue” – it means justice for everybody. On Passover some Jews add an olive to the seder plate to remind us that Jewish history is forever linked with that of Palestinians, and neither people will be truly free until justice exists for both.
Mr. Cohen may talk that line, but let’s see him walk it. There will never be peace without justice, and justice requires some painful admissions that, as of yet, Israel’s defenders are not prepared to make.
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