I Admire Palestinian Clarity and Honesty

I ADMIRE PALESTINIAN CLARITY AND HONESTY

Asher Keren

I write these words as the flames engulf the last remnants of the synagogues that served the former residents of Morag, Neve Dekalim, Kfar Darom and the other evicted Jewish settlements of the Gaza Strip. It seems that the first thing the Palestinians did after the I.D.F. ethnic cleansing was completed was to burn the synagogues, straight and to the point. Morality is relative in the Western world, but not so amongst the Arabs, at least when confronting their enemies. They know what they must do, without mumbling or apologetics.

But Jewish morality today is Western and unfortunately not in any way related to Torah morality, and our mumbling and hypocrisy end in the burning of our synagogues. While the entire rabbinical world, in Israel and in the Exile, managed to maneuver the Israeli politicians into going against the Israeli Supreme Court order to demolish the synagogues before the Palestinians do, they were unable to speak with one voice in order to avoid the eviction of the Jewish settlements in the first place. And the politicians, while stating that they must heed now this call from the world’s Rabbis against our fervent destruction of synagogues, were deaf to the thousands of Rabbis that stated that the eviction itself must not happen. The moral corruption of our Rabbis and politicians is the issue at hand, not the Palestinian burning of the synagogues.

To completely and totally destroy flourishing Jewish communities for no reason, with no peace agreement in hand, without even a glimmer of hope that Israel’s security situation will improve, was not reason enough for the rabbinical world to stand together hand in hand and to shout. There were those that considered it politics and therefore something to be decided by the secular Israeli politicians and those that decided that even if wrong, the first obligation is to the State and that therefore to loudly protest is to destroy the state apparatus. And, there are even those Rabbis that agreed with the forcible eviction of Jews from their homes and farms, the most successful agricultural enterprise in all of Israel. But the now empty synagogues, yes, that is something that the Rabbis could agree upon.

The cynical politicians are no better. Thousands of the world’s leading Rabbis did state clearly and without hesitation that the eviction was morally wrong, from both a Torah viewpoint as well as a basic humanitarian viewpoint. But the politicians latched on to their own personal and political calculations. Yet now, all of a sudden, they listen. The Jews have been kicked out and the political system has defeated the great majority of Rabbis. It is no skin off their collective nose to now state that our burning of synagogues is wrong from the standpoint of Jewish law, especially if all the world’s Rabbis can finally unite around something.

And so, our synagogues now burn at the hands of the Palestinians whose message is clear and unambiguous. ‘We are the enemy of the Jewish state and indeed of Judaism. Thank you for giving us your Land, and we will now destroy your synagogues.’ They know that the world will not really protest, because they understand the world’s hypocrisy concerning the Jews. And they know Jewish hypocritical morality as well. They know that the Jews often choose symbols over life, Holocaust museums over the settlement of the Land, nice words and moving ceremonies and shouts of horror at Palestinian terrorism over fighting the devil itself. They know that the Jews will beat their breasts at the destruction of the abandoned synagogues, but that Jews also prefer assuaging their pain through moving prayers and gatherings, not by securing Jewish settlement.

I respect Palestinian clarity and honesty and I loathe Jewish mumbling. If I am part of a people that put abandoned synagogues above Jewish life then I will not be silent until our priorities have been reestablished. If our Rabbis can only unite around synagogues of the past and if our politicians can only listen to Jewish values once their political agenda has been served, then I will scream at the top of my lungs until moral clarity is again the call of the day. I will watch the synagogues burn, admiring the Palestinians at least for their sense of unabashed purpose, and being simultaneously sickened by the insane circumstance that brings on this admiration.

http://www.worldofjewish.com