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March 29, 2002/Nisan 16 5762, Vol. 54, No. 28
Sober reflections on 'the situation'RABBI MAYNARD BELLThe following is an excerpt from a sermon Rabbi Maynard Bell of Temple Solel in Paradise Valley delivered to his congregation March 15. Bell's sermon reflects on his recent visit to Israel to attend a meeting of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.I have now added to my life and rabbinic experience, being in a war zone. My one-week trip to Israel, which concluded March 10, was one of my shortest journeys there. In a conventional sense I saw very little. But in another sense I saw a lot. When I made the decision three months ago to go to the annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, I was well aware, as are we all, that there is an intifada going on. I wish that I could unearth some kind of upbeat message from what I saw, heard, and experienced last week. I want you to know that I do not return from Israel in a mood of utter hopelessness. Having observed, here at home, our own collective anxiety syndrome in the wake of Sept. 11, I am more than impressed with the stoicism and strength of Israeli Jews. They go about their daily business despite a statistically significant possibility that they might become casualties of terrorism. Let me illustrate just how probable it is to be personally touched by terrorist activity in Jerusalem. One sunny spring-like afternoon I walked with three colleagues to have lunch in the German Colony, an upscale yuppie neighborhood west of the Old City wall. While finishing up our kosher dim sum in the local Pan Asian Restaurant, we heard sirens and then saw a parade of 10 or so emergency vehicles whiz by. A policeman motioned to us, along with the restaurant staff, to leave the building and move quickly in the direction from which we had come from our hotel. We ran into two colleagues and spouses who were able to give us some details. They, it seems, had been eating at a popular restaurant, Kaffit, about a block further south. A young Arab came into Kaffit, put down a backpack, and asked a waiter for a glass of water. My colleagues observed that for some reason the waiter picked up the satchel, which was obviously extraordinarily heavy and then tackled the man. It seems that the backpack contained a 20-kilo explosive device. A catastrophe had been averted, a catastrophe of which our two colleagues and their wives would have been casualties - or for that matter, we might have been had we had a taste for caf‚ fare instead of Asian food. While there is a whole spectrum of opinions about how to deal with the escalation and immediacy of terrorism, no one is forecasting the end of the State of Israel or the end of the world. I imagine that you may want to know, if I have returned from Jerusalem feeling any more enlightened about what the future holds. And as always, I eschew the role of prophet. The only prophecy that I continue to repeat is this: Regardless of how and when and at what expense it happens - Israel and the Palestinians will find a way to share the neighborhood, simply because there is no other choice. Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians a "sweet deal" at Camp David. Had the Palestinian authority president taken it, there would already be a Palestinian State, and the scenario of the last 19 months would have been very different. But Arafat did not take the deal, probably on the theory that instead of negotiation - he could use violence to get an even more "smokin deal." The so-called al-Aqsa intifada is actually a protracted war of attrition, aimed at wearing down the Israelis. I don't know how much longer the escalating spiral of terrorist activity and strategic retaliation is going to continue. But ultimately Arafat or whoever succeeds him will be forced to conclude that the Palestinian "right of return" to Israel proper and total Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem is not attainable. The Palestinian rejection of the Camp David formula and the resort to violence have blurred the sharp line dividing the Israeli left and right. While Israelis don't attach flags to their car antennas as a response to terrorists, there is actually more political consensus in Israel over defense and diplomatic policy than there has been since the end of the 1973 war. One leftist Israeli politician, whom I heard speak, described the recent escalation of violence as the birth pangs of Palestinian statehood. I am too angry and repelled right now by Palestinian terrorism to appreciate the poetry of that metaphor. Let me conclude by saying what I have said to you before on the subject of Israel and the Palestinians. The resolution of conflict does not necessarily represent the beginning of love and peace. I usually return from Israel spiritually refreshed. This time I return home in a more sober mood, having come so close to the harsher realities of the human condition, including a brush with terrorism. There is still an enormous gap between the culture and world-view of Israel and that of the other folks in the neighborhood, and it cannot be bridged in any simple way. But no one is leaving the neighborhood, and two peoples will find a way to coexist. Israel is far too strong, and the Palestinians are far too many for it to be any other way. |
