What
exactly is pro-Israel?
By
Rabbi Marc Gopin, Rabbinic Cabinet, Brit Tzedek v Shalom
6-08
The American Israel Public Affairs
Committee, one of the most powerful lobby groups in the United States, just
concluded its annual Washington conference. It drew a long line of
administration officials and the presidential candidates to its doorsteps, all
touting orthodox lines on what it means to be pro-Israel—messages
carefully crafted to please the lobby.
Now
is a good time to ask, what exactly does 'pro-Israel' mean, and who is
pro-Israel in the United States today? The ones who twist every arm in Congress
to be silent, to suppress what they know is right to do in terms of a fair
Israeli-Palestinian deal? We have before us now a hair-trigger set of
confrontations from Lebanon to the Persian Gulf, with long-range missiles,
chemical and nuclear capable, aimed at Israel from a country in the Persian
Gulf that has no business in Gaza. And yet, due to the unending festering of
the Palestinian tragedy, Shiite Iran has stepped into Sunni Gaza, in addition
to Iraq and Lebanon, primarily because the United States failed to engage
fairly or at all in the last eight years.
Have
our actions made Israel safer, and do they reflect a pro-Israel position? Or is
this in fact an anti-Israel position that is sacrificing Jewish and Palestinian
children on an altar of self-destructive fears and hatreds? In the end,
American politicians are going to say and do what the most effective lobbyists
tell them to do regarding Israel. And that translates back to the American
people and their voice. The American people must decide what is pro-Israel and
what is anti-Israel.
This
article was written for and originally published by the Common Ground News
Service (CGNews)-Middle East on June 12, 2008. The service offers free
subscriptions to its weekly list of articles, which offer hope, promote
dialogue and propose solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Brit
Tzedek supporters are encouraged to join this service at
<http://www.commongroundnews.org/>www.commongroundnews.org.
Some
interesting lessons learned come from Northern Ireland. On March 26, 2007 Ian
Paisley, co-founder of the DUP party of Northern Ireland, sat side by side with
Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein, his most reviled enemy, and the two of them pledged
their full participation in an Irish government. This is the same Ian Paisley
who had consistently been the voice of Protestant opposition and demonisation
of Catholics. This is the same Sinn Fein that had represented the Irish
Republican Army as it carried out decades of violence against Protestants. How
did these enemies get to 2007? There was a little stop along the way in 1998,
in which the United States and one George Mitchell played a central role.
In
1998, former Senator George Mitchell, of Irish descent, oversaw the completion
of the historic Good Friday Accord that led eventually to the power sharing
arrangements which Northern Ireland now enjoys. He was supported by another man
of partial Irish descent, President Bill Clinton.
Senator
Mitchell once told me in person exactly how he managed to successfully
outmaneuver the spoilers in the Irish/Protestant conflict. He explained to me:
I had a pad of paper with my handwritten notes. I had the only copy. On it I
placed what each side pledged to do, and exactly when and in what sequence they
would do it. I let them know that if either side failed in the sequence, then
the President of the United States would publicly lay the blame for the failure
of the entire accord on the side that had broken their word.
These
words were so simple, so remarkable, so pristine in their understanding of
negotiation and arbitration. And this is precisely what has been missing from
Palestinian/Israeli peace processes from the very beginning. It is not as if
the American road to Irish peacemaking was easy. There were spoilers in
America, just as there are now regarding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
There were people on both sides who thought they were pro-Irish. But were they
pro-Irish all those decades or anti-Irish? In the end, it was Mitchell and
Clinton who were the most pro-Irish, because they stopped the killing of Irish
children once and for all.
It
goes without saying that the issues were exceedingly complex, that it took
years to identify the compromises, and that Mitchell's charisma and skills
added up to much more than a pad of paper. However, what was irreplaceable was
the American political will to authorise Mr. Mitchell to boil it all down to
that pad of paper and its conditions.
Perhaps
it is time to finally tell our congressmen to tell George Mitchell to go to the
Holy Land, with a single pad of paper in hand, armed with the only weapon
necessary: the American will to write on that pad of paper what needs to be
written, what everyone knows must be written. How many more Palestinian and
Jewish children have to die before the American people find the willpower to
send a brilliant negotiator to the Middle East with a single pad of paper?
Rabbi Marc
Gopin, a member
of Brit Tzedek's Rabbinic Cabinet, is the James Laue Professor of World Religions,
Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution and the Director of the Center on Religion,
Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University in Washington DC.
He is also a Senior Researcher at the Fletcher School for Law and Diplomacy's
Institute for Human Security.
Dr. Gopin was
ordained as a rabbi at Yeshiva University in 1983 and received a Ph.D. in
religious ethics from Brandeis University in 1993. His publications
include: Between Eden and Armageddon: The Future of World
Religions, Violence and Peacemaking (Oxford University Press, 2000), Holy War,
Holy Peace (Oxford University Press, 2002), and Healing the Heart of Conflict:
Eight Steps to Mending Broken Relationships, (Rodale Press, 2004).
Dr. Gopin's
particular emphasis is on the role of religion and culture in not only sparking
conflict, but as critical to reaching lasting resolution between peoples and
nations. He has trained thousands of people worldwide in peacemaking strategies
for complex conflicts in which religion and culture play a role and has engaged
in back channel diplomacy with religious, political and military figures on
both sides of conflicts, especially in the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Brit
Tzedek v'Shalom, The Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace
<info@btvshalom.org>info@btvshalom.org <www.btvshalom.org/>www.btvshalom.org