A View from the Bleachers: The Trump peace plan – Deal of the century?

Rabbi Steven Garten

By Rabbi Steven H. Garten

Let us put aside any thoughts about the optics of an indicted prime minister standing for election, and an impeached president who is preparing for an election campaign, announcing the “deal of the century.” If this a deal, it is hard to imagine it being successful. All indications are that it was not negotiated by both sides. Usually the word ‘deal’ suggests agreement by the parties involved. So let’s change the terminology and reframe this for what it is: a possible starting point for negotiations. Whether it is an actual starting point, however, is completely dependent on one’s perspective.

If I am an Israeli yearning for the annexation of the West Bank and a demilitarized, neutered Palestinian “homeland” that reflects my fundamentalist reading of the Balfour Declaration, this is indeed the “deal of the century.” No need for further negotiations. I am happy.

If I am a Palestinian nationalist yearning for a state in which my destiny can be honed and crafted, this document gives me very little hope for a negotiated settlement. The boundaries are convoluted, the access to water and arable land is minimal. The document seems to respond to all of Israel’s legitimate security needs and none of my political aspirations. This feels less like a deal and more like a humiliating ratification of the status quo. I am not happy.

If I am representing the Sunni Arab states in the Middle East, the boundaries proposed for Israel might seem to marginalize the proxy armies of Shia Iran. They would be surrounded by Israeli and Egyptian military installations with little access to the sea or air. My public enthusiasm for the ‘deal’ may be a sad commentary about my relationship with my Palestinian cousins. It may even seem as if I have sold them out for expediency and Trump dollars. But I am very, very happy.

If I am a North American Jew worried about the ever weakening relationship between Israel and the Diaspora, this document is worrisome. A recent poll conducted by the Ruderman Family Foundation found that 25 per cent of American Jews want to see a safe, secure, democratic Israel living side by side with a democratic Palestinian state. This document does not speak to that reality. In addition, we noted that the perceived mistreatment of Palestinian rights by the Israeli government reflects in our support for Israel. We continually express our desire for both parties to be treated with respect and with actions that reflect the universal values that we associate with Judaism. While it is true that a significant segment of religious Jews in North America prioritize particularism over universalism, they are not yet the majority. For most of us, the Trump ‘deal’ relegates the Palestinians to a ghetto. It is all too reminiscent of what was done to us.

As a North American Jew already wary of Israeli intentions in the West Bank, the Israeli prime minister’s announcement of immediate annexation was confirmation of our worst fears. Even though both the White House and the Israeli government walked back from their annexation talk, the intent was obvious. For me, this ‘deal’ is not an expression of hope. In fact, it will be another wedge between me and my neighbours. Support for BDS will potentially increase and leftist political parties/politicians in the United States, Canada, Britain, France and elsewhere will use this ‘deal’ as a means of bludgeoning Israel. So I am not happy.

If I am a student of history, I can see that the pattern begun in 1915 continues. The internal political needs of third parties lead them to interfere in the difficult process of nation building for two peoples struggling to actualize their aspirations. The list of failed third party attempts to impose settlements is quite long. So this ‘deal’ is just another failed attempt by outsiders to impose solutions to the Israel/Palestinian issue. I am also reminded that Egypt and Israel came to a peace treaty without outside interference, likewise Jordan and Israel.

So, as a historian, I feel vindicated.

The list of players goes on endlessly. As an Iranian, I am ecstatic about the way the document treats my Muslim co-religionists and gives me a bully pulpit from which to berate the West. As a right-wing American Christian, I am joyfully anticipating the rapture. As a liberal Christian, I am happily outraged by the continued public victimization of Palestinians.

Ultimately, most disappointed by the document are those of us yearning for an unencumbered opportunity for Israelis and Palestinians to show their united desire for a lasting peace. But once again, it seems, we’ve been sold down the river on a barge of political expediency.

Ideas and Impressions: Trump’s claims of disloyalty are an outrage

Jason Moscovitch

By Jason Moscovitch

The recent rising intensity in tone and content from the president of the United States about the State of Israel can’t possibly go to a good place – even if the words are supportive. The divisiveness of the president in using Israel for his own domestic political reasons is why nothing good will come of it.

When President Donald Trump takes the few visceral anti-Israel voices in the Democratic Party to say American Jews can’t vote Democratic without being “disloyal,” as so many commentators have noted, those words conjure up old and ugly antisemitic boogiemen and women from the past. It proves, how, when it comes to antisemitism, the past and the present can so easily blend into one. Most thinking Jews never forget that.

But when the proven pro-Israel president, the president who moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, launched a loyalty grenade into the American election cycle, it was the act of a crass and politically unsophisticated despot.

Despots don’t measure their words. Despots dispose of subtlety as if it were poison. Despots laugh at political compromise, and sometimes at necessary political nuance and ambiguity. The problem is, if there ever was a country that needs subtlety, compromise, nuance and ambiguity, it is the State of Israel. So, thank you President Trump for your help.

In this High Holy Day period you can imagine the renewed tension that will exist in U.S. synagogues when the subject of Israel comes up, if it comes up. Can you imagine the reluctance of rabbis to mention the state of affairs in the Holy Land? Tension is running high in all Jewish communities across the U.S. Bluntly put, not all American Jews support Israel’s perceived hardline views as their president does.

Traditionally, most American Jews support the Democratic Party although there has always been a good number of Jews who support the Republican Party. The stereotype that all Jews support the Democratic Party in the United States is as misguided as the long-held view in Canada that Jews vote Liberal. Increasingly, not all Jews think the same, pray the same, or vote the same.

And on both sides of the border, support for Israel is not the only consideration when Jews cast their ballots. If that were the case, every Jewish vote would have gone to former prime minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party, which we know didn’t happen.

What Trump has done fits the pattern of his taking down long held ways of doing politics. This time Israel and Jewish voters are made targets as the president wings his way through another outrage to get attention and, he thinks, political advantage.

Talking about Jewish voters being disloyal to Israel, to America, or to both, is such a disgusting outrage that you have to wonder if it is just a bad dream. But it’s not – not when Trump is the most powerful leader in the world.

Trump’s support of Israel is good to have – but it is necessary to note there is not another world leader who supports what he is doing or saying about Israel. Israel is so alone in the world, and when the United States has a president who is often over the top on Israeli matters, the question for the medium and long term is whether Trump is causing more harm than good.

Since the birth of the State of Israel in 1948, every Rosh Hashanah has seen Israel in a state of war with most of its neighbours, and this year, 71 years later, there is not a glitter of hope that peace is anywhere on the horizon. The difference this year is the unworthy spectacle of Trump stirring the pot so ferociously.

There are those who think Trump says what needs to be said. The problem is that so much time has passed without resolution and, rightly or wrongly, the fires of frustration with Israel burn around the world.

The reality is how there is so much difficulty for Israel in the world and while Trump may think he is helping, there is no evidence of that.

Perhaps, on this Rosh Hashanah, we need to face the sad reality that our loud and powerful friend is not making anyone feel any better.

A View from the Bleachers: What is meant when speaking of dual loyalty?

Rabbu Steven Garten

By Rabbi Steven Garten

On August 20, the Republican president of the United States stated that Jews who support Democrats are “disloyal.”

The response was predictable. Those who support the president noted that what he was doing was calling out Jews who vote Democratic as disloyal to their own people. Not to the United States. Those who are less enamored with the 45th U.S. president charged that this was a classic antisemitic canard.

It is never simple to unpack the musings of the president. He is not given to precision, even when speaking from a prepared text. If, as some suggested, he was calling upon Jews to be loyal to Israel, it is not really the point. We Jews have an obligation to protect and defend Israel because it is the ingathering of the exiles after two millennia. We Jews are not disloyal when we offer alternative opinions about the political path chosen by Israeli political leaders. We are not disloyal if we disagree with those who call themselves friends of Israel, but whose politics do not jibe with our personal values.

Yet, we have always been anxious about the charge of disloyalty. In 1806, when Napoleon convened an assembly of Jewish notables to respond to 11 questions designed to clarify the Jewish community’s relationship to France, he specifically asked if “Jews acknowledge France as their country.”

In 1841, when Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim in Charleston, South Carolina dedicated its first permanent home (it was founded in 1749), the president of the congregation proclaimed, “This city is our Jerusalem. This country is our Palestine.” There was to be no ambiguity about loyalty.

In 1917, when Lord Balfour was struggling to craft a document that would appease both Zionists in the British cabinet and those opposed to agitating Arab leaders who might support British war efforts, a third voice was noticeable. Anglo Jews pressured Balfour and Churchill to write nothing that could be construed as hinting at dual loyalty among British Jewry.

That is why the phrase, “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country,” became part of the Balfour Declaration.

We are a people whose loyalty is often challenged and somewhat tenuous at times. But, in spite of our history and our discomfort when the issue is raised, few serious political leaders in the post-Second World War era have given us much cause for concern.

What should be more concerning to us is where our loyalties lie within the Jewish community. There was a time when we galvanized around the slogan “We are one.” However, some thought the slogan was too narrow and not reflective of our growing diversity. There was a time when our loyalties were to religious institutions: synagogues and temples. Individuals not only prayed within the four walls, they found community and friendship.

Alas, synagogues and temples no longer are the focus of our individual loyalties. We see fewer and fewer seats filled on Shabbat and chagim. Friendship groups are easily formed outside the synagogues.

While some direct their loyalties to individual institutions and Jewish charities, it is interesting that many who do so are responding to the perceived needs that the institutions fulfil in their personal lives, such as supporting an old age home because a parent needs a secure, warm, friendly, kosher venue, or fundraising for a program that supports emotionally and educationally challenged adults because their own child fits the profile.

These are all worthy causes deserving of our commitment, but there can never be enough individuals with direct needs to support these places eternally.

Loyalty is more than just an acknowledgement of individual needs. Loyalty sees beyond the immediate. Loyalty is faithfulness in the face of adversity. Loyalty requires honesty about thoughts and emotions. Loyalty demands an everlasting commitment to something and or someone beyond ourselves. Loyalty demands strong feelings of support and allegiance.

The loyalty which supersedes our personal proclivities and opinions is loyalty to the Jewish community. It is through that loyalty that many of our personal causes and interests are made real. As individuals, we cannot insure the survival of our people, community and institutions. As a united community we can.

This year divide your loyalties if you must, but commit to your community, who will preserve all our divided loyalties.