THE PROMISED??LAND

I have tried not to weigh in publicly to the controversy in the Middle East. Partly because, as a Jew, my impartiality might be suspect, but mostly because, it seems to be a continuing dialogue of the deaf, with neither side really listening to the other. Each side is so surrounded by its own misery, or its own survival, or its own special axe to grind, that civil discourse seems impossible,

Finally, Netanyahu has got to me. I am a great fan of his father, professor emeritus of Judaic studies at Cornell University, but not of his right-wing, intractable son. Benny is a problem. I do understand his dilemma. He would like, (what politicians doesn’t) to stay in power. To do it he has to ally himself with the religious nutbars. According to a recent piece in the Atlantic Monthly, Washington is publicly denouncing the expansion of settlements in East Jerusalem, while at the same time trying to maneuver Netenyahu into a coalition with Tzipi Livni who actually has more seats than Netenyahu’s Likkud party. She is on the political left. Benny is on the right. If Washington’s quiet urging can move him, there could be a better coalition – one that did not include the religious right.

I am, as you must know, an atheist. I simply do not believe in the divine or that he magically endowed us with a book that is a complete guide to life and human behaviour. I am a humanist and an existentialist. While I am fiercely Jewish, I have no time for the fundamentalists who claim they have some kind of special link to the almighty. It is those people who spend a lot of time in prayer and study, when they are not busy making hordes of children they can’t afford to have, who need the new housing being built in East Jerusalem. They are, for the entire Jewish people, a sad kind of revenge of the cradle. In the years ahead, they will outnumber the moderates and the secular Jews. It is they who proclaim that “God gave them this land” and therefore they are entitled, by divine direction, to hold it. (No mention is made of the ethnic cleansing that is documented in the holy book when Joshua conquered and obliterated Jericho and thousands of Canaanites who happening to be living there in obvious defiance of god’s will.

I know that Netanyahu has to assuage the sensitivities of these people in order to keep their party in the government coalition. But he plays politics with human need. Shame on him.