The survival of the Jewish people requires that it stay as remote from the `clash of civilizations' as east is from west.
The renewed confrontation between the West and Islam, which reached its dramatic peak in the murderous attack on the Twin Towers in Manhattan, has placed the leadership of the Jewish people in an acute dilemma: What is the place of the Jews in this struggle? Should the Jewish people take a stand on one side of the fence and identify unreservedly with that side, or does its historical past and future call on it to keep its distance from both forces alike and take a position as far as possible beyond them?
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True, the current political reality does not permit the Jewish people to take a neutral stance: the people and the state must forge pragmatic alliances and link up with a strong power to meet present needs. Still, is it incumbent upon the Jews to cast their lot with one side exclusively and identify with it in every cultural field and at every moral level?
Every action and every decision taken in this connection could have a substantial impact on the future of the historical Jew everywhere, in the State of Israel and in the Jewish Diaspora. Whatever position is adopted will have direct implications for the well-being and security of the Jews and will leave a deep imprint on their culture and identity. Consequently, this subject should be high on the national agenda. Astonishingly, however, it is receiving no public or political attention, and still less is it the subject of critical discussion from a cultural and religious perspective. Yet this neglect does not prevent official Jewish spokesmen from making assertive pronouncements on the subject or from expressing resolute intuitive positions. Indeed, they do so frequently, in both Israel and the United States. I believe that most of these declarations reflect a mistaken policy; they are harmful to the national interest in the short term and threaten the Jewish future in the long term.
Tradition of non-identification
From the dawn of their history, the Jews lived among great civilizations, among dominant religions and among imperial forces that clashed with one another. They carved out a space between the Euphrates and the Nile, between Persia and Greece, between Christianity and Islam - but in no case did they identify fully with one side or another. In some cases the Jews were in the middle ground between the various powers, at other times they were scattered and split among them, but they did not give themselves wholly to one of the adversarial forces. "What, then, is the good of your going to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile? And what is the good of your going to Assyria to drink the waters of the Euphrates?" (Jeremiah 2:18)
In those cases in which the Jews forged alliances and cooperated with others, it was for the most part no more than partial political cooperation which was based on ad hoc mutual interests, not on a total identification with the others' way of life and essence. When some Jews supported national movements that swirled around them, other Jews backed rival movements; when groups of Jews identified with certain ideological and class streams, other groups of Jews supported different streams. Of course, this great rule was violated in World War II, though at that time all the rules were violated and the very foundations of the earth seemed to tremble, so it cannot serve as evidence.
On the other hand, during the "normal" wars and ordinary historical struggles conducted by the nations, the Jews did not assimilate into one of the warring camps and did not identify collectively with one of the forces or one particular belief.
In our own day, however, the ground is apparently being pulled from under this traditional view: the Jewish people is now universally perceived to be poised at one clearly defined pole of the "clash of civilizations," and to identify with it totally, in every significant field of endeavor - militarily and politically, socially and culturally, morally and religiously.
As will be recalled, in the first years of Israel's existence a trenchant debate was conducted over the position the nascent state should take in the Cold War between the capitalist West and the communist East. Moshe Sneh, the leader of Maki (Israel Communist Party), urged that the Jewish state refrain from identifying with the Western powers, citing both ideological reasons and pragmatic ones - in case the Communists should gain the upper hand in the future. The prime minister, David Ben Gurion, disagreed with this approach and decided in favor of cooperation with the West. However, even Ben Gurion confined that cooperation to the practical political sphere, whereas ideologically and culturally he espoused the socialist ethos. Once more, then, total devotion to and assimilation in one camp were avoided.
Now, though, we see a very different situation emerging, in which the Jew/Israeli is supposed to adhere entirely to one culture, one power and one particular ethos. According to the new lexicon of images that Israeli/Jewish spokesmen are diligently helping to cultivate, the West's current confrontation with militant Islam supposedly revolves around one religious heritage - the "Judeo-Christian heritage" - and is also accompanied by a mutual blood pact in the form of an American-Israeli alliance. Everyone must therefore make a sharp decision: "Are you with us or against us?"
Globalization of the conflict
I believe that this is a dangerous development which threatens our very future. On the one hand, it strengthens the religious dimension of the struggle between us and our neighbors and creates the impression that it is an ultimate conflict. At the same time, it imbues that struggle with global dimensions and depicts it as a worldwide conflict.
Many of us warned for years about the exacerbation of the religious aspect in the Israeli-Arab or Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Such warnings were based on the knowledge that a political dispute is not like a historical struggle and that a historical struggle is not like a religious clash. A political dispute between states can be resolved by means of negotiations and compromises; an historical struggle between nations is less amenable to resolution, but this is not out of the question. However, it is very doubtful that a direct clash between two monotheistic religions is anything less than intractable, especially when many of the believers confer on their religion a saliently exclusivist interpretation. A frontal clash in this sphere impinges on the realm of the absolute, the totalistic, and is therefore liable to feed on itself at any price and become more acute from day to day, to the death.
Disastrously, indeed, the Middle East conflict has in recent years assumed an increasingly religious character, in which the territorial struggle is acquiring ever more theological overtones and the question of political sovereignty is "rising" to a distinctly metaphysical level. After all, already in ancient times the darshan - the expounder of the biblical text - observed in connection with the story of Cain and Abel: "And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain set upon his brother Abel and killed him: And what was the subject of their discussion? The one said, The Temple shall be built in my area, the other said: The Temple shall be built in my area." (Midrash Raba, Bereshit, 22). The Midrash, then, ascribed the first murder in human history to religious motives, to a war over the holy center; and so we, too, have seen with our eyes and heard with our ears from that time until now.
In our time, though, both enemies and "friends" are setting upon us by trying to overlay the religious aspect of the conflict with the global dimension. First came the "absolutization" of the struggle; now its "globalization" looms menacingly. The result is that Israel (or the Jews as such) are being portrayed as a political center and metaphysical linchpin of Western culture, the leaven in the dough of a "Judeo-Christian heritage" that is fighting for its life (or battling to the death) against world Islam. Is it necessary to point out that the combination of these two elements together, the religious and the global, poses a threat? Is it necessary to reiterate that it is liable to set upon us 1.25 billion potential enemies (Muslims)? Decades ago, Sayyid Qutb (an Islamic zealot in Egypt) described Israel as the spearhead of Western culture, which must be snapped off first. However, another generation was needed for Israel to be perceived widely also as the spearhead of a modern "Crusade" - Western, American, Christian and "democratic."
New pact with Christianity
Are we to view all these developments as ordained by fate? Is it truly impossible to influence them by pursuing a proper national policy? Of course, many of them derive from objective facts and are unrelated to our omissions or commissions: by its nature, Israel shares with the West a set of common symbols and substance, from the biblical tradition to scientific culture and a certain political and judicial system. Demographically, too, the absolute majority of the Jewish people today resides in Israel and the United States; and a host of other given and existing phenomena help create an existential and mental partnership. However, these phenomena are not the whole picture. They are accompanied by numerous other processes, open-ended and dynamic, which are available to us and make possible a judicious approach and mindful action.
First, contrary to the rhetoric practiced by many of our leaders, we must make every effort to separate the Middle East conflict, in which we are submerged to the neck, from the global conflict, in which we are involved only indirectly. The Jewish and Israeli interest obliges us to portray the current struggle with the Palestinians as local and regional, national and political, and not as oil on the fire of a comprehensive, all-embracing, meta-regional and meta-national conflict. However, when we liken Yasser Arafat to Osama bin Laden (as our prime minister did), we are doing just the opposite. We are fomenting with our own hands the dangerous transition from an emphasis on the political to an emphasis on the religious, and from a regional focus to one that is global.
Moreover, if "Arafat is bin Laden," it follows that bin Laden is also Arafat - that is, he is fighting the war of the Palestinians, he is attacking in their name and for their sake - and if so there is no escaping the conclusion that the heavy price in blood that has been exacted from the West of late is not its fault: It is due to Israel and its wars. In other words, just as the globalization of the conflict is liable to set upon us the entire Muslim world, it is also threatening to set upon us various sectors of the liberal West as well - those who want to sit quietly and steer well clear of all the tribal wars in the Middle East.
Accordingly, we must desist from repeatedly urging the United States to attack any Arab state (as Shimon Peres, then the foreign minister, did on the eve of the war in Iraq). Though this may seem consistent with the immediate, short-term Israeli interest, we must not reinforce our destructive image as fanners of the flames everywhere. Let the Americans pursue their wars, we have enough with our own wars.
Second, it is time to dampen the enthusiasm that has recently seized Israeli leaders who want to forge a "political-theological alliance" with the American Christian right. Both the good of the State of Israel and the future of the Jewish faith prohibit us from tying our fate and our image to fundamentalist leaders and Evangelical preachers who want to hasten the Jewish return to Zion as a salient means of bringing about the return of Jesus.
True, these ardent speakers call on their followers to connect with us and back us, and urge us to make manifest our strength and expand our borders. However, they make no effort to conceal their motives and their expectations: they are openly and blatantly striving to encourage the Jews to gather in the place where they committed their collective sin against the Christian messiah, to repent of their sin and to come under his wing, thereby to hasten his second coming. In their view, the Jewish people returned to its land wearing blinkers: the Jews are blind to their mission and to the inner meaning of their action, and therefore it is up to the Evangelicals to show them the light and point out their true aim. This, then, is a stifling, devouring love, a love that deprives "the beloved" of his self-identity and leaves him no room for his own existence. It does not allow him to adhere to his faith over time, not in the historical future and still less in the eschatological future.
Is it necessary to spell out the far-seeing expectations we are implanting in the hearts of these fervent believers when Israel's leaders publicly forge close ties with them and join with them in colorful ceremonies of solidarity? Is it necessary to emphasize the danger that lurks for us should these believers one day conclude that the Jews are again disappointing their hopes and are adding insult to injury by "betraying" the Christian messiah once again?
The new pact which is now being forged with messianic Christians is fraught with additional evils as well, political and religious alike. From Israel's standpoint, the ever closer identification with the Christian right places us increasingly on one clearly defined side of the global conflict - an aggressive, militant side whose entire way of life bespeaks hostility toward Islam as such and toward everything that smacks of the Levant. The result is to sharpen the deleterious image of Israel as the spearhead of the current "war of civilizations" (whether real or imaginary). And even more from the point of view of the Jewish religion. To the best of my awareness, it is difficult to imagine a greater blasphemy than the one in which Israeli cabinet ministers celebrate and acclaim at "Jerusalem Assemblies" the official spokesmen of radical Christian messianism and award prizes of appreciation to those who believe that universal redemption depends on Jewish conversion and associate the "End of Days" with the end of Judaism.
Coercive democracy
Third, we must protest the attempt to impose on the whole world the type of regime that exists in the West (or in the United States), still less the way of life and the cultural norms prevailing there. It makes no difference whether the coercion is done by force of arms or force of money, whether it imposes a method that is foreign to our spirit or one that is close to our hearts. Not only the immediate Israeli interest but Jewish historical memory as well, decree that we oppose the uniformist approach that would erase particularist traditions and overcome communitarian perceptions, replacing them with a single, exclusive, one-dimensional "universal" conception.
In saying this, I do not mean to challenge the universal validity of moral prohibitions, such as those on murder, rape and torture. Far be it from me to place them, too, in a context of cultural relativism. I do mean, however, to object to the new international pretension of using military means to impose the totality of humanist values, such as individual rights, freedom and equality. Indeed, to the best of my understanding, any attempt to actualize this pretension is liable to inflict on the world greater suffering and pain than those the soldiers set out to prevent.
I dare to say this even about the universality of the democratic system! Not every cultural situation or historical condition admonishes us to invoke one form of government which alone is capable of ensuring the social order and of protecting the citizenry. This paternalistic approach, which accords legitimacy to one and only one regime system, effectively creates an internal paradox within the democratic idea: it ostensibly strives to impose on every people the idea of the "will of the people," including peoples who have had no preparation for this form of government and did not choose it.
It is here that we should pay close heed to the voice of Jewish tradition. Talmudic injunctions drew a sharp distinction between universal human obligations and particularist Jewish ones. On the one hand, Jewish law set forth a minimal group of general demands (the "seven Noachian laws"), which are binding on all human beings; and on the other hand, it formulated a maximal series of individual demands (the "613 commandments"), which apply only to Jews as such. Thus it was only in connection with the former group that the possibility arose of coercion beyond the Jewish nation.
Moreover, even though this group - the universal one - was also called upon, like every human community, to establish a social order and found a legal system ("laws"), the specific type of social order to be established and the particular laws to be instituted were left to each individual community and in the hands of every political framework proper. Thus, within halakha - Jewish religious law - the natural tendency of every culture, religious or secular, to expand across the world and "globalize" its way of life and of its guiding norms was blocked.
The same applies in our own time. As I argued, the Israeli interest, historical memory and the halakhic tradition, separately and together, instruct Jews not to take part in the arrogant victory campaign of one social system; each of them alike warns us against the overweening ambition to make the whole world "one language" (English) and "the same words"(Western ones).
Demonizing Islam
Fourth - and this is perhaps the most difficult and most onerous mission: It is precisely the Jews who must stand in the breach against the new attempts to demonize the Islamic religion and dehumanize the Muslims, and thereby dichotomize the world into the "Sons of Light" and the "Sons of Darkness." It is precisely the Jews who are capable of taking a position against the cultural determinism that innately equates the adherents of a particular religion with acts of cruelty and bloodshed. Who better than the Jews should show the nations of Europe their own bloodstained history and compare it consistently with the history of many Muslim nations? Who better than they are likely to emphasize the deep changes that religions undergo in the course of generations and the internal oscillations that cause their adherents to swing back and forth from moderation to fanaticism, from fundamentalism to openness, in an ever-recurring cycle?
Is it necessary to recall the similarities between Judaism and Islam (as distinct from Christianity!) in most of the crucial subjects of religion: the book, the law, prophecy, individual and community, religion and state, not to mention the actual belief in one God? Who better than the Jews can attest to the power of creative religious exegesis and the wide openings it can create, especially for a religion that is founded on a book; how it can push one idea to the margins and guide another to the center; how it creates a surprising renascence of forgotten ideas and consigns other sources to utter oblivion. It is none other than Jews who, drawing on their tradition, can teach others that even terms such as "holy war" or "armed jihad" might be relevant at a certain time and place, but become neutralized or spiritualized at a different time and place.
True, the murderous form that radical Arab Islam is currently assuming before our eyes is suffocating hope from one minute to the next. True, Muslim nations and Muslim groups are deeply involved in the violent conflicts that are raging around the world and not only in our region. And this, after all, is the declared aim of the leaders of extreme Islam: to divide the world into two polar camps that will be locked in a battle to the death - the great Muslim "nation" and the "Jewish-Crusader alliance" (in bin Laden's words).
It is also true that in this international situation we cannot turn insular and take a neutral position. All the more so when the harsh regional situation obliges us to link up with a friendly political force and cooperate with it based on present needs. However, that is sufficient for us. A clear differentiation must be made between pragmatic cooperation and cultural self-surrender, between short-term considerations and the long-term view, between ad hoc political considerations of the State of Israel and the broad perspective of the historical Jew; in other words, between the regional conflict and the "clash of civilizations" (whether real or imaginary). To the best of my understanding, there can be no doubt about what the good of the historical Jew says of this "clash": to preserve and protect himself, he will remain as remote from it as east is from west
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