HJ: The Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg pointed out that many in the media tend to point out the disproportionate casualty count between Israelis and Palestinians, and he wisely wondered if there is a moral difference between attempted murder and successful murder.

BM: It’s obvious that Israelis, in all of their battles with the Palestinians, show restraint. Because they have nuclear weapons. And if the situation was reversed, I don’t doubt for a second that Palestinians would fire them immediately. They’d use the maximum of what they have available and the Israelis don’t.

HJ: There was a big debate this week in the Jewish world that arose from a dispute between two rabbis about whether Judaism should be more universal and humane or more tribal and self interested. But it is widely felt that the Israeli army conducts itself with deep concern for the humanity of the people they are fighting.

BM: Let’s not forget the other side of this issue, which is, the Palestinians do have gripes, and most Israelis do not agree with the Netanyahu government on the settlement issue. [Israelis] want a two state solution. I don’t think anybody’s ever going to be happy or the conflict will ever end before that happens and as many writers have pointed out, Israel faces the problem of becoming a minority Jewish state within their own country if they allow this to keep going. There has to be some solution. In a lot of ways, what we see in Israel is their government has been taken over by the equivalent of what would be the Tea Party in this country. If you talk to most people in Tel Aviv, I don’t think they’re for what the government is doing, but when it comes to self-defense — Obama himself said the other day: There’s just not another country in the world that would allow missiles to be rained down on them without fighting back. What I find so ironic is that after World War II, everybody said, ‘I don’t understand the Jews. How could they have just gone to their slaughter like that?’ OK, and then when they fight back: ‘I don’t understand the Jews. Why can’t they just go to their slaughter?’ It’s like, ‘You know what? We did that once. It’s not going to happen again. You’re just going to have to get used to the fact that Jews now defend themselves — and by the way, defend themselves better. I mean, this is a country, after all, that is surrounded by far greater numbers than their own [and] they are like two generations ahead in the military technology they have.

After they stop trying to blow me and mine up for the 'crime' of existing I may reconsider.

Dear Rabbi Gordis.

You put your finger on the essence of the debate: Do we love ourselves more than we love our enemy. Upon who do we have rachmonis? Even lefties like Yoffi see the truth now.

You are so correct in the two streams in Judaism which makes us unique. We have a strain which supports our enemies at the expense of our own children. Perhaps that strain is a form of Stockholm Syndrome that has been beaten into us by being 2000 years of exile. Rather than it being a religious point of view it is the rationalization of a helpless Jew cowering in the basement when the Cossacks are coming.

We have a long tradition of collaborationism in the face of oppression. The phrase "court Jews" is hundreds of years old. As Dershowitz calls them "house Jews." Daniel, you and I may be best characterized as "field" Jews.

I would not necessarily dignify Rabbi Brous as having a religious point of view, when in fact it is a political or psychological view which exists in no other culture or religion.

The debate that we are having while we face extinction diverts us from our survival!

It is time to make this entirely peculiar strain strain of debate socially unacceptable. These people should be branded for what they are, collaborators. Judaism has no concept of treason and no punishment for collaboration in its culture. Of all the stories we have heard in the Diaspora, how much effort is devoted to defining and punishing treason and collaboration in our society?

If you have such examples now would be the time to bring them out and discuss them.

PS My daughter like your son, is on the border too. She is a new oleh, and she came to serve Israel. I am very proud. I will come soon.http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/on-the-absence-of-outrage/.

Who am I to disagree with the author, but I don’t think this is the point of Dr. Gordis’ article. Focusing on this point frames the discussion as a conflict between particularism and universalism. That’s really not the main point here.

Dr. Gordis’ important idea is that we should love and empathize with the right and the good; we should not fear to identify and label evil when and where we see it. He questions the moral and intellectual integrity of any Jew or any person who adheres so strongly to an ideological neutrality that can only (and I emphasize “only”) focus on the suffering of individuals without acknowledging the responsibility of the Gazans and the culpability of their leadership. He expresses outrage at those who would call bad, good and good, bad, who would cloak themselves in worthless platitudes about all violence being bad, and from their sterile heights of intellectual transcendence affect a neutral morality. Dr. Gordis adjures us not to be neutral, not towards our people, and certainly not towards morality.

Daniel, if you had an issue with something specific Ms Brous said (and I don't disagree with the most basic point you made about the original post) then just say THAT. Nothing else is needed.

It seems to all come down to 1 missed line, 1 missed point. That's fine, that's fair, but keep the vitriol out of it and just say EXACTLY what you mean without turning it into a missive on "what is wrong" with a whole chunk of Judaism.

If you truly want the discourse to improve, keeping it simple will do more than trying to "be right."
(Unless of course you all get paid by the word, in which case we're all doomed!)