Crossing The Rubicon

At a news conference in the White House last week, the President of the United States proposed an ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip. The President suggested removing the Palestinians of Gaza to other countries, while expressing his desire for the United States to take a “strong ownership position” and turn the Gaza strip into a Middle Eastern “Riviera.” Mr. Trump envisions the ‘world’s people’ living there. Who those people might be was not made clear. Who would finance such an endeavor and who would, ultimately, profit from such a project was also not made clear, but clarity was not the point here.

President Trump has effervescently brought ethnic cleansing back into the American political conversation, invoking the ghost of President Andrew Jackson, whom Trump adores. President Jackson, of course, oversaw the brutal relocation of Native Americans under the Indian Removal Act, signed in 1830. Thousands died during their ‘relocation.’

Standing next to Mr. Trump was Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. A mere eighty years after the Holocaust, the leader of the State of Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people, smirked with great satisfaction as Mr. Trump tossed his word salad into the ether, assigning the devastated residents of Gaza to whomever would take them in, be it Egypt, Jordan, or any other country he would ‘convince’ to do so. You would not be blamed for thinking you were present at a surreal time-share presentation for one of Mr. Trump’s ‘magnificent’ properties.

Predictably, the Arab world was outraged. Equally predictable was the glee of a segment of Israel’s right-wing, ultra-nationalist population. The free world was aghast. Jews in the diaspora were stunned by the announcement and have reacted in many different ways – some endorsing the idea, some unsure, and many, including me, denouncing it outright.

I reject this idea not because I think Hamas has any legitimate claim to power in Gaza. Gaza has been systematically abused and destroyed by Hamas over decades. The wickedness of Hamas must be eradicated for the benefit of the Palestinian People and all of humanity – the sooner the better.

Hamas, however, did not blossom in a vacuum, and Bibi, of all people, should know that. Bibi Netanyahu and his government have supplied Hamas with millions of dollars over a period of many years. The evil Hamas had perpetrated in Gaza did not phase Bibi so long as Hamas agitated against the Palestinian authority and kept the Palestinians from forming a state that could be efficiently governed. The real goal was preventing a two-state-solution from becoming a reality – in blatant contradiction to Bibi’s statements on the international, diplomatic stage.

Lest anyone accuse me of being one of those self-hating Jews and ultra liberals who deny our right to live in Eretz Yisrael, let me make something very clear: The entire Land of Israel is my ancestral homeland. I am part of the indigenous people who originated in Judaea and Samaria, the area referred to as the ‘West Bank.’ I am a member of the people who were ‘relocated’ from their homeland – first, eastward, to Assyria and Babylonia and then, westward, to the wide expanse of the Roman Empire.

That being said, I do not believe that my biblical connection to the land gives me the right to simply dispossess a people who have been living on that land and working it for at least 1,400 years. That is the crux of the tragedy in the Middle East – “there are two people with equal claim to the land,” to quote David Ben Gurion. To say that neither side has handled this conundrum adequately is the understatement of the century.

Following the bizarre press conference in the White House, there have been calls in social media for everyone to just ‘chill’ since the program will probably never actually be implemented. These calls completely miss the point. Whether or not this odious idea is workable is not the issue. The issue is the actual thought process and the willingness of the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister of Israel to express it officially in a public forum.

That Donald Trump is capable of outrageous behavior and stupefying pronouncements born of incoherent thought was never in doubt. He is Mussolini without the talent and the gravitas. He can only produce simplistic ideas bombastically because he is a simpleton.

My anguish stems from the fact that in one meandering press conference, the current Israeli government was revealed to the world as an ultra-nationalist body with no intention of resolving the conflict in any way other than by removing the entire population of Gaza. A population, I may add, that was corralled there to begin with by the outcome of the War of Independence in 1948.

No, the Palestinians are not all innocent victims of Israeli aggression – they never were. They are active participants in the grotesque drama that has been unfolding over the past one-hundred years – but so are the Israelis. Too many on both sides are stricken with paralyzing self-pity and seem to exercise no capacity for self-examination, for true introspection.

The Sages taught us that we were exiled from our land because of our sins. They knew full well that the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Romans had actually conquered and exiled us. They understood the overwhelming power and brutality of empires and the vulnerability of a small, unique nation in a hostile territory. The Sages also understood that self-pity was not a recipe for spiritual and intellectual growth. Stating the obvious has never made one wiser. Instead, the Sages prescribed introspection, self-critique, and stringent education as our medicine and these have become our superpowers throughout the generations we spent in exile.

So here we stand today as a free people; as inheritors of a prophetic tradition that has always preached justice and mercy, righteousness and faith over might. The Prophets never remained silent in the face of injustice. They raged against the machine. They decried corrupt leaders – political and religious alike – and they never backed down from defending what they knew to be just and merciful.

Be outraged. Be counted among the righteous inheritors of the prophets. Cry out for our beloved country and let no one tell you to be silent.