Not a Chance
Last week, there was a report in the Jerusalem Post that a group of influential Jews worldwide sent an open letter to the UN. One of the signatories was Avraham Burg. I must confess that I have not heard – nor thought of – that name for a very long time. And in all that time, nothing has changed.
Avraham Burg has a long history of activity in Israel. He served in Lebanon in 1982, he was an MK, and he served as Knesset speaker. The list is longer, but the relevant position was as a member of Peace Now. Sometime around 1984, when I was still living in Canada, the Canadian Friends of Peace Now invited Burg to address an audience in Toronto. A friend and I went to hear what he had to say. A point he emphasized several times was the need to “take the chance for peace.” My thought at the time was that we take all the chances, and the Arabs take all the advantages. And here we are today, and so I would ask Mr. Burg: how many more chances do we need to take? How many more Jews in Israel need to die before the enemy has used up all its chances? Since that meeting in Toronto, we have lived – and died – through the Oslo Accords, the Wye Accords, two intifadas, and several military operations in Gaza; we provided the enemy with land, money and weapons. We succumbed to international pressure to cease fire in order to come to a negotiated settlement. We allowed a foreign entity – Qatar – to finance Hamas under the illusion of containing the threat in the south. To all of these chances that we took for peace, the enemies’ response was, “not a chance.”
There are two things that disturb me about this letter, enough to elicit a response. First, the letter declares that, “(The signatories) shall not rest until this ceasefire carries forward into an end of occupation and apartheid.” The use of these terms to describe the situation here is indicative of a myopic, self-flagellating misunderstanding of the words “occupation” and “apartheid.” It is also an inability to recognize reality, as it differs from fantasy.
Second, in a statement, Burg explains that the letter was sent because “the deeds of Israel’s government in Gaza have been an affront to collective Jewish consciousness worldwide”.
He sounds like Mandy Patinkin.
Not only is Burg arrogantly out of line, but he is also incorrect. If correctness were measurable by degrees, then Burg would be extremely incorrect. No doubt there are Jews here and abroad who take issue with Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. An affront to our collective Jewish consciousness? I would argue that such a statement is indicative of an unconsciousness on the part of Mr. Burg. He knows how we have tried. He knows what we have lost. How can he look at our place in history at this time and question our conduct?
In our quest for security, what is comfortable for the enemy should not be a consideration. That is no longer a chance we can take.
