I am a Zionist and a Reform Jew. I received your letter about the ARZA petition against a United Nations (UN) process for a Palestinian state through my synagogue, and I was extremely offended. My Judaism demands that I speak out against injustice, and I will not refrain simply because ARZA is a Reform Jewish organization.
The petition which you requested Reform Jews sign is hypocritical, unjust, and contrary to Jewish values. In addition, the petition relies on false premises surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I also believe focusing on preventing a UN vote is focusing on the wrong part of conflict mediation.
The letter you sent as well as the petition set up direct negotiation and UN action as mutually exclusive. However, there is no reason why the processes cannot be utilized in conjunction with each other. A UN vote only precludes negotiation if we let it, but Jewish groups taking that
Bringing statehood issues for a vote at the UN is not only one of few ways new states have to assert their legitimacy internationally, it is also the very path that Israel took to statehood. Rather than criticizing governmental entities using well-established legal means to achieve statehood, we should applaud foreign entities who seek out legal avenues to pursue change. Since the petition reaffirms support for a two-state solution, the only other principled objections can be to the timing of the request or to the borders proposed.
Asking millions of people to wait to gain citizenship rights until people who have not managed to reach solutions by war or negotiation for over 50 years is unreasonable. We do not ask people denied rights in the United States to wait for those rights. Amazing rabbis like Joachim Prinz and Arnold Jacob Wolf were extremely involved in the civil rights movement. The notion that this concern for human rights ends because the government denying them rights is Israel's is ridiculous; if anything, this should prompt us to work harder to advocate for their rights.
In 1947, the partition plan was created on the principle of dividing the land based on population. Jewish areas would become the Jewish sate and Arab areas their own state. That state was never declared. The problem with returning to the borders drawn up in 1947 is that they are no longer demographically tenable. So, if this is the ground of the current objections, it is an understandable objection. However, then the appropriate action is to propose a plan with more reasonable borders, and to encourage ongoing negotiations to finalize borders and other issues.
I am a religious Zionist and a political Zionist. My religious Zionism has nothing to do with my political Zionism, and I find your use of the pulpit to promote denying rights to millions of people unconscionable. You are promoting political stability over human rights. It wouldn't go over well as a d'var torah, and I didn't appreciate it in my inbox.
If you want to help Israel and the Palestinian Authority achieve an end of conflict agreement as well as a two-state solution, act reasonably to promote that goal. Promote negotiations in all circumstances. But don't use my religious affiliation to ask me to abandon my religious principles.
Sincerely,
A Reform Zionist in America
No comments:
Post a Comment