Isaiah trumps Dershowitz, Ben-Ami

Reader Response

By SHLOMO TRUZMAN

article created on: 2010-08-15T00:00:00

Alan Dershowitz’s and Jeremy Ben-Ami’s mutual support for a two-state for peace is widely known. Their mutual acrimonious wrangling regarding its ultimate process however, is in bad taste (Jewish Review, Aug. 1, page 4).

Be that as it may, and putting their rhetorical dislike for each other aside, the obvious question is this: Why are two people who both agree in ceding parts of Israel so antagonistically divided by the very issue that brings them together?

To date, the Palestinians have not been satisfied with all that Israel has offered them. The relinquishing of Gaza to the Palestinians is but a vivid example that has turned former Jewish houses of worship into deadly-firing positions against Israel’s civilian centers.

Added to this, Palestinians are on record that the closer they get to Israel, the closer and the bolder they get in accomplishing their aspirations: the total destruction of the Zionist entity.

And last but not least, given the dismal Palestinian record in honoring written agreements, it is highly preferable for Israel to maintain the status quo for another hundred years than to concede gratuitous help to its enemies, leading to her national demise.

In Ben-Ami’s own words, “I have written before that Alan Dershowitz’s mode of advocacy for Israel represents what is wrong with the way the ‘case for Israel’ has been made for too long.” In an earlier statement, Ben-Ami wrote, “We believe that a major presidential effort will be required to achieve our goal, ensuring Israel’s security and future…”

In both statements, Ben-Ami highlights his arrogant stand in undermining Israel’s competence to deal with its internal issues without outside interference.

A fresh glance at Martin Sherman’s essay that appeared recently in IsraNews challenges the pursuit of the two-state solution. He writes, “The two-state/land for peace has proven to be a long drawn-out failure that should have been abandoned a long time ago.

Any dispassionate evaluation of the events of the past two decades invariably leads one to accept the following conclusion: That the Palestinians seem far more focused on annulling Jewish political independence than attaining Palestinian political independence.

That is to say, Palestinians are far more committed to the deconstruction of the Jewish state than to the construction of a Palestinian one.”

In closing, Ben-Ami refers to his two-state advocacy as “our goal.” In his ideological statement of “our goal,” he tells it all.

This brings to mind a timely biblical narrative in Isaiah 55:8 worthy of both Dershowitz’s and Ben-Ami’s attention. G-d admonishes the Jewish people, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts and My ways are not your ways.”

This biblical statement indicates that unlike G-d’s thoughts and ways, ours are endowed with flaws, let alone our goals.

Incidentally, this chapter in Isaiah 55 is read exclusively on fasting days in which the prophet laments the historical disasters befalling the Jewish people due to our divisiveness and religious and political internal strife.

A key issue never to be overlooked by those promoting a two-state solution is that there is the land of Israel first and foremost, and there is the state of Israel. The land of Israel is a religious issue; the state of Israel is a political and separate issue, yet, both are intrinsically intertwined.

Perhaps Ben-Ami and Dershowitz could take to heart the prophet’s words in that their perceptional thoughts, their ways and their political goals vis-à-vis Israelis and Palestinians are not the thoughts, ways, or biblical-sought goals of the land of Israel.

Rabbi Shlomo Truzman is the spiritual leader of Beit Yosef in Portland.