Comments by Israelis and overseas Jews about Barack Obama's Cairo speech range to those so extreme as to provoke wonder. The most outlandish begin with the claim that it is possible to read between the lines, or to scratch the surface in order to find sentiments that side with the Arabs and threaten Israel. Reading between the lines and scratching the surface are standard ways of finding what one imagines or fears in what someone else has said or written. The unbounded critics of the president have asked, How dare he speak of Palestinian suffering immediately after the Holocaust? He is reducing the status of the Holocaust below the height of human suffering. How can he speak about a Palestinian state in the Land of Israel, after more than six decades of Arab terror?
Comments are no less jarring after Benyamin Netanyahu's speech in response to Obama's. Right wing Israelis declare him a traitor to his supporters by virtue of supporting the principal of a Palestinian state, despite the severe conditions he would attach to it. How could he declare a freeze on settlement expansion? He is talking about the Land of Israel! Any removal of existing settlements, no matter how small and questionable their creation, is an expulsion of Jews, and a step on the slippery slope to greater horrors.
Such language hurts my tender ears, educated to the political values of moderation and understatement rather than overstatement. As my blood pressure rises, however, I remind myself that I am living in the midst of a Jewish population, the vast majority of which has not had the experience of an Anglo-Saxon education. Many of my neighbors express great sorrow, at least annually, over what the Babylonians did to this city 2,600 years ago.
It is easy to understand Jews who bristle at what they consider improper comments associated with the Holocaust. Most Israelis with European roots have had a Holocaust experience, either directly or via the stories of parents and grandparents. They have shares in Auschwitz. But destruction and exile at the hands of the Babylonians? History is filled with conquests and slaughter no less severe, from the time of the ancient empires to the Balkans and Africa in recent decades.
For Jews who take the faith seriously, the destruction and exile to Babylon are real enough to have occurred within their lifetime. The events are central to Jeremiah and Lamentations, and are prominent in synagogue rituals. In Jewish memory they join the Exodus from Egypt, celebrated as the central theme of Passover; the battle against the Greeks, at the focus of Hanukah, and disastrous rebellions against the Romans of 66 and 132 CE.
The blossoming of Holocaust memorials demonstrate that it is not only ancient history that is important to the Jews. Rabbis have composed prayers in celebration of Israel's Independence and Memorial Day that fit the mold of what Jews have been chanting about other occasions for centuries.
Classic questions affect Jews' reading of history. Ultra-Orthodox rabbis have asked what could have caused God to allow the Holocaust, and have borrowed from Jeremiah the answer that it must be punishment for His people's sins. What sins could justify such punishment? The development of Reform Judaism in Germany.
A key to understanding all of this lies in the concept of God's Chosen People, and the ethnicity that links individual Jews to the community. Conversion is possible, but for the overwhelming majority belief is not as important as birth. Central to Judaism is the celebration of national history. On account of sacred texts, it is easy for Jews to think of their national experience as central to world history. The Torah, as well as Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, the Prophets, Daniel, and Esther tell about Jewish experiences among other nations. Secular Jews and members of Reform and Conservative congregations do not give the emphasis to Choseness that one hears from the Orthodox. However, many of them express pride in Jewish culture, norms, and historical survival, if not all the details of ancient texts.
Jews' pride at being God's Chosen People may have something to do with their being a "stiff necked people." God himself described His people in that fashion (Exodus 32:9). Being Chosen, and at the center of world history, contributes to one's self-confidence and certainty at being right, even if nearby Jews reach contrasting views and are equally confident of being right.
Being Chosen and stiff necked also figure in the stereotypes of anti-Semites.
Even those not infected by hatred of the Jews may admit that it is difficult to deal with them. If Barack Obama has not absorbed that lesson, he may do so in the process of pressuring Israelis to be more accommodating toward the Palestinians. He will have to deal not only with Benyamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman, and their colleagues further to the right in the Israeli government, but with American Jews who will say that they did not vote and contribute in order that he press so hard against the Jewish state.
All will depend on how Barack Obama presses the Palestinians and other Muslims to do what he demanded of them with respect to Israel, and how he will press the Israelis to do what he demanded of them. Sooner or later, he is likely to hear about Babylon, as well as the Greeks and Romans, along with the Egyptians and Germans.
Palestinians and other Arabs will help the Jews, with their own insistence on demands that are extreme and non-negotiable. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, widely viewed as moderate and beholden to the West, has responded to Netanyahu's speech by saying that no Palestinian or Arab government can except Israel's denying the right of return to Palestinian refugees. With that demand still on the table, all those hopeful of pushing Israelis and Palestinians to an agreement should spend their time on something else.
I welcome comments sent to my e-mail address, below.
Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University
Jerusalem, Israel
Tel: +972-2-532-2725
email: msira@mscc.huji.ac.il