Desert Visions
Rabbi Avi Shafran
As Rosh Hashana approached this year, and Jews the world over embraced reconciliation, repentance and prayer, a senior Palestinian official seemed to renounce past sins as well.
Abdel Razak Yehiyeh, the Palestinian Authority interior minister, told an Israeli newspaper that he had called on his fellow Palestinians to "stop the suicide bombings, stop the murders for no reason."
His elaboration on his call, however, raised some troubling questions.
What he had come to regret, Mr. Yehiyeh went on to explain, was that "children were exploited for these attacks when they could have made a much more positive contribution to future Palestinian society."
The Palestinian official, understandably, was bemoaning the tragic loss of young people who were convinced by their elders to become suicide bombers. They had so much more to offer the world than the bloody pieces of what were once their bodies. But does he acknowledge the inherent immorality of their recruitment? Does he condemn the ambushing and killing of Israeli soldiers or civilians, the intentional murder of babies in their mothers' arms? Are even the suicides of his own people's youths in the course of murdering Jews inherently objectionable to him, or only less than fully efficient? Mr. Yihiyeh did not say.
Perhaps he was not asked. But before he can earn a place in Jewish hearts - or at a negotiating table - he would do well to provide answers all the same.
Because Israel cannot afford to forget something desert travelers know well. When they have run out of water and begin to suffer dehydration, they sometimes see lakes and streams where there are none in reality. Thirst-maddened men, it is said, have thrown themselves headfirst with mouths open wide into sand dunes, thinking them fountains. Something similar can happen in conceptual deserts too, in voids bone-dry of humanity and morality. And in such wastelands, to those drunk on anguished hope, bared teeth might sometimes seem like a smile.
The rejection of Mr. Yehiyeh's call by a number of even more radical Palestinian groups will lead some to place the interior minister squarely in the "moderate" camp. And maybe he belongs there. But to earn that epithet, he will have to voice regret not only for willfully wasted Palestinian lives but unwillfully wasted Jewish ones.
For Israel, even as she continues to seek true peace partners, cannot afford to end up with a mouthful of sand.
Like that The New York Times has eagerly managed to swallow.
The day before the paper reported Mr. Yehiyeh's comments, it characterized Palestinian advocate Hanan Ashrawi, as "a leading figure in promoting peace between Israel and the Palestinians." This, despite Ms. Ashrawi's comically one-sided anti-Israel propaganda, despite her 1993 vote against removing language about the destruction of Israel from the Palestine National Charter, and despite her stoking of the fires of Israel-hatred (and worse) at last summer's now-infamous Durban Conference.
Sadly, Ms. Ashrawi is, at least at present, well in touch with much of her constituency. Poll after poll reveal large majorities of Palestinians supporting the killing of Israeli civilians, and wishing for not peace with Israel but the end of Israel. Some would like to achieve that goal as abruptly as possible; others, as Mr. Arafat has assured Arab audiences, in stages - beginning with a "peace agreement" modeled on one Mohammed is said to have struck with an enemy tribe whom he went on to attack and destroy.
But there are Palestinians too, no doubt, who recognize the madness that has seized their brethren. If even half of those killed as "collaborators" with Israel were indeed working with Israel to prevent terrorist attacks (and not simply victims of personal or familial grudges), their tragically truncated existences may imply a silent opposition to the "push the Jews into the sea" establishment. And while that opposition may be currently cowed, we can, and must, hope that it asserts itself in days to come.
For no people pines for peace like the Jews. Millennia before the advent of Christianity and Islam, our ancestors introduced "Peace" as a standard greeting, and our prophets envisioned a peaceful world as history's culmination. Our solemn silent prayers, thrice daily, end in a praise of G-d for His blessing of peace.
Very soon, a desert vision of a different sort will be commemorated by Jews the world over, a perception not of falsehood but of an ultimate reality glimpsed by our ancestors thousands of years ago in the Sinai. In remembrance of the formative forty years before the Jewish people first entered the Jewish land, when G-d extended His people divine protection from elements and enemies alike, we will leave our homes to sit in fragile, vulnerable sukkot.
With that observance, we will reaffirm a most basic Jewish truth: that the the Rock of Israel is the ultimate source of our security. It is a truth for all ages, but a particularly timely one today.
And as we usher in the new holiday in this season of celebrations, we will pronounce a blessing we utter with each welcome of a Sabbath or holiday.
"Blessed are You, Hashem," we will say, "Who spreads forth a Sukkah of peace over us and over His entire nation Israel, and over Jerusalem."
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AM ECHAD RESOURCES
Rabbi Avi Shafran is director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America
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