Jewish Community Centre of the Eastern Townships (www.jccet.org)
Isaac Romano, Director
Subject: United Church Middle East Statement
(Isaac Romano/JCCET Statement to be presented at the General Council of the United Church gathering in Ottawa, August 2012.)
I have followed the United Church in its successful plans to prepare a balanced statement regarding the Middle East, in particular, support for Israel, while calling for ways to put pressure on the Israeli government to be more forthright in efforts towards peace with the Palestinians. Toward a future Palestinian State, alongside Israel. This is a necessary outcome, if there is to be peace in the Middle East. Among the ethical, political means to apply this pressure on the Israeli Government is the efforts to boycott goods produced outside of Israel, …products produced by the Israeli Settlements in the West Bank.
In this historical period, the United Church will get some “blow-back” from leadership elements among Canada’s Jewish organizational structure. I want to address this next and why Jewish leadership in the Diaspora is often seen “caught in an eddy” of poor policy statements, in attempts to defend misguided Israeli Government policy toward its neighbors, and subsequent misguided attacks on institutions, such as the United Church and the ethical, balanced Middle East Policy you are presenting (prepared by David Giuliano and his committee) for presentation at the General Council of the United Church.
I fully support your balanced policy position and understand the ethical underpinning of your statement. Please make this United Church “official policy.”
I want to make sure you understand that many progressive Jewish rabbis and progressive Jewish leaders in North America also understand and support your policy statement prepared by David Giuliano and his committee.
I also encourage you to keep striving to build relationships to help “shift” Canadian Jewish leadership, where the leadership is supporting policies that are unworkable, long-term. It is in Israel’s interest and all countries in the Middle East that you hold to an ethical, balanced position and build relationships, long term with Jewish leaders to help them “shift” their perspective and policy.
Now I wish to say a few words on behalf of the Jewish Community Centre of the Eastern Townships about why much of the Jewish world is caught in this misguided “eddy” of bad policy, when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian issue and I want to provide what I believe is an effective Jewish perspective, regarding the dangerous Israeli Settlements within the West Bank and Israeli-Palestinian efforts toward a peace settlement:
“First, and importantly, decades of unhealed terror from the Holocaust, the Pogroms, and a history of betrayal at the hands of others have left many Jews unable to seize new opportunities for alliance-building, instead reverting back to old fear-based responses that keep Israel isolated. In the end, however difficult it may be to achieve, Israel’s full flourishing in the Middle East will require strong relationships with its Arab neighbors. The momentous changes taking place now in the Middle East provide Israel with a new moment to leave behind its historical fear responses and instead lead the way in welcoming the leaders of these new Arab protest movements.
Secondly, we ask the Canadian Jewish community and all Québécois and all Canadians who care about the lives, security and peaceful future of Israelis and Palestinians to respond favorably to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ call to end Israeli Settlement building on the West Bank, and provide the foundations for a peace settlement, between Palestine and Israel that allow for a flourishing Palestinian State, next to a flourishing Israel.
Thirdly, we also invite you to think about additional steps we need to take, in order to protect Israelis and Palestinians and secure peace.
1. Anyone who cares about Israeli lives should demand the end of the dangerous settlements of Israelis within the West Bank. They weaken the security of Israel & are not in the least necessary to Israel’s existence or self-definition. Indeed, they put Israeli soldiers who are assigned to protect them at totally unnecessary risk, and they require economic investments that would be far more valuable if invested inside Israel. Meanwhile, they and the “bypass roads” that connect them, cut the Palestinian territories into hundreds of isolated segments, and thus make impossible the emergence of a viable and peaceful Palestine: Many settlers use violence against the Palestinians near whom they live; they attract rage from Palestinians whose land, water, and sense of identity they shatter, and they are vulnerable to violence from outraged Palestinians, leading to by far the largest number of Israeli deaths. These settlements are bad for both Israel and Palestine. The settlers should be given the compassionate and honorable choice either to come home to Israel or to live as citizens of Palestine, under Palestinian law and with no special relationship to Israel. 2. Similarly, there will never be peace unless Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem are allowed to govern themselves in a peaceful way. Any further acts by the Binyamin Netanyahu government to shatter these neighborhoods will lead to increased desperate bloodshed. Jews must oppose such actions, for the sake of the Jewish state and Jewish lives, as well as out of compassion for their Palestinian neighbors whose lives and homes are being destroyed. Instead, the Palestinians in these neighborhoods must be given the right to elect their own leaders now, so as to establish a responsible self-governing body.”