Dying as a Political Tool

It feels like an inflection point. After Chuck Schumer's unfathomable call for elections in Israel to oust Netanyahu, the rising tensions between Biden and Bibi that have been building for weeks finally came to a head with the US abstention of the UN Security Council ceasefire resolution vote. Hamas must be very encouraged that their campaign of Palestinian self-flagellation is winning the day. Western leaders are talking about recognizing a Palestinian State - although it's hard to imagine what that would accomplish - and US Vice-President Harris has talked about further consequences if Israel conducts operations in Rafah, the last Gaza stronghold of Hamas. Israel argues that it needs to go into Rafah to finish the job of eliminating Hamas. Meanwhile, northern Gaza is on the brink of what has been called the worst famine in modern human history. According to some reports, by May up to 680,000 Gazans will be at risk. This represents the largest famine since Somalia in 2011 when approximately 450,000 starved. I wonder how many Palestinian women and children Hamas counted on dying before enough international pressure would come to bear on Israel to force them into retreat. Dying can be a powerful political tool, especially in the age of social media. 

We are taught that we must not stand idly by and watch innocent people die if we have the ability to do something about it. It's a basic moral imperative. But what do you do when bad actors place others intentionally in harm's way to protect themselves? It's undeniable that Hamas is responsible for the catastrophe currently befalling the people of Gaza. In their strategy of assymetrical warfare, it's undeniable that Hamas has used the entire population of Gaza to shield themselves from Israel's superior military power. It's undeniable that their only hope of 'success' was for massive numbers of innocent Gazans to die and the world to be outraged against Israel. They view all Palestinians as not merely expendable, but as their main weapon. They call them 'a nation of martyrs'. But Hamas's responsibility for wanting and engineering the deaths of thousands of their own people can't negate the moral imperative of others to spare innocent lives if they can. Those of us watching the catastrophe of Gaza have to agonizingly hold two conflicting moral principles in our minds at the same time. One that demands evil to be eradicated in self-defense, and the second not to kill innocents in the process. In a case when one of the parties has weaponized the death of their own civillians as central to their strategy, contrary to every accepted norm and convention of warfare, we are forced to ask, which must take precedence, and at what point should that precedence shift, if ever? At what point must my self-defense take a backseat to sparing the lives of others? 

We've been told that the IDF has respected, as much as possible, international military norms and conventions in their rules of engagement in Gaza. We've been told that whenever possible, in an impossible setting of urban guerilla warfare, they have done whatever they could to warn civilians to get out of harm's way before taking action. I am confident that this is the case. I am also confident that Hamas is doing everything possible to undermine Israel's efforts, and that this accounts for the vast majority of civilian Palestinian casualties. But famine changes the calculus. Ensuring the adequate supply of basic human needs is essential. In this regard, the Palestinian population must be viewed like prisoners of war and treated as such. If the IDF is doing anything to make sure famine is avoided, they need to tell the world about it. If they are being hindered in that effort by Hamas we need to know about it. Right now, to many of us, it still looks like what the IDF is engaged in is justifiable self-defense. If there is a famine, it won't look that way anymore.

Bank Balance Number

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Don't know where it comes from,

The money just shows up,

Like a kid who rings the bell,

That I forgot about.

Stocks that I once purchased,

Mutual fund dividends,

All sorts of investments,

That I will never spend. 

My bank balance number,

Always seems to grow, 

My financial advisor loves,

The size of my portfolio.

I got more money,

Than I could ever blow,

Doesn't need much tending, 

Like weeds it seems to grow.

Sometimes I ask myself,

How far I should go,

To keep my money safe,

From all you average joes.

They all want to take some,

Convince me just to give it,

But it's my money, all mine,

And they can just forget it.

I got more money,

Than I could ever blow,

I'm just gonna keep it,

Watch it as it grows.

My bank balance number,

Always seems to grow, 

My financial advisor loves,

The size of my portfolio.

Original

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I'm thinking about the unlikelihood of life,

yours, mine, anyones, 

looking at the latest gossamer images 

of spidery spinning galaxies

from the James Webb Space Telescope

light traveling 13 billion years 

to my eyes

and mind;

the further we see into the past

the less we understand

about how we emerged 

out of this cocoon of inanimate 

cosmos.

Both my father and mother are dead now.

It's as if they never existed.

I have some photos

of them

light exposed on film

chemically set to glossy paper

making patterns,

and of course as further proof

of their existence 

there's me

and neural sparks 

of memory.

I am original.

Me and my consciousness 

like an ocean boat 

cutting a wake 

from one island in time  

to the distant next

awake

soon to disappear.

They Used To Sing of Love

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I knew a man without a name,

I met him on the street,

He handed me a business card,

And offered me a seat.

Said he'd led a different life,

A hundred years ago,

He could tell me stories,

'Bout things I didn't know.

I told him I was listening,

Said I was mostly ears,

The spinning world is dizzying me,

I've got so many fears.

He told me all that mattered,

In all the years he's seen.

Was people telling stories, 

Singing songs they sing.

They used to sing of love,

In a better time.

They used to sing of broken hearts,

As if it was a crime.

Now they sing of peace,

Cause times have got so bad.

And love's a distant memory,

Like good times that we had.

 

One kind will tell you how to hate,

Others who to blame.

Others show you who to fear,

Said the man without a name.

A man don't need very much,

He said with a wry smile,

Someone to tell his stories,

And sit with him a while. 

Not Alone

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Written by Moss & Rotchin

There was one who said that she felt lonely,

There was one who begged me to come home,

There was one who told me that she loved me,

And I told her she was not alone, she was not alone.

There are times things just don't seem right,

There are times you feel it in your bones,

And you know there's something that she's hiding,

When she speaks you hear it in her tone.

In her eyes I saw what she was thinking,

In her eyes I saw she wasn't true,

That was when I felt my heart was sinking,

I could tell she saw just what I knew, saw just what I knew.

 

There was one who said that she felt lonely,

There was one who begged me to come home,

There was one who told me that she loved me,

And I told her she was not alone.

Always Between

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I've got me a job,

I guess it's okay,

Don't care very much,

But it's worth the pay.

I've got me a girl,

Yeah, she's alright,

Watch movies, have dinner, 

Almost never fight.

Sometimes I think, 

There's another way,

Choices I could make,

Before I go gray.

Take myself down,

A different road,

Where the sky is wide,

The air not cold.

Ain't as young as I was,

Or as old as I'll be,

It feels somehow, 

Like I'm always between.

My girl ran away,

Took part of me,

All she left behind, 

A mountain of lonely.

Used to have buddies,

Shared a game and a beer,

They're off doing something,

Or so it appears.

My folks worry 'bout me,

Say my life's a dead-end,

I'm happy they're talking,

Since their marriage did end.

I may not go far,

Whatever 'far' means,

I'm heading somewhere,

I'm always between.

Ain't as young as I was,

Or as old as I'll be,

It feels somehow, 

Like I'm always between.

A State For The Jews

A state for the Jews, or a Jewish state? This dilemma, which has been at the heart of Israel's identity for at least the last 40 years, is coming to a head. Reframed, the question is really about whether Israel is to be a democracy or a theocracy. It has been moving toward theocracy for political reasons at least since the mid-1980s, as the secular right-wing Likud Party saw that the only way it could maintain its stranglehold on power was to consolidate an alliance with the religious parties. Today, Israel is a divided nation, as divided as it has ever been in its 75 year history. And now, the war with Hamas has brought those divisions to the fore with a new move to eliminate the exemption of Haredi military service. Some points to keep in mind... 

Point 1: Israel was never meant to be the guardian of Orthodox Judaism. Quite the opposite. There were 37 signatories to Israel's Declaration of Independence, and only three were rabbis. The signatories were chosen to represent a broad cross-section of the yishuv (the pre-Independence settlement Jewish society). There is no overt mention of God in the document (unlike the US Declaration of Independence which mentions God in the first paragraph). There was some debate surrounding whether or not to include it. Most of the signatories were strongly against any reference to God, but they finally settled on including the euphemistic term 'Rock of Israel' near the end of the document. They rationalized that secular Jews would understand that phrase in the literal sense as the Land of Israel. The Zionist movement(s) that inspired the creation and building of the modern State was decidedly secular, beginning with Herzl who envisioned a country where Jewish culture could flourish together with European heritage within a society that balances the best of Capitalism tempered by elements of Socialism. Religion did not factor, except in the sense that freedom of religion had to be a basic right. Herzl wrote, "Matters of faith were once and for all excluded from public influence...Whether anyone sought religious devotion in the synagogue, in the church, in the mosque, in the art museum, or in a philharmonic concert, did not concern society. That was his [own] private affair."

Point 2: In 1948 the exemption from military service for the ultra-Orthodox was justified by the need to restore the Torah world that was destroyed in the Holocaust. At the time it made sense on a couple of levels. The Haredim of this era were a relatively small minority of the country. In subsequent decades, the explosion of the birth rate in the religious community combined with their aliyah (immigration to Israel), and the comparative collapse of secular births together with their emigration from Israel, means that one in four young Israelis will be ultra-Orthodox by the end of this decade.

Point 3: Military service in Israel is a central factor of cohesion in Israeli society, reflecting a sense of civic responsibility and creating networks of lifelong interpersonal bonds. It's commonly seen as the great social equalizer, of the rich and the poor, of cultural groups and traditions, of the Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Yemeni. The Haredi exemption did the opposite. It split society in two, creating a division of two main specialized classes of citizens, as it were, distorting the social contract of Israeli society. The exemption from military service for the ultra-Orthodox generated a two-tier society in which haredim were seen as 'privileged', and secular citizens who served in the military increasingly grew to resent them for it. There is the sense that society's burdens are not equally shared, with secular Israelis paying the heavier price. As it was put in a recent article,"...the time has come to strip the Israeli flak jacket from the haredim..."

Point 4: As Israel has become more religious and politically dominated by religious movements - who themselves have become more extreme as exemplified by the push to expand settlement of biblical Judea and Samaria - it has become more alienated from the secular Jewish diaspora. In recent decades Israel has trumpeted its economic independence and strength, at the same time as it has become increasingly isolated within the international community, and direct involvement of the United States in the Middle East has receded. The traditional alliance between Israel and the United States is fraying, and we can expect it will continue to fray as long as successive Israeli (right-wing/religious) governments define themselves in terms that are antagonistic to the west. Some don't think it matters, or that it's temporary. I don't believe it's temporary, nor do I believe tiny Israel can afford to lose the support of the secular Jewish diaspora.

Israel continues shifting away from an open secular democracy toward a socially fragmented, institutionally atrophied, theocracy at its peril. It's splitting the country apart. The so-called Judicial reform proposed last summer was part of it. Israel is at a crossroads. Hopefully, the post-war period will result in a political and cultural reckoning that will re-calibrate the country's navigation system toward the secular democracy and home to all Jews that it was always meant to be.