Mayor Steinberg: "I feel compelled to speak up. I do not recognize the Israel I love"
Mayor Steinberg with members of Sacramento’s Muslim community at City Hall in 2018
If my Jewish community expects me to speak out when Israel is in peril, as I always do, then my entire community expects me to speak the whole truth about the tragedy of what is occurring today in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.
Thomas Friedman’s column that posted on the New York Times website on May 16 is essential reading. I quote the part that is easy for a proud American Jew who loves Israel, takes pride in its birth, and who is passionate about the continued imperative of a Jewish homeland amid unending and worldwide anti-Semitism.
Friedman writes that Hamas is an “organization without a shred of democratic fiber that is dedicated to destroying the Jewish state and imposing a Tehran-like Islamic regime in Palestine."
The second part of Friedman’s argument is more difficult for many American Jews, but every bit as valid and important. He writes: ‘‘Netanyahu’s far-right followers, and the police, went way too far in antagonizing and cracking down on Palestinians in Jerusalem right at one of the most sensitive moments — Muslim holy days at the end of Ramadan and after the Palestinian Authority decided to postpone elections. The rage of the Jerusalem Palestinians added fuel not only to violence in that city, but also kindled the strife between Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews across Israeli towns."
The settlers who shout “death to Arabs” cannot be of the same Jewish faith that taught me that the Jewish people were once the stranger. The right-wing Israeli government whose official policies encourage massive settlements beyond the 1948 boundaries of Israel and conscript millions of Palestinians to inferior status is not a government that I can respect. I cannot be selective in condemning overt discrimination and prejudice.
I am not naive about the plight of a Jewish state in a still hostile region. Survival is paramount. But fighting to take the homes of Israeli Arabs who have lived in them for decades has nothing to do with security. Expanding settlements well beyond secure borders in the name of some extreme Biblical prophesy is antithetical to Jewish values and negates any possibility of peace.
Hamas deserves our condemnation. Israel has the right to defend itself against rockets and external attacks.
Mayor Steinberg speaks at the B’nai Israel synagogue following a mass shooting in Pittsburgh by a gunman targeting Jews attending synagogue
But whether Israel has a true partner for peace among Palestinian leadership is almost beyond the point. That old argument makes It too easy to dismiss grave injustices. Israel can both defend itself and not oppress innocent people. It must never be one or the other.
Hamas’ behavior does not give Israel the right to make the lives of hard-working Palestinian people and their children even harder. The moral culpability of others does not justify Israel losing its moral compass.
I write not expecting that the words of one Jewish American mayor will change much. But we live in a wonderful, diverse community here in Sacramento. We have built many bridges among our Jewish and Muslim neighbors. We have helped each other during times of each other’s tragedies and hardships.
We must speak truth if for no other reason than those friendships and those bridges matter.
The story of the Jewish people is one of hope, heartbreak, and a fight for the best of human values. Our Torah teaches us to treat the stranger as one of our own, for we were once strangers. In fact, we have always been strangers in lands that told us we were less than human
How can the government of a Jewish state not see its neighbors, the Palestinians, as people who seek what we once sought and deserved.
I want to be proud again of my Jewish homeland.
Too many innocent people on all sides are dying. If we can’t face the pain and injustice on all sides and see our side’s part in what’s wrong, how can we ever expect those actually living it to do the same.
It’s hard to imagine a tragedy worse than the death of innocent people and the destruction of their communities. But there may be an even greater consequence for the future of Israel and the Palestinians.
Friedman writes that only ten days ago, Israel was on the verge of a new historic government with Israeli Arab Islamists as part of a new governing coalition. The Islamist party "is nonviolent; recognizes Israel; and is focused on getting Israeli Arabs — particularly Muslim Bedouins — more resources, more police and more jobs for their towns and neighborhoods in Israel."
How can we not speak out? A future where Hamas and the Israeli right wing hold power and perpetuate these terrible events is hardly a future at all. Change is never impossible. Our common and hopeful faiths are based on the fundamental idea that life is precious and that human beings have the power to change. We must never accept as given what we are seeing in the holy land.
Salam. Shalom.
