What Will Become of Us, of Americans, If We Continue on This Path?

In 2006, David Grossman addressed a crowd that had gathered on November 4. November 4 is the
date that Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. It is important to note, if
you read through the entire speech (and please, please do so),
that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was in the crowd.

And
these are some of the reasons that, in an amazingly short time, Israel
has degenerated into heartlessness, real cruelty toward the weak, the
poor, and the suffering. Israel displays indifference to the hungry,
the elderly, the sick, and the handicapped, equanimity in the face of,
for example, trafficking in women, or the exploitation of foreign
workers in conditions of slave labor, and in the face of profound,
institutionalized racism toward its Arab minority. When all this happens
as if it were perfectly natural, without outrage and without protest, I
begin to fear that even if peace comes tomorrow, even if we eventually
return to some sort of normality, it may be too late to heal us
completely.

This diary is not intended as a criticism
of Israel. It is intended as an appreciation of a beautiful speech that
is itself a reflection of what happens to a country, to a people, who
are continually at war.

In that respect, I read it as an
opportunity to ask what will become of us, of Americans, if we continue
on this path that we have set out upon, or, if you prefer, that has
been laid out for us by those who seek to foment continued division
among Muslim and Christian, Muslim and Jew, Jew and Christian, and all
of the rest of us who do not count ourselves among any of these
religions, but who do consider ourselves to be Americans.

In
the past 100 years, I wonder how many armed conflicts we have engaged
in. (Anyone? I know there's an historian out there who can give me that
exact figure.) And I'm not just talking about our official wars. I
mean the unofficial ones, too. The "police actions" in the Dominican
Republic; the interference in elections in Chile; the intervention in
the former Yugoslavia.

Our need to take up arms, to have an
enemy, to step into the perceived "fray," regardless of whether it, in
fact, exists.

How much of our refusal to deal with our own
racism, with poverty, with the suffering of our own people is a direct
result of the constant distraction of war? Do we not care that
immigrants toil in our cities for close to nothing? That our toys and
knick-knacks are made by slave labour? That women in this country slide
ever closer to their former status as chattel? That our elderly choose
whether to pay for prescriptions or food?

One of
the harsh things that this last war sharpened for us was the feeling
that in these times there is no king in Israel. That our leadership is
hollow, both our political and military leadership. I am not speaking
now of the obvious fiascos in the conduct of the war, or of the way the
rear echelon of the army was left to its own devices. Nor am I
speaking of our current corruption scandals, great and small. My
intention is to make it clear that the people who today lead Israel are
unable to connect Israelis with their identity, and certainly not with
the healthy, sustaining, inspiring parts of Jewish identity. I mean
those parts of identity and memory and values that can give us strength
and hope, that can serve as antidotes to the attenuation of mutual
responsibility and of our connection to the land, that can grant
meaning to our exhausting, desperate struggle for survival.

Today,
Israel's leadership fills the husk of its regime primarily with fears
and intimidations, with the allure of power and the winks of the
backroom deal, with haggling over all that is dear to us. In this
sense, our leaders are not real leaders. They are certainly not the
leaders that a people in such a complicated, disoriented state need.
Sometimes, it seems that the public expression of their thinking, of
their historical memory, of their vision, of what really is important
to them fills only the tiny space between two newspaper headlines. Or
between two police investigations.

Who can lead if
one's leadership comprises the constant refrain of "Be afraid. Be very
afraid?" Who can lead if one's response to people tearing themselves
apart is a passive apathy? Who can lead if one seeks to stoke that
anger? Who can lead if one's finger is constantly pointing at some
other and emphasizing the differences rather than the commonalities? Who
can lead if one asks others to do what one is not willing to do
oneself?

I am not just talking about the President; he is not among
those who do some of the things I have alluded to. But we do have people
amongst us who want to step forward and lead ... what? Lynch mobs? What
is the next step for these people? Will they follow Sarkozy,
and expel those he deems less than human?
(For Sarkozy, there is no excuse: he knows what expulsion leads to.)

Is that not what Arizona is doing now? Where, exactly, do they
expect the people they "round-up" to go?

We have no
leadership. We have corruption. And fear. We have no history. We have
no vision. We have only the blaring of headlines that distract us; we
look away from the bloodshed and the suffering of others in order to
participate in the pornography of celebrity, of the news of the
fantastical, the marvelous, the grotesque.

We have become Rome at
its decline. Distracted by panem et circenses, calling for the
blood of the gladiators on our television screens, crying out to see
our internal enemies rounded up, humiliated, perhaps even... what? What
is that those who oppose the mosque want? Blood vengeance? We mock the
poor. We deny quality education to some of our youngest and brightest.
We turn a blind eye to the fact that many of our neighbors are hungry.

But
Grossman reminds us:

Just as there is unavoidable
war, there is also unavoidable peace. Because we no longer have any
choice. We have no choice, and they have no choice. And we need to set
out toward this unavoidable peace with the same determination and
creativity with which we set out to an unavoidable war. Anyone who
thinks there is an alternative, that time is on our side, does not
grasp the profound, dangerous process that is now well underway.

Peace is possible. Our administration tells us that it is
not--at least not yet. That we must be ever vigilant against those who
would destroy us. But it is that constant vigilance that does destroy
us. We lose a part of our souls each time we stand in line at a
security checkpoint. What must we do to make peace a reality? If war is
the not the answer, what then must be done to find another solution?
We lose our souls when we compare
Muslims to Nazis . (As I asked a former history colleague last
night: How long before we repeat the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 and
demand that Muslims wear "distinguishing signs?")

Again,
Grossman:

From where I stand at this moment, I
request, call out to all those listening -to young people who came back
from the war, who know that they are the ones who will have to pay the
price of the next war; to Jewish and Arab citizens; to the people of
the right and the people of the left: stop for a moment. Look over the
edge of the abyss, and consider how close we are to losing what we have
created here. Ask yourselves if the time has not arrived for
us to come to our senses, to break out of our paralysis, to demand for
ourselves, finally, the lives that we deserve to live.

Amen.