High Ground

By Barbara Sofer
Oct. 15, 2003

Hateful e-mail has been arriving lately-not personal hate mail, but such strong expressions of abhorrence from Jew to Jew that I’m alarmed. Locked in a wearisome, gory struggle with the Palestinians, we’re turning inward to maim ourselves. This has to stop.

These verbal attacks aren’t one-sided salvos. Just as quickly as an English-Hebrew keyboard shifts and alters the keyboard from right to left and left to right, so does the antipathy flow from side to side.

Let us remember who the enemy is.

One recent message concluded that the Israeli left is bent on the destruction of Israel and complains that the word “traitor” is off-limits in Israeli discourse. Another e-mail blames “occupation” for all of our ills. If only the settlements—and by extension the settlers-- would disappear.

Let’s review how the enemy views us.

The last mass murder terror attacks were Bus 2 and the Hillel Caf? in Jerusalem, Tzrifin junction, Negoha village, followed by the Maxim restaurant in Haifa. On Bus 2, August 19 if the date is already a foggy recall, a terrorist positioned himself in the middle of a bus filled with families returning from the Kotel. 23 murdered, including babies. Eight soldiers were murdered at a bus stop near their base on September 9. That evening, a second genocide murderer entered the Hillel Caf? , a kosher caf? on a trendy street, killing seven men and women. The clientele were a mix of Jerusalemites, some modern Orthodox , some not. On Rosh Hashana, a terrorist murdered two Israelis, including a seven month old baby, in the Negoha village near Hebron. Then, a mass murder took place on October 4, on Saturday, Shabbat Tshuva, in a non-kosher restaurant owned by and patronized by a mixed crowd of Israelis and Arabs. The restaurant was described as a statement of coexistence. Whole families, from babies to grandparents, perished. As on Bus 2 and the Hillel Caf?, in Haifa, Israeli Arabs were among the injured and murdered.

Were the terrorists set out to convey the obvious message before Yom Kippur that we Israelis are one nation they couldn’t have selected more horrifically appropriate targets. Right or left, observant or secular, young or old, high officers and draft evaders—those who favor a secular state and those who think the only constitution should be the Torah—feminists and those who would ban women from Knesset lists —the enemy couldn’t care less. Holding ultra-leftist or supra nationalist views is no shield from the nails and bolts, the concussive waves and the burns.

There are no degrees of separation in Israel. I personally know people injured in the first two bombings in Jerusalem, and my cousin J’s best friend was murdered in Haifa. This friend had phoned J every year on his birthday and recited my cousin’s haftara. My cousin returned the gesture. Both J and his friend devoted their lives to the national defense and education. Was the murdered family making a statement about peace by eating at a mixed restaurant or were they just out to celebrate the Sabbath with their large, energetic, patriotic family the way they saw fit? Does it matter?

Outraged is how many of us feel when we hear reports—even second-hand—of Israelis who demonstrate against Israel on American campuses. Likewise, hearing the gleeful plans of young adults—children of friends—to establish illegal settlements crazes many of us with frustration.

Let us not forget what Abraham Lincoln as he tried to avoid the Civil War, referred to as “the mystic chords of memory, stretching from each battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone. Israelis on all sides have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice. Israelis on all sides are committed to bringing up children and grandchildren here and yearn for peace. The remorseful statements and the hateful accusations after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin should be a lesson to us all to guard our tongues against unbridled hatred.

Left bashing right and right bashing left is easier than finding a solution. None of us has the privilege of self-righteousness. Each side has had an opportunity to try out its methods for bringing peace. Neither side has succeeded because the leaders of the enemy do not want a just peace. Left-bashers conveniently forget that Israel has had right wing Prime Ministers for 21 of the last 26 years. Right-bashers overlook the failure of Oslo and of Barak at Camp David. 893 Israelis have died. On a recent drive North, I winced over how many new landmarks of death have been added to the national landscape. Can we ever drive by Beit Lid, the Mozart Caf? north of Haifa, the Nahariya train station without associating them with the horror that took place there? At the same time, how many once proud tourist sites have deteriorated for lack of support from tourists, particularly from abroad? The hotel we stayed in didn’t even bother to print holiday schedules in English.

We need to be supporting each other. We have plenty to disagree about---and we should do so vocally but respectfully. Hate has no place. Bashing has no place. Insulting has no place. Here’s to stifling—not dissent, but bile.

There’s a lesson we can learn from those most effected by the horror. Benjamin Philips, the local organizer for the Hineni organization, recently returned from trip to England he’d organized for young adult terror survivors.The Jewish community hosted them for a vacation from the daily stress of living here. He told me about the group’s visit to the London Eye, a tourist attraction like a giant Ferris wheel with stunning views of the city. The 18 young survivors came from different terror attacks—from bus bombings and restaurants and street attacks. They were from a variety of religious backgrounds and political opinions. They had a lot in common, their youth, first of all, and then the medical advice they swapped and the recurring nightmares. When they queued up for the London Eye, one of the young men, was unable to board. Ever since he was blown up in a caf?, he feels claustrophobic in closed areas. He stood on the platform and wistfully watched the others. Suddenly a thought occurred to him: if the others, who had been through what he’d experienced, could overcome their phobias, so could he. . The others could lend him their strength. Supported by their cheers-he ran forward and leaped into the cabin. Up, up, up—high above the low ground-triumphant, not oblivious to the pains of the past, but ready to face the future.