Blame Has Replaced Understanding

One of the great influences in my life has been the reconciliation of Germany and Israel after the Holocaust. It has stood as a model for people overcoming the need for revenge and transcending hatred.

Now my hopes for an intelligent and fruitful discussion about how Muslims, Christians and Jews might navigate the challenges of the Middle East have been torn asunder.

The distrust in the Middle East, as well as the hopelessness and fear there, has found its way into the once-hopeful Muslim-Jewish Dialogue here. The meeting rooms in Los Angeles have become tense and accusatory. The total assault on Israel as the aggressor and the accusations of genocide and Hitlerism have produced a chasm too deep to navigate goodwill. It is a reminder of the famous hoax of hatred--the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.

Before any truths were rooted out or any investigation conducted, Israel was singly blamed for the atrocities in Jenin. Condemnation was immediate. Issues of justice mattered not.

I attended a local rally on behalf of Palestinians where I saw large signs with a picture of the Star of David next to a swastika. I attended a rally on behalf of Israel where Jewish teenagers equated Yasser Arafat with Hitler.

I have been a loving critic of Israel. With other left-leaning rabbis, I have been outspoken in support of a Palestinian state. We advocated ending the 35-year occupation and have spoken in favor of, if not dismantling the settlements on the West Bank, certainly ending their growth. Our vision was, and continues to be, a dream that someday Arabs and Jews would coexist in those settlements instead of dismantling all of them. These dreams will continue.

But, as the intifada has grown, so have anger and hatred in both the Jewish and Muslim communities locally and across the United States. I thought things would be different here. They are not. Some of my colleagues have left the Muslim-Jewish Dialogue, fearing futility. Now I too must leave. The war is not only in the Middle East; it is here, and sadly so.

The lessons of reconciliation and the so-called lessons of history have been lost on those of us who work daily for justice and an end to violence. We have stopped seeing the humanity of the other.

What I felt was important in our local dialogue was an understanding of one another’s suffering. Arabs have been victimized. Israelis’ identity in large part comes from the Holocaust; they feel victimized on a never-ending scale. We viciously compete with one another now over who has suffered the most and whose cause is the more just.

For a long time, I believed that we on the political left understood oppression and could steer the way in these turbulent times. But I now must admit that with all the hatred and cruelty we have lost our compass.

Once, we interfaith dialoguers protested injustice and strove passionately toward shared goals. We stood up for life and against bloodshed. Now we just blame one another continually.

As a result, our contributions are diminished.

Dialogue and movement would be possible if each of us assumed responsibility for our side’s atrocities. The blame game is now the modus operandi. It is a betrayal of everything our faiths have taught us to believe about God and humanity as we continue on this road of religious destruction.

Anyone in the Jewish world or the Muslim world who cannot see the desperate weighing of needs, fears and bleeding of both sides truly breaches everything we teach our children about fairness and another’s pain. If Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon have failed there, we have failed here. These are the circumstances that pull even the best of friends apart.

Israel and Palestine are multilateral lands. They are sacred to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Visions of justice, peace and love were born there. A rabbi--and dear friend--wrote: “This once beautiful land, through the unremitting violence of Israelis, and Palestinians, has become stained with the blood of the innocent. Each day has brought its own fearful symmetry of revenge.”

I shudder to think that our visions of peace and justice can be lost here. We must break our own symmetry of revenge before it is too late.

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Steven B. Jacobs is the senior rabbi at Temple Kol Tikvah in Woodland Hills.