[Peace-discuss] Speech by Director Emeritus of Harvard Hillel

[David Green]

Recently Lawrence Summers, the President of Harvard,
in so many words accused the divestment movement of
anti-Semitism. Following is a speech given at Harvard
with a very different tone, whatever the speaker's
(unstated) tactical views may be. (But there are
statements here that I do not agree with).

THE DIASPORA AND THE INTIFADA 

The responsibility of American Jews. 

Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold 


A speech delivered at Harvard Hillel, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, April 
14, 2002. 


 I’ve been a Zionist for about seventy years. When I
was eight years 
old I was already reading a book about Yemenite Jews
who had settled in 
Palestine. I grew up in a traditional home, and the
prayers that I 
recited daily have at least thirty references to Zion.
Living in 
anti-Semitic Poland, I knew that we were in exile and
I was longing for Zion. 

When I came out of the concentration camps I
discovered that I was the 
sole survivor of my family. Faced with the choice of
going to Israel or 
America, I accepted the opportunity of a safe life in
America against 
my preference for Israel. In many ways I still feel
more at home in 
Israel. 

In November of 1947, when the fate of Israel was
discussed at the 
United Nations, I was in Cincinnati at the national
meeting of young 
Zionists. When the news reached us that they had voted
to partition Palestine 
into a Jewish and a Palestinian state we went out and
danced in the 
street for joy. 

In 1948 I volunteered to fight in Israel, but I was
rejected. I had no 
experience in handling weapons, and they were looking
for young war 
veterans. 

I spent the year of 1955–1956 in Israel. That spring,
Israel was 
preparing to respond to the repeated attacks of
Fedayeen who came from Egypt 
and terrorized the border kibbutzim. I went on
bitzurim, building 
fortification trenches. 

In short, throughout my conscious life I have been, as
I now am, 
devoted to Israel. But my devotion, which began with
unquestioning support 
for the policies of the Israeli government and the
actions of Israeli 
society, became increasingly critical beginning with
the building of 
settlements in the West Bank and especially during the
Lebanon War in 1982. 
I felt that the settlers were taking advantage of
twice-defeated and 
helpless refugees. I wondered, where is the compassion
and generosity 
that is traditionally attributed to Jews? As a
religious Jew I was also 
offended by the use of Biblical texts to justify the
outrage. I was 
convinced that the accumulated hatred from the
persistent injury and insult 
eventually would fuel the fires of revolt and
vengeance. Our rabbis 
taught “Aveira goreret aveira”—“One sin leads to
another;” the wish to 
keep the West Bank led to the war in Lebanon. Ever
since then, my devotion 
to Israel has been informed by what I learned from
reading literature 
about the conflict, including the Israeli press, and
from personal 
experience during my frequent visits to Israel. 

Now to the subject of my talk. Today I want to discuss
several 
questions: What is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
about? Can it be resolved 
with power alone? And what is the role of American
Jews in this 
conflict? 

As to the first question, the conflict is about
Palestinian 
self-determination. When the West Bank came under
Israeli occupation in 1967, it 
was populated by Palestinians—most of them refugees
from the 1948 war. 
The Oslo agreements kindled their hope for a sovereign
state in Gaza and 
the West Bank, covering 22 percent of the original
area of Palestine. 
The building of Israeli settlements in parts of the
West Bank has 
frustrated their hopes. At this point, three
generations of Palestinians have 
lived for thirty-five years under Israeli occupation,
and the 
persistent building of settlements on their land has
led to a violent conflict. 

The current Intifada erupted after Israeli-Palestinian
negotiations for 
a comprehensive settlement failed. The precipitating
event was Ariel 
Sharon’s visit in September 2000 to the Al Aksa Mosque
accompanied by a 
thousand people, among them members of the Likud party
and countless 
policemen. Sharon’s visit was calculated to emphasize
Israeli sovereignty 
over the area of the Muslim shrine. Israeli security
warned that the 
visit would spark an explosion. Yasser Arafat even
asked Prime Minister 
Ehud Barak not to authorize the visit. The following
day, Palestinians 
in Jerusalem and in the territories protested the
visit. The police 
responded with fire, killing several Palestinians and
wounding a large 
number of them. Historians will debate whether that
visit started the 
revolt; as far as I am concerned these events were not
coincidental. 

When Sharon was elected Prime Minister, his commitment
to keep the 
settlements precluded the possibility of a peaceful
resolution of the 
conflict. To fulfill his promise to bring peace and
security to Israel, 
Sharon reverted to his objective in the Lebanon War in
1982: “to crush the 
PLO and drive its remnants out of Lebanon.” In this
instance, his 
purpose was to crush the PLO, destroy the Palestinian
Authority, and exile 
Arafat. 

To gain perspective on the conduct of the present
conflict it is 
important to review the war in Lebanon in 1982, in
which the main actors, 
objectives, and methods were the same as in the
present conflict. Sharon 
had been authorized by the Begin government to go
forty kilometers into 
Lebanon to silence the PLO forces that were attacking
Israel. Instead, 
he went all the way to Beirut. Convinced that a
radical solution was in 
order, he disregarded his promise to the cabinet and
turned a limited 
operation that was to last twenty-four hours into a
full-scale war that 
took the Israeli army all the way to Beirut to
confront Arafat and the 
PLO. 

There were officers who were uncomfortable with the
extended campaign. 
Professor Benny Morris, in his monumental book
Righteous Victims, 
describes the meeting of brigade commanders at the
planning of the assault 
on Beirut: 

General Drori presented the draft plan at a meeting of
brigade 
commanders. A number of them raised objections . . .
Col. Eli Geva, a highly 
esteemed officer, voiced objections of principle: What
was the point of 
the proposed assault? Was it worth the Israeli and
Arab lives? A few 
days later, Geva’s opposition crystallized. . . . He
informed his 
superiors that he wished to be relieved of command of
his brigade if it was 
ordered to advance on Beirut, and offered to continue
to fight . . . as a 
private. The offer was rejected, and after [Gen.
Rafael] Eitan, Sharon, 
and Begin failed to persuade him to back down, he was
cashiered. 

When the war in Lebanon ended, Israel had suffered 650
dead and close 
to 3,000 wounded. The PLO lost about 1,000. There were
also many 
Palestinians and Lebanese who died in the bombardment
of Beirut. Ze’ev Shiff, 
Israel’s leading military analyst, and Ehud Ya’ari,
the foremost 
foreign affairs commentator, described the invasion:
“Born of the ambition of 
one willful, reckless man [Sharon], Israel’s 1982
invasion of Lebanon 
was anchored in delusion, propelled by deceit, and
bound to end in 
calamity.” 

An early example of Sharon’s tendency to resort to
drastic measures is 
his treatment of the people in the border village of
Qibya. On the 
night of October 12, 1953, a grenade was thrown into a
house in the 
settlement of Yehud, killing a woman and two children.
The retaliation was 
carried out by an army unit under the command of Major
Sharon. They went 
into the border village of Qibya and killed sixty of
its inhabitants. 
Several days later Foreign Minister [Moshe] Sharett
noted in his diary, 
“A reprisal of this magnitude . . . had never been
carried out before. I 
paced back and forth in my room perplexed and
completely depressed, 
feeling helpless.” 

In addition to the moral outrage, one has to ask what
were the 
aftereffects of that butchery? The sixty people had
relatives and these 
relatives were bound by Islamic rules of blood
redemption. The policy of 
massive retaliation has done more to build the PLO
than to deter it. 
II

To return to the present conflict: The repeated
suicide bombing attacks 
that murdered countless civilians in the cities and
towns of Israel 
turned the Intifada into ubiquitous terror. Israelis
became prisoners in 
their own homes. The shattering experience of almost
daily seeing men, 
women, and children blown up beyond recognition has
had a traumatizing 
affect upon the people of Israel. In addition to
causing pain and 
sorrow, suicide bombers are emotionally unsettling.
Turning oneself into a 
projectile is an eerie notion. Suicide bombing also
prevents punishment 
of the perpetrator and deflects it onto others. It is
therefore not 
surprising that, faced with this surreal and
frightening situation, 
Israelis gave Sharon their support in the hope that he
would free them from 
it. 

Israel had to respond to the suicide bombings. The
question was one of 
extent. Sharon again chose radical measures aimed at
the destruction of 
the Palestinian Authority, which from his point of
view was conceived 
in the sin of the Oslo accords. At this point in the
conflict, the idea 
that one can destroy the cadres of Palestinian
fighters is tragically 
naive. No amount of mental gymnastics can change the
fact that young 
Palestinians become suicide bombers because they have
reached a point of 
despair, of having nothing to lose. The only way to
eliminate the 
suicide bombings is to eliminate the conditions that
give rise to them. 

Sharon’s war against the Palestinians is burdened, as
it was in 
Lebanon, by his obsessive hatred for Arafat. Sharon’s
public regret that he 
did not kill Arafat in Lebanon, and his repeated
expressions of contempt 
for him, give the impression of a man engaged in a
personal vendetta, 
out of control. No statesman would have allowed
himself such huffing and 
puffing in public. 

One might ask, did Sharon have a peaceful alternative?
His expressed 
goal of routing the PLO and its leader would preclude
such a possibility. 
But in fact, peaceful solutions were offered twice and
were rejected by 
him. On January 2, 2002, Hanna Kim of Ha’aretz
reported about the 
hudna, an armistice agreement from Muslim culture
proposed by Eyal Ehrlich, 
a businessman who in the process of his business
dealings witnessed a 
peaceful resolution of a bloody dispute between two
clans in Amman, 
Jordan. There he learned that to arrive at a
reconciliation, a delegation 
of notables must be sent to express regret for the
spilling of blood and 
to propose a cease-fire for a limited period called a
hudna. During the 
hudna the parties negotiate an end to the dispute. 

Mr. Ehrlich consulted with his friend and business
partner, the former 
Palestinian Knesset member Abdulwahab Darawshe, and
the two of them met 
with Professor Joseph Ginat, an expert in the area of
intra-Islamic 
conflicts. The three of them then wrote a letter to
Mr. Sharon to propose 
the idea of the hudna, but they received no answer.
President Moshe 
Katzav of Israel and Mr. Arafat were both prepared to
participate in the 
hudna, but Sharon did not even bother to answer the
letter. When the 
diplomatic correspondent for Voice of Israel revealed
the plan, the Prime 
Minister’s office issued a response calling the plan
“stupid” and “a 
trap for fools.” 

At about the same time, transportation minister
Ephraim Sneh proposed a 
year of quiet in the Intifada in return for a yearlong
freeze on Jewish 
settlements. Sneh presented his initiative after he
had checked it out 
with Arafat and his people. This proposal was also
rejected by Sharon. 
To me that can only mean that Sharon did not want
peace. What did he 
want? And why? 

Sharon’s commitment to keep the settlements, which he
had encouraged 
and helped to build, left him with no peaceful
solution. His radical 
solution to eliminate the Palestinians as a threat to
Israel had also 
failed. The first Intifada resulted in a death ratio
of 1 Israeli to 10 
Palestinians. The ratio of this Intifada is 1 to 3. In
recent skirmishes 
Palestinian retaliations have equaled their losses.
Without a peaceful 
solution, the present phase of the Intifada already
bodes ill for Israel. 
Sharon’s excessive use of power not only did not solve
the problem, it 
stimulated the Palestinians to fight with greater
determination and 
resourcefulness. 

Is Arafat responsible for the terrorism? The answer is
yes. I also 
believe that his objective has been the destruction of
Israel. Should 
Israel negotiate with Arafat? He is the elected leader
of the Palestinians. 
But he lies! And yet all leaders in a military
conflict lie. Can he be 
trusted to live up to his promises? Only if the
Palestinians have 
something to lose and Israel is powerful militarily.
What about the suicide 
bombers? They have to be recognized for what they are.
They are an 
indication of the degree of Palestinian hopelessness
and desperation. These 
young people are faced with a bleak future. They are
deeply aggrieved, 
and many of them are willing to die to hurt the Israel
that has hurt 
them for many years. Without any gain, Arafat dares
not demean their 
sacrifice. At this point it is hard to tell who
controls whom. 

As to the puzzling question of why Arafat did not
accept Prime Minister 
Barak’s generous offer at the Camp David negotiations:
Having read 
books by two of the Israeli negotiators—former
minister of justice Yosi 
Bailin and Gilad Sher, a personal aide to Barak—I have
come to the 
conclusion that his rejection may have been justified.
Regrettably, these 
books are not yet available in English. Both of them
point to the negative 
aspect of the initial meetings between Barak and
Arafat. Despite his 
repeated emphasis on a partnership with Arafat, Barak
arrived with a plan 
for negotiations which he imposed on the Palestinians,
ignoring their 
expectations. The Palestinians expected that Barak
would first fulfill 
the Wye River Plantation agreements made with Benjamin
Netanyahu that 
called for ceding land to the Palestinians, but Barak
decided to put this 
off until the final agreement. They expected a halt to
the building of 
new settlements during the negotiations, and they
expected that Barak 
would complete the release of prisoners begun by
Netanyahu. But Barak’s 
conception of “working together” was that they accept
his prescriptions 
and deadlines. The Palestinian leadership that had
been treated with 
condescension for so many years did not take kindly to
the doubletalk of 
partnership and dictate. The resultant loss of trust
may have led to 
the Intifada. 

It is clear that Israel could not have prevailed
without the use of 
force. It is equally clear that Israel must continue
to be militarily 
powerful. And I hope that it will also become clear to
the Israeli 
government and society that the conflict cannot be
solved by power alone. By 
what then? By removing the basis for the conflict. 

The settlements on the West Bank have been a grave and
costly mistake 
that has done much harm to Israel. Can Israel allow a
failed adventure 
to determine its fate? Most Israelis favor the
creation of a Palestinian 
state in the West Bank and Gaza. Will Sharon rise
above ideology and 
accept this mandate of his people? Meanwhile, it seems
that a solution 
may come from an unexpected source. 

Palestinians’ willingness to die for their cause seems
to have had an 
influence on the restive youth in neighboring Arab
nations, a 
development that threatens to destabilize the
governments of these countries. To 
avoid such a possibility the Saudi leadership has
proposed an 
international conference to find a comprehensive
solution to the conflict. It is 
possible that the greater good of the whole Middle
East and the Western 
world may, for once, put an end to the conflict and
save both the 
Palestinians and the Israelis from destruction. Such a
conference would also 
have to deal with the extensive demonization of Jews
in the media and 
press of Arab nations. In the twentieth century, we
saw how accumulated 
hatred leads to uncontrolled violence. 

It is important to note that the Saudi proposal and
its acceptance by 
other Arab nations is a reversal of their defiant
position after the Six 
Day War. At the summit of Arab nations in Khartoum
that followed 
Israel’s victory, they declared that the Arab world
would unite to “wipe out 
the consequences of the aggression” and “assure the
withdrawal of 
Israel’s aggressive forces from the Arab lands.” The
Arab states committed 
themselves to “no peace with Israel,” “no recognition
of Israel,” and 
“no agreement to negotiations with Israel.” Their
defiance fed on the 
myth that the very existence of a Jewish state in the
Arab Middle East is 
an aggression. The present position of the Arab
nations is a reversal 
of the Khartoum stance. This welcome change is the
result of 
geopolitical necessity. It is a change that should
help Israel to overcome several 
dangerous myths: that the Arabs cannot change, that
they understand 
only power, and that time is on Israel’s side. 
III

Now to the question of what the role of American Jews
should be in this 
conflict. There is no elected body that is authorized
to speak on 
behalf of American Jews. The Conference of Presidents
of Major Jewish 
Organizations, with a right-of-center orientation, has
presumed to fill that 
vacuum, and they have consistently supported the
policies of right-wing 
Israeli governments in the name of American Jews. The
American Israeli 
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) exists for the
purpose of lobbying 
Congress to support Israeli governmental policies and
actions. These 
oligarchies have persistently reduced Israel to their
ideological preference 
by ignoring its critical opposition. Most American
Jews have accepted 
their view and are zealously opposed to criticism,
ostensibly because it 
would bring down the roof of American support of
Israel. 

One might have hoped that religious Jews who pray
several times daily 
for peace and who affirm the traditional teachings
about the supreme 
worth of human life would rise up against the
subjugation and humiliation 
of the Palestinians. Most regrettably, the opposite
has been the case. 

There is hardly any orthodox or conservative rabbi who
has raised his 
voice against the moral travesty of the settlements or
the persistent 
occupation of the Palestinians. In their sermons,
these rabbis 
persistently justify the policies of the Sharon
government, just as they have in 
the past supported the policies of Netanyahu. It seems
as if the 
ideology of the settlers with regard to the
Palestinians and the ideology of 
narrow tribalism have infected their supporters in
Israel and abroad, 
particularly the religious communities. One has the
feeling that the 
Jewish people have been mortgaged to the welfare of
the settlements. 

The question of criticism came to a head in 1988, in
the second year of 
the first Intifada. In his Rosh Hashanah message of
that year, Prime 
Minister Yitzhak Shamir warned American Jews that “we
cannot afford the 
luxury of public disagreement, or public criticism
that plays right into 
the hands of our enemies.” To this day I fail to
understand how a prime 
minister of a democratic nation with an active
political opposition 
would attempt to silence Jewish criticism abroad.
Israel has been in the 
news more than any other nation its size. The American
press and media 
have persistently covered Israeli politics and action.
The English 
edition of Ha’aretz, Israel’s leading newspaper, is
sold in Harvard Square. 
So wherein the danger of American Jewish criticism? Is
it the criticism 
that is harmful, or the policies and actions that are
criticized? But 
Shamir’s warning found a powerful following among
American Jews. These 
people have failed to see that having become
apologists for the actions 
of the Israeli government, they have also become
culpable for its 
misdeeds. 

In our time, the intolerance of criticism has reached
the hysterical 
proportion of calling for a boycott of leading
American newspapers, 
including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times,
and the Washington 
Post, as well as other media outlets. On May 23, 2002,
the New York Times 
reported organized punishment of media for what was
viewed as 
pro-Palestinian coverage of the conflict. The
criticism was led by Rabbis Haskel 
Lookstein and Avi Weiss, both of New York. These
critics seem to be 
saying, “Don’t tell us that thousands of houses were
destroyed,” “Don’t 
tell us that civilians were killed,” “Don’t tell us
that delays at 
checkpoints have resulted in the deaths of sick
people,” “Tell us the news as 
we like it.” How pathetic! Expressions of sympathy for
the suffering of 
Palestinians have become a major issue. An example of
this intolerance 
was the booing of Paul Wolfowitz, the U.S. deputy
secretary of defense 
who spoke on behalf of President Bush at the large
pro-Israel rally, 
when he acknowledged that “innocent Palestinians are
suffering and dying 
in great numbers as well.” 

It is painful to see how much effort and money is
being spent on an 
attempt to impose upon the media and the American
people an ideological 
spin on the conflict. It may well be that the
prolonged immersion in the 
Holocaust and its misuse for political purposes has
come back to haunt 
us with a vengeance. For a long time the identity of
American Jews was 
deeply influenced by Israel and by the Holocaust.
Israel represents the 
Jews who fought and won a state and have the power and
will to defend 
it. But the Holocaust has bred an insecurity that
dwarfs even that 
power. When Israel is challenged, that insecurity
surfaces to overwhelm the 
Jewish people in Israel and in America. Only this
hypothesis explains 
how an otherwise generous and sensitive people have
acted against their 
proclivities, their moral beliefs, and their long
tradition of welfare. 

The minority whose love for Israel prompts them to
provide a critical 
perspective have a difficult but important function to
perform. The 
critical opposition in Israel is alive and active. A
recent demonstration 
at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv brought together more than
50,000 people. 
The combatants’ letter opposed to serving in the
territories, signed by 
463 officers of the Israeli Army, is a deeply moving
expression of 
conscience and courage that should serve as an
inspiration to us. Our role 
is to support the forces in Israel that want to make
sure that, in its 
battle for security, Israel retains its sanity and
soul. In this task we 
have to organize the disparate groups throughout this
country into a 
vocal force against the “see no evil, hear no evil”
majority of American 
Jews. 

American Jews, who are the largest Diaspora community,
have to discover 
their own focus, independent from Israel. We are not
the Galutniks that 
Zionism in its earlier phase belittled as people who
prefer the 
fleshpots of Egypt to a courageous and independent
life in Palestine. This is 
an ideological distortion of Jewish history. We are
the proud heirs of 
the Diaspora communities that have been a normal part
of Jewish life 
for 2,724 years, ever since the kingdom of Israel was
destroyed and its 
people exiled. The Jews of the Babylonian and later of
the Persian 
Diaspora collected and edited the Torah that the
priest and scribe Ezra 
brought to Jerusalem, on which the people covenanted
to live. That was when 
the Jewish people became the people of the Book whose
continuity no 
longer depended on territory or Temple. 

The Diaspora has been a creative form of independent
communal life in 
every part of the world. The Diaspora produced the
Talmud, the 
foundation of Jewish law that structured and governed
our communal and personal 
life. The Diaspora gave us Jewish philosophy, poetry,
ethical 
literature, and mysticism. The eastern European
Diaspora created Hasidism, the 
Hebrew Haskalah, and Zionism. It was the Jews of the
Diaspora who 
settled in Palestine and created the Jewish state.
Throughout its history, 
the Diaspora recognized that it was but a part of
Jewish life and 
accorded Zion a place of honor, and prayed for its
restoration and welfare. We 
have to reject the notion that we are failed Zionists
or that our role 
is to support, submissively and uncritically, the
policies of the 
Israeli government. 

American Jews have to link up with that proud history
of the Diaspora. 
They have to rediscover their cultural, religious, and
political 
gravity. Only then will the Diaspora be ready to enter
into a mutually 
creative relationship with Israel. At present, most
American Jews who do not 
read Hebrew have no idea of the many-faceted
literature on every aspect 
of life that is being created in Israel. News coverage
acquaints us 
mainly with Israel’s problems. Hopefully, the
impressive network of Jewish 
learning at American universities will produce an
informed 
intelligentsia that will assume leadership in Jewish
life. 

But these are hopes for the future. At present, the
task of Jews who 
are committed to the welfare of Israel is to hold up
the critical mirror 
for Americans and Israelis. This is a thankless but
important task. We 
have to admit that not all of the people who criticize
the way Israel 
has dealt with the Palestinians are anti-Semites.
There are enough 
anti-Semites in the world without them. We also have
to admit that not all 
those who side with the Palestinians in their conflict
against Israel do 
so because they dislike Jews. 

A nation as powerful as Israel has to accept
responsibility for its 
policies and for its actions. It is not American
Jewish criticism that has 
created sympathy for the Palestinians. It is the
suppression of 
millions of Palestinians over thirty-five years that
has done it. It is a pity 
that the Israeli government has never expressed regret
for the harm it 
has done to the Palestinians during the occupation. An
ounce of 
compassion would go a long way. 

Those of us who criticize Israel do so because Israel
is an important 
part of our identity, because criticism is an integral
part of our 
traditional culture. While it is true that American
Jews do not provide the 
main critical perspective for Israel—that is done very
well by liberal 
Israelis and by Ha’aretz and Yediot Ahronot, two
important Israeli 
newspapers—ours is the critical perspective of
American Jews. That, too, is 
important, for us as well as for Israel. We offer it
as an expression 
of respect and love for the people of Israel. 

I want to conclude with the words of the prophet
Micah: “He has told 
you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires
of you: Only to do 
justice and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with
your God.” By all 
means, humbly.<


Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold is director emeritus, Harvard
Hillel. 



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