I received a WhatsApp message the other day asking me to sign a petition demanding the Obama Foundation cancel the scholarship of a student for posting the above commentary on a photo of students demonstrating with Israeli and IDF flags. The people spear-heading the petition felt that “shower time” referred to Auschwitz’s infamous
Zyklon B showers. As the student explained, however, she was speaking of the protesters being morally ugly because of their support for Israel in the recent conflict with Gaza. The shower reference was purportedly meant to indicate that they were stinking of racism or ignorance and so in need of a regular water shower. Her apology indicated she had not intended to reference one of the holocaust death camp’s primary means of disposal, and had someone mentioned it to her privately, she would have taken her post down immediately, because she could understand how it had been misinterpreted and how some would find it offensive.
I would think that should have been the end of the matter, so why the petition? Is it the work of chaos agents doing their best to work us all up into a lather? Or do they think her apology to have been a self-serving cover-up for insane hatred? Was the petition based on paranoia stemming from millennia of persecution? Is such paranoia in some way savvy or is it completely misguided?
This little vignette reminded me of an essay I read recently online at Medium.com by Pluralus, who did a great job of explaining the “languages” of three of the world’s religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Judaism prioritizes survival, individual and national. Christianity prioritizes identity, mostly on an individual level today. Islam prioritizes honor, familial and national. When we hear one religion speaking, or acting in a certain way, we often interpret it through the language of the religion that we speak or have been trained to hear. Discussing these ethnopsychological differences, Pluralus posits that while many nonJews interpret Israel’s response to October 7 as revenge or conquest, Israel sees its response as doing what is required for its survival. Indeed, taking revenge is forbidden by Jewish law. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” meaning it’s not our role to take vengeance in this world.
Reflecting on the various posts on many articles surrounding this issue, I do think Pluralus is on to something. Let’s start with these religions’ views of each other. Christians often talk a good game about respect for other cultures, but secretly (or not so secretly) they want everyone to accept Jesus as their lord and savior. Make that Lord and Savior. Even the most nebulous new age Christian can easily revert into raptures about the blood of the lamb. Or Lamb. Now, formally, even the Catholic Church has recognized Judaism as valid, but that was mostly because John Paul II, of Vatican Two fame, grew up with and was friendly with Jewish people and understood the role of rabid Christian identitarianism on persecuting the Jews and causing the holocaust. Originally, Islam also wanted everyone to convert to Islam—if necessary, at the point of the sword, according to the majority interpretation of the Koran or at least what was once the majority interpretation. Again many individuals and some Islamic religious theoreticians are more ecumenical today, but that goes against the substrate of the text and traditions of at least its first 1000 or so years. They also recognize Jews as the People of the Book and are permitted to intermarry with them, even, I believe, if that person does not convert to Islam. Judaism permits a Jew to convert to Islam to save his life, but a Jew is not permitted to convert one of the idol-worshipping or Trinitarian types of Christianity. As for the more liberal types of Christianity, there is no question of needing to convert because they accept everyone and no longer feel the need to execute anyone for wrong beliefs. However, their beliefs may require others to refrain from acting in self-defense, or in furtherance of other goals.
Jews do not require anyone to convert, and in fact, do their best to dissuade converts. According to Halacha, a potential convert must be turned away three times. Not knowing this a requirement, many potential converts give up after the first try. According to Jewish traditions, righteous people are found everywhere. The Noahide or Universal Laws are only seven in number, because not all the Ten Commandments are held to apply to nonJews, but as a practical matter it is considered that most have accepted as an eighth commandment the respect and honor for parents. So Sabbath observance is not required of the nations, but they have largely adopted it in the form of the forty-hour workweek. Coveting is not prohibited but does tend to lead to the other prohibitions: murder, theft, etc.
Now how can I attempt to assert Israel’s role as the ״light unto the nations,״ the founder of the set of moral principles recognized and adopted by the two other religions discussed here, when the attack on Gaza is happening and most religious Jews are supportive of the IDF even if sympathetic to the plight of those caught between Hamas and others? Can self-defense extend so far? For an assault on their sister, Levi and Shimon thought it proper to slay all the men of the town that permitted it, condoned it, because they didn’t punish the perpetrator themselves. See Genesis 34. As an initial tribal response, I have noticed this emotional reaction, especially when the historical background of that individual includes having lost friends and family to terrorist attacks over the years, and fearing to lose more from among the defenders on the ground, over 100 to date (HYD) who also would rather not have found it necessary to be there. But almost everyone discounts that emotional approach.
Instead, we have the “laws of armed conflict.” As elucidated by Professor Amichai Cohen, these are: to distinguish between military targets and civilians, to measure the proportionality of the response so that death or injury to civilians does not outweigh the value of the military target (highly subjective), and to take feasible and reasonable precautions to avoid injury to civilians. I think it is almost impossible to follow these rules when the opposing force often is not in uniform and has hidden its artillery and weapon depots amongst its civilian population. Nonetheless, to take precaution, the IDF takes measures to call for evacuation before demolishing buildings. It does not deliberately target civilians. As to proportionality, currently at 1:2, there is no magic number. The number is “not a goal or an okay.”Each action or attack is considered individually. The procedures undertaken to minimize the civilian casualties are the standard to judge the action as being justified or not, not the final number. According to the survival-based logic, the force necessary to eliminate the threat is what is required and hence what is justified. Many here would say that killing terrorists (and sometimes their families and neighbors as well) will not serve to eliminate their threat in the long term. To worry about the long term, however, one has to survive long enough to get there.
The laws of armed conflict are based on medieval chivalry, according to Professor Cohen. The primary reason for their promulgation was to prevent the individual soldier from going rogue, and taking his own hostages, for instance. The intent to protect civilians is based on both chivalric principles and to keep popular opinion in one’s favor, especially concerning international support. In training the IDF soldiers, teachings are taken from three areas: Jewish tradition (lacking for the 2,000 years when there was no Jewish army), the history of Zionism, and the pillar of human dignity. Rape or any sort of going rogue is virtually unheard of in the IDF. Despite the anger over October 7 and the hostages, and the last 30+ years of Gazan terror, most Israelis agree with providing humanitarian assistance to the evacuated, said Cohen, but they are still angry because of the perception that the Palestinians support Hamas. Cohen noted that their support for Israel’s enemies detracts from Israeli empathy for them. Israel is dependent on the USA, the UK, and France to have veto power at UN. Thus those protesting against Israel in those venues impinge on Israel’s ability to defend itself, in the thinking of some.
Whereas Gaza City was essentially a fortress, outside Gaza City the IDF is able to be much more precise in targeting terrorist infrastructure. Military lawyers approve the general outline of major offensives but are not there with each battalion judging each action. Having the “most moral” army is not a high bar, said Cohen, noting that in extreme and life-threatening conditions, there are always apt to be violations of the laws of armed conflict. Considering the atrocities of October 7, Israel has been very moderate, Cohen opined, especially considering the last sixteen years as prelude. (We see that captured terrorists have not been executed upon arrest, even those who videotaped themselves doing war crimes.) Not to mention Hezbollah to the north, Houthis to the south, Iran waiting in the wings. And, as others here have suggested, Russia stirring it all up to prevent Biden from winning over “Trump-Putin — making tyranny great again.” Similarly, some think Lebanon and Iran are deterred from attacking based on Israel’s strong response in Gaza.
According to Pluralus, “The Jewish mindset of being under existential threat runs very deep, and has been established in Jewish writings, religious traditions, scholarship and cultural traditions for approximately 2,600 years. The attacks pogroms and exiles that have formed the Jewish perspective include: the Babylonian Exile, oppression during the Persian Period, period of Greek (Hellenistic) domination, Roman destruction of Jerusalem, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, Cossack pogroms in the 1800s, Bolshevik and Russian oppression in the early 1900s, the Arab Revolt of 1929, the Holocaust, the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, the Six-Day war when Arabs attacked in 1967, the Yom Kippur War when Arabs attacked in 1973, endless terror attacks during the first and second Palestinian Intifadas, and now Hamas terror on October 7th,” as well as regular rocket attacks from there and Lebanon for years. A brief synopsis of most Jewish holidays has been encapsulated in a joke: “they tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat!”
Considered from this historical perspective, the Palestinians are viewed by many as part of a Greater Islamic army, unless and until they abjure such genocidal ideology. Instead, at least one of their leaders seems to have doubled down. On December 5, a Gazan leader called for armed attacks on all Israel’s supporters. (Coincidentally, this week in Gaza, the IDF found evidence of Hamas planning for attacks in Europe.) “Now it is our nation's turn to pressure the Americans to stop this war,” the head of the political department of Hamas abroad, Sami Abu Zuhri argued. "We need violent acts against American and British interests everywhere, as well as the interests of all the countries that support the occupation.” These comments were translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
Perhaps that call to arms makes you inclined to join their side, make their arguments for them, and so surrender yourself to their totalitarian agenda (no voting, few rights for women, little religious diversity). Others, however, may be more inclined to say, maybe those espousing such an ethos do not deserve their own state at this time, and certainly not their own military. Yet others think they can negotiate for a more peaceful and just world with Jews and Palestinians who reject Hamas. Or not.
Jews do tend to paranoia, but maybe there is reason for that.