The Jewish-American Dilemma

WOULD you fight for your country? Right or wrong? Vietnam diluted our absolute allegiance to our country and made these questions harder to answer. For American Jews, mired in the United States' crisis of confidence, the question of support for Israel is even more difficult. Once we refuse to follow "America right or wrong," how can we support Israel when it seems to be in the wrong?

This question, and the dramatic manner in which it has been raised in recent months, has hit the American Jewish community hard and has made it clear that we are wandering in a moral desert. Confronted with reports of atrocities on the West Bank, American Jews find their liberal sympathies in conflict with their Jewish identity.

On the one hand, we are intensely attached to the Jewish homeland, and rightly so. Our history is a history of persecution, culminating in the Nazi Holocaust. During the Holocaust Jews were led like sheep to slaughter, with no outcry from any nation, and--with the notable exception of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising--with little resistance. This calamity convinced many Jews that a homeland was necessary to insure our survival in a hostile world.

After decades of fighting the Arab nations to survive, Israel won--but now in the light of its success, finds itself as the oppressor. The recent crisis has dramatized the plight of Palestinians living in the occupied territories and their valid claims for statehood. Liberal Jews watching West Bank scenes on TV can't help but sympathize with the Palestinians, and wonder why they should exempt Israel from the standards they hold for the United States.

ISRAEL should not be free from critical examination, but it also should not be censured for exercising its right as a state to keep order within its territories. Obviously the Palestinians have a valid claim to an independent state on the West Bank and in Gaza, and I hope that they get it. However, these areas currently belong to Israel, and as much as the Palestinians have a right to protest against Israeli rule, the State of Israel has a right to impose order.

Max Weber defined the state as a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force. When this monopoly dissolves, the state is in serious trouble. No country sits by quietly while its population riots, and there's no reason to demand that Israel do so. The Parisian police control their "manifestations," the United States put down riots in Newark, Watts, and Detroit in the sixties, and the Nicaraguan government chased the contras into Honduras. If you believe that Israel should exist as a state, you cannot deny its right to act like a state. There is no reason to believe that a Palestinian state would not similarly handle internal opposition. Palestinians have never shied away from violence in pursuit of their national goals.

The Society of Arab Students' tearjerking stories of Israeli atrocities and impassioned emotional pleas fail to convince me that Israel should let the riots continue. Stories of atrocities may arouse sympathy, but they are no substitute for the reasoned discourse that will lead to a political solution for Palestine. SAS should attempt to further that discourse by educating students about the actual position of the PLO, of Israel, and of Secretary of State George P. Schultz. Leave horror stories to the news media.

AMERICAN Jews--and Israel--should recognize Palestinians' right for statehood, but they need not revoke Israel in the same breath. Distant from the struggle, we might use our perspective to initiate the intelligent discussion that seems impossible right now on the West Bank. American Jews should not be cowed and embarrassed by Israel's statehood, but should help it through this time of trouble by promoting a political solution. Palestinians should take this opportunity to clearly state their aims and aspirations, not to pump bleeding heart liberals for a little sympathy.