Sermon: Vayechi (Rabbi Maurice Michaels)

Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 26 December 2015

It has been quite a long time since I had the opportunity of presenting a sermon at an Alyth Shabbat Service and so I wondered what topic I should take. Obviously, there is much that could be said about this last sidrah of the book of Genesis, while the time of the year lends itself to a variety of topics.  On Wednesday evening, I participated in a roundtable discussion for the Jewish Radio programme which goes out tomorrow on Radio Spectrum, the subject being Rabbi Mervis’s proposal that Jewish schools should teach Islam as part of their GCSE Religious Education course; and while I was in the studio I recorded a sermonette to go out the following week on Islamic fundamentalism – so no shortage of subjects.

Yet I am rejecting all of these, because in the last few weeks I keep hearing and reading that Israelis are disinterested in peace.  On my last visit to Israel I spoke to many people about this, not by asking the question straight out, because I was sure that I would receive either the answer people thought I wanted or what they regarded as the correct answer.  Rather, I had conversations on the subject, trying to get at their underlying feelings.  This means that what I’m about to say has neither the validity of empirical research nor the accuracy of a random survey.  On the other hand it seems to make sense, not only to my own – admittedly – preconceptions, but also with the facts, as I understand them.

It is my considered opinion, therefore, that in response to the statement that Israelis are disinterested in peace, I would disagree completely. To the contrary, Israelis are absolutely interested in peace. However, they are totally disillusioned by the so-called peace process and they have very little expectation of peace. Let me unpack that a little. When the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union occurred, this country along with the USA and western European countries obtained what was called the peace dividend, a significant reduction in spending on weaponry. Israelis are well aware of the substantial benefits to the economy that peace would bring. There is hardly a family living in Israel that has not been affected by the horrors of war, whether death or serious injury to a relative or friend. Very few of the 18 year-olds joining the IDF every year wants to put their further education or their career on hold for two or three years, while they put their life on the line. Of course, Israelis are interested in peace.

Yet, time and again they elect a government that doesn’t seem to reflect that policy. The current Prime Minister, Bibi Netanyahu, has made the – some would say – bold and courageous step for a right-wing politician with an even more right-wing coalition government of accepting a two-State solution. This is a complete shift from his previous position. Has he really changed his mind, become more mellow as he ages? Of course not. He has realised that he can say whatever the world, i.e. the president of America, wants him to say, because it won’t actually lead to anything. Similarly, his right-wing coalition partners have not resigned from the government as expected, because they know they don’t have to. Their expectation of anything coming from his statement is minimal. The idea that these ultra-right-wing politicians and theologians could remain in a government committed to give up any territory in Judaea and Samaria, an integral part of biblical Israel, would have been laughable in the past, but there is a new realisation of the reality of the situation. The same thing applied to Netanyahu’s ten month freeze on construction work in the West Bank and his belated acceptance of a further freeze. By the way, this cannot be compared to the giving back to Egypt of swathes of the Sinai Desert, nor the evacuation of settlements in Gaza. The former was only useful in the event of another war with Egypt in putting the borders much further away, while Gaza, even in biblical times, had always been controlled by the Philistines and, therefore, never really part of Israel.

So let’s look at this new realisation. For decades, while the Palestinians were led by Yasser Arafat, the view was that the Palestinians always thought they could do a better deal and so always held out for more. The Camp David talks and the Oslo talks were considered to be almost there, but Arafat never could quite accept what was offered. Some thought that he was afraid that he would lose all credibility as a peacetime leader when he failed to provide for his people; others that he didn’t think he could convince the hardliners and so lose credibility; others that he was just a fool, who didn’t know when he’d won. Abba Eban remarked that Arafat never lost an opportunity to lose an opportunity. After Arafat it will be different it was thought. I remember past sermons of mine that said exactly that. But it hasn’t been different. At first it was put down to the split between, Hamas and Fatah – and certainly there is a huge enmity between these two factions – with Hamas ruling Gaza and Mahmoud Abbas, ostensibly President of the Palestinian Authority, only having authority in the West Bank. The feeling in Israel was that if a peace could be reached with Abbas for the West Bank and the effect of this was seen in Gaza, they would overthrow Hamas in order to get a piece of the peace. But for nine months of the construction freeze no agreement on talks could be reached and what could possibly be achieved in one month before its expiry enabled Abbas to pull out of the talks. Now we are told that further talks are impossible until the so-called refugee issue is resolved. And we know that the next excuse will revolve around the status of Jerusalem.

And so the new realisation in Israel is that Abbas is following Arafat’s example, but not in terms of holding out for a better deal, a bit of extra land here or additional American assistance there. What is now realised is that there is no difference between Fatah policy and that of Hamas, the only difference is that of strategy. Neither Fatah nor Hamas wants peace with Israel and a Palestinian State living alongside it. Both are only interested in taking over the whole of Israel. Hamas has never given up on the military strategy, while Fatah, recognising the futility of that, has undertaken one of the most successful marketing and PR strategies in history in attempting to isolate and delegitimise Israel within the international community. Utilising the United Nations and other international organisations in which Arab and Muslim countries exert enormous numerical influence; harnessing the dependence of many countries to Arab petrochemicals; and awakening the covert anti-Semitism existing throughout the world; the Palestinians and their backers have created a groundswell of opinion against Israel – and Jews generally – reminiscent of 1930s Germany. The very existence of the state of Israel is now a topic of discussion as though the United Nations had – not just the right, but the responsibility – to review and negate its historic 1947 decision on partition of the Land.

It is against that background that Israelis now realise that the Palestinian leadership, whether, Hamas or Fatah, extreme or moderate, has no interest in achieving a State living in peace alongside Israel. More than 60 years after the Arab States surrounding Israel declared war following its establishment rather than accept the partition plan, there is no change to that basic thinking. Partition of the Land is not an option as far as most of the Arab world is concerned. This is the message that Israel has to convey to America, to Europe and to anyone else who might listen. The new realisation is the old reality. Israelis disinterested in peace? Had that been the truth, Israel would not have wasted the past 60 years in one fruitless attempt after another. So where does that leave Israel now? The status quo is not really tenable because of the demographic implications. I would like to suggest something quite radical. With the help of either America or the Group of Four – anyone still remember that? – Israel should negotiate transferring those parts of the West Bank that could have become a viable Palestinian State to Jordan. After all, it was part of Jordan when it was captured in 1967 after Jordan attacked Israel. Many of the people still have Jordanian nationality and passports. They were Jordanians long before the title Palestinians was conferred upon them after 1967. Would Jordan agree? If the terms were right; if they were made an offer they couldn’t refuse; if the backing of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states could be obtained; if a UN peacekeeping force was included in the deal; if it was totally separated from any deal about Gaza; if it could be linked to a regional economic federation; then it’s possible that Jordan would be unable to refuse. Lots of ifs, but as we know politics is an art not a science and if – again an if – there was sufficient resolve for this – and let’s not forget that we are told that the resolution of the Palestinian issue will also resolve the issue of Islamic terrorism – then it has to be worth trying.

I now want to make an admission.  After my opening comment about different subjects, I just read a sermon that I had written five years ago, almost to the day, and the sad thing is that nothing has changed.  If anything, we look even further away from peace than then.  President Obama and Mr Kerry have given up on it.  Tony Blair resigned his position fronting the Group of Four.  President Putin has other fish to fry and the only contribution from the EU is to put a trade block on goods coming from the territories that has the effect of worsening the Palestinian economy.

In a few weeks time I shall again be in Israel and I will try to get an update to what people think.  But since the original sermon, two of my grandsons turned 18 and are now serving their country.  The elder, having completed his three years conscription, signed on as a regular soldier and is in Hebron, with the remit of looking after the communications infrastructure on the West Bank.  The younger has recently started on a course with military intelligence and all he will tell me is that he works very long hours and plays football to relax.  My eldest granddaughter, who has just turned 16, wants to be a medic and go on to become an army doctor, while her younger sister tells me that she wants to be a combat soldier.  Much as that horrifies me, I have little realistic hope that peace will break out and her efforts will no longer be required.  But I do hope I’m wrong.  Perhaps hope is all we have left.