The Movement for Reform Judaism

I'm writing this piece on the 31^st July, the day before I start my summer holiday.  Goodness knows what the situation in Israel will be like when you read this but I couldn't honestly think about something more timeless with so much at stake.

First, I have just seen footage of missiles being fired from Qana, just some of the 115 which fell on northern Israel yesterday (30^th July).  But the outcry at the death of dozens of innocent Lebanese children, probably held hostage there to sacrifice on the altar of damaging Israel in world public opinion, drowns out everything else. 

It seems to me that neither America in Iraq nor Israel in Lebanon has realised that they are involved in a new and very different kind of warfare.  This is not warfare between nation states, not June 1967 all over again.  It's a different kind of conflict waged by fanatical groups, proxies for nations but not nations.  These groups are driven by an absolute conviction in their own rightness and the objective for which they fight.  Their end justifies means which we have not yet fully grasped are acceptable to many of the civilians amongst whom they live and wage war. 

Israel, America, the West, is embroiled in a new, asymmetric warfare.  We don't yet have a clue about an effective response but we need to find one - and fast.

Second, ‘separation' is both a military tactic and symbolic of a much wider approach.  Building a separation fence; withdrawing behind it; hoping to create a demilitarised zone in southern Lebanon to separate Israel from Hizbollah - these are all of a piece.

But what is to stop our implacable enemies form launching missile attacks over the fence and over the demilitarised zone?  Is separation possible - even in limited military terms? 

But now think of separation in wider and more profound terms.  Is it possible for Israel to remain economically, culturally, spiritually a separate nation sealed off from the Arab and Muslim world?  Or is long-term survival dependent upon what is presently almost inconceivable - becoming part of the Middle East?

Mosquitoes are deadly but you can't eradicate them, except by draining the swamp in which they breed and turning the swamp into something that nurtures and sustains crops rather than mosquitoes.  It's true that one needs to be fully protected whilst draining the swamp.  But the real question is how do you drain the swamp if the other inhabitants are ideologically committed to the mosquitoes?

Yes, Israel has to stay strong to survive.  But it needs a long-term strategy to go beyond survival.

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