Chicago — The current battle between Israel and the Palestinians is being fought on several fronts. One is the name game.
Terrorists to us are freedom fighters to them. Self-defense to us is aggression to them. And so on, each side choosing words to help their cause, knowing that words matter and that the battle for the perception of what’s going on may be more important than the reality.
Words, always crucial, are particularly crucial now. Which is why we need to be careful about the words we use.
Which is why I am opposed to how casually many Jews throw around the word “war” these days. What’s going on in Israel today is not a war. Not by any definition of war.
But this is about more than definitions. Everybody in Jewish power is bellyaching about how few American Jews are visiting Israel. But throwing around the word “war” isn’t the greatest way to attract tourists.
Or to keep Jews. No wonder fewer and fewer young Jews feel a connection to Israel. Talking about war only makes that worse. Young Jews aren’t going to run to pledge allegiance to a flag that always and only seems under fire. Those days are over.
Beyond that, wars are fought with rules. Wars are waged in accord with Geneva Conventions, military codes of conduct and recognized rules of engagement.
Blowing up families having lunch in a pizza shop, including babies and pregnant women, is beyond any civilized definition of war. It shouldn’t be called what it clearly is not, shouldn’t have any of the nobility attached to it that the word war can sometimes connote.
Not assassination
Another word thrown around a lot these days is assassination. Israel has made no secret that it has a list of Palestinians it believes have planned or are planning terrorist attacks against Israel — and that Israel plans to get them before they can get us.
Israel calls that “targeted killing.” The Palestinians call it “assassination.” I think to call it assassination is not to understand the meaning of the word.
Mahatma Gandhi, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin were assassinated. All were great and prominent men. Those are the only kinds of people who can be assassinated.
Killing people like Jamal Mansour or Fahim Dawabshe or any of the other terrorist leaders Israel has is exactly what Israel says it is: targeted killings. And they are, in my view, the right thing to do.
Surprised a left-winger like me would say that? I may be a believer in the peace process, but that doesn’t mean I can’t also be a believer in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s policy of targeted killings. I think they are the right thing because they are wise and effective. For not all terrorists are created equal.
Sharon is going after the masterminds, and they are the leaders for a reason. They are the best, and killing them helps fight terrorism effectively.
A few years ago Israel killed a guy named Ayash, the Palestinians’ master bomb-maker. That made a big difference. It got rid of the guy who could make bombs better than anyone else.
Many terrorist bombs the last few months have blown up while being assembled or gone off prematurely or didn’t work properly. The guys building the bombs today are not as good as Ayash. Jewish lives were saved because second-rate bomb makers are left.
It’s very hard to fight suicide bombers. One effective means of self-defense is the pre-emptive strike. That’s what Israel’s policy is about. And it’s about targeting the guilty, which is a lot more justified than hitting the innocent.
Not occupation
Another word thrown around a lot is occupation. That, say the Palestinians, is what Israel is doing. Sadly, too many Jews are using the same word.
Occupation is a word that should not be used because it doesn’t fit. Israel is an administrator of the territories, not an occupier.
I’m not just playing word games. The word occupier has a long and ugly history. Think of occupied land and you think of the Nazis or the Soviets.
They were true occupiers, savage murderers who snuffed out freedom, destroyed lives, cared only about power and control. That does not characterize what Israel has been about since it captured the West Bank in June 1967.
Yes, it’s made mistakes, having troops there has inevitably coarsened our behavior and resulted in insults and worse for the Palestinians. All of which says Israel should withdraw from 85 percent or so of the West Bank and all of Gaza. But none of which makes Israel an occupier.
Even though I’m a left-winger, I don’t support what groups like Not in My Name or activists like Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun magazine are about. While they support the peace process like me, they do so from a very different place. Theirs is a Palestinian-centric view; mine is an Israeli-centric view.
I am for the peace process because I believe it is in Israel’s best interest. I don’t do it for the Palestinians, I do it for the Israelis, for the Jews.
Part of that, of course, is that I believe it is in keeping with the essence of what Israel must be to treat its neighbors with respect and dignity, to recognize their rights, to understand that we must follow God’s command to “remember that you were once strangers in a strange land.”
But doing that is for our own good, so that we can make Israel all it can be, a wondrous place for Jews, a light unto the nations.
Too many left-wingers come at it from a sense of guilt about the Palestinians. Too many left-wing groups coddle the Palestinians, explain away their words, deeds, horrible choices, big mistakes.
I think much of the Palestinians’ tsuris is their own fault. They say they want their own independent state. They could have had one in 1948 if they hadn’t chosen to try to destroy the new Jewish state.
They say they want half of Jerusalem. They had it until 1967 when they started a war to destroy Israel.
They say they want to improve the lot of their people, build their country. Well, they could have taken a giant step in that direction last year, with Israeli and U.S. administrations ready to give them almost all they dreamed of. They responded with barbaric violence, without making a counter-offer, without putting something positive on the table.
I may be left-wing, but as long as the Palestinians fool themselves by trying to fool others with word games, they will get exactly where they’ve gotten for more than 50 years. Nowhere. Which means exactly what it says.
Joseph Aaron is editor and publisher of the Chicago Jewish News.
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