Letter: Blockade is not a precision weapon | Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle

Letter: Blockade is not a precision weapon

          An opinion article in the August Chronicle by two board members of the Religious Zionists of America defended Israel’s Gaza blockade.

          Israelis and many Diaspora Jews take pride in the care that the Israel Defense Force takes to protect civilian life, and on the precision of its weapons. And it is clear that Israel is fighting a terrorist organization that hides behind civilians.

          Why is the blockade — or any other Israeli policy — the target of criticism when so many obvious other targets seem to escape censure?

          The blockade itself is not a precision weapon. It is a crude and not very effective weapon with tremendous humanitarian repercussions for ordinary Gazans. The same goes for a war.

          It would be one thing if Israel’s leaders had truly exhausted every possible avenue for a peace deal. But they have not.

          It is clear, for example, that their policy of issuing building permits on contested land has nothing to do with Israel’s security and is merely punitive. And so Israel’s friends — even many Jews — look at the blockade, or at Operation Protective Edge, and are appalled.

          Israel and its friends need to do better than rounding up “the usual suspects” and accusing them of “knee-jerk responses” and “Israel-bashing.”

          It’s time to stop blaming the press or others for all our problems. Friends will sometimes tell us things we need to hear.

          There is plenty about Israel to be proud of. But a central message of the fast day Tisha b’Av is self-criticism, not self-congratulation; and that is also a theme of the month of Elul before the High Holidays.

          How can we decry the silence of Arabs in the face of their leaders’ misdeeds when we refuse to do the same for ours?

Jay Beder
Shorewood