Opinion: Right now, to love Israel is to denounce it
Nadav Ziv
Wed, March 8, 2023
Protesters clash with Israeli security forces at the entrance to the Palestinan village of Hawara on March 3. (Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images)
When my maternal grandmother was around 7 years old, she was nearly the victim of a pogrom. It was the late 1930s. Europe was a stretched rubber band, soon to snap. My grandma was visiting family in a small Polish town. One day, the non-Jewish inhabitants wielded knives and sticks as they pursued Jews. My grandma ran, closed the blinds, hid and waited.
I’ve heard this story of the pogrom in two related contexts. First, as proof of antisemitism — even absent Nazi compulsion. Second, as part of the need for a state where Jews can be safe.
Last week, Jewish settlers conducted a pogrom of a Palestinian village named Hawara. They set fire to houses and cars. They threw stones. In one sickening video, the settlers pray with the village smoking in the background, as if their violence honors God rather than desecrating holy commandments and the rule of law alike.
I have never felt so ashamed to be Israeli. I have never felt as angry as I did watching these settlers pervert past Jewish victimhood into a right to harm innocent people, contorting Jewish practice into their colonial ambitions to create a carte blanche for abuses.
While the settlers’ actions were extreme, they cannot be categorized as fringe. Not when Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said afterward that Hawara should be “wiped out” by the state of Israel. Not when National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir legitimizes illegal settlements and speaks of crushing enemies “one by one.” Like the Trump years in the United States, government actions and statements, no matter how unrepresentative of popular will, still carry the weight of institutional endorsement.
My grandma just celebrated her 92nd birthday. She resides in Haifa at an assisted living facility. When I speak with her, she is despondent at the state of the country — settler pogroms, racist government officials and a judicial coup being led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet she is insistent that Jews must still have a country.
The antisemitism my grandma experienced in her youth has not gone away. Globally and in the United States, hatred of Jews is rising, seen recently in antisemitic fliers in Maryland, Montana and Ohio and a plot to kill Jewish elected officials in Michigan. Anti-Jewish hate crimes in California are at a record high.
This is only part of the heartbreak. At a time when Jews feel less safe in our communities, Israel no longer feels like a safe option. As countries around the world trend toward autocracy, Israel is part of the data set rather than an exception. But most of all: seeing that some members of a group that has experienced so much persecution can brazenly inflict pain on others.
In a lecture he gave at Stanford in January 2007, the late Israeli author Amos Oz spoke about the nature of dreams.
Israel, he said, is “a fulfillment of a dream, perhaps it is a fulfillment of many dreams. As such it is flawed by definition and has the sour taste of a disappointment.” Oz said this isn’t about the nature of the state of Israel, but about the nature of dreams.
I disagree. Because national dreams, like personal choices, are not projectiles whose trajectories are set at the moment of release. They are hulking tankers, whose weight leaves them vulnerable to inertia but can nevertheless be steered. Israel will always be flawed in some ways. But it does not have to be flawed the way it is today.
Hundreds of thousands of Israelis are protesting against autocracy and racism, and for democracy, equal rights and common dignity — for a better Israel. “Where were you in Hawara?” they chant to the security forces. They hold up banners depicting Netanyahu as “Crime Minister.”
They understand that right now, to love Israel is to denounce it. That external threats such as Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah cannot destroy Israel the way that Jews can internally. American Jewish leaders, some of whom have been historically reticent to publicly criticize Israel, should fight for an Israel they can be proud of, not just the one that exists now.
My late grandfather from my father’s side escaped near-certain death as a teenager when he was deported to Siberia by the Soviets. Soon after, the Nazis murdered 90% of the Jews in his native Lithuania. He eventually escaped the gulag, spent a few years in postwar Germany and moved to Israel in 1949.
In the weeks before he died, my dad asked him what Israel meant to him for one of my class writing projects:
“In one word … mine.”
“And in two words?” my dad asked.
“That I feel like my fate is in my own hands, that I’m not a foreigner.”
My grandfather found a new home in Israel. He felt a sense of personal self-determination — a freedom from the historical forces that yanked him from Lithuania to the gulag — made possible by the collective self-determination of a nation.
His wife, my other grandmother, recently celebrated her 90th birthday. She’s gone to the recent protests with other family members. Because right now, Israel is betraying my late grandfather. It is betraying the memory of past Jews and the prospects of future ones. And it is betraying Jews in Israel and Jews abroad.
So, shame on the settlers, on Netanyahu, on Ben-Gvir, on Smotrich, on their hundreds of thousands of supporters and the seething hatred they espouse. To deal with these racists and autocrats, we must learn from our experience with antisemites and show no compromise, tolerance or legitimization of their policies and actions. We must fight and shame them, for as long as it takes.
Nadav Ziv is a writer whose work includes essays about Judaism, antisemitism and Israel. @nadavsziv
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Nadav Ziv
Wed, March 8, 2023
Protesters clash with Israeli security forces at the entrance to the Palestinan village of Hawara on March 3. (Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images)
When my maternal grandmother was around 7 years old, she was nearly the victim of a pogrom. It was the late 1930s. Europe was a stretched rubber band, soon to snap. My grandma was visiting family in a small Polish town. One day, the non-Jewish inhabitants wielded knives and sticks as they pursued Jews. My grandma ran, closed the blinds, hid and waited.
I’ve heard this story of the pogrom in two related contexts. First, as proof of antisemitism — even absent Nazi compulsion. Second, as part of the need for a state where Jews can be safe.
Last week, Jewish settlers conducted a pogrom of a Palestinian village named Hawara. They set fire to houses and cars. They threw stones. In one sickening video, the settlers pray with the village smoking in the background, as if their violence honors God rather than desecrating holy commandments and the rule of law alike.
I have never felt so ashamed to be Israeli. I have never felt as angry as I did watching these settlers pervert past Jewish victimhood into a right to harm innocent people, contorting Jewish practice into their colonial ambitions to create a carte blanche for abuses.
While the settlers’ actions were extreme, they cannot be categorized as fringe. Not when Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said afterward that Hawara should be “wiped out” by the state of Israel. Not when National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir legitimizes illegal settlements and speaks of crushing enemies “one by one.” Like the Trump years in the United States, government actions and statements, no matter how unrepresentative of popular will, still carry the weight of institutional endorsement.
My grandma just celebrated her 92nd birthday. She resides in Haifa at an assisted living facility. When I speak with her, she is despondent at the state of the country — settler pogroms, racist government officials and a judicial coup being led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet she is insistent that Jews must still have a country.
The antisemitism my grandma experienced in her youth has not gone away. Globally and in the United States, hatred of Jews is rising, seen recently in antisemitic fliers in Maryland, Montana and Ohio and a plot to kill Jewish elected officials in Michigan. Anti-Jewish hate crimes in California are at a record high.
This is only part of the heartbreak. At a time when Jews feel less safe in our communities, Israel no longer feels like a safe option. As countries around the world trend toward autocracy, Israel is part of the data set rather than an exception. But most of all: seeing that some members of a group that has experienced so much persecution can brazenly inflict pain on others.
In a lecture he gave at Stanford in January 2007, the late Israeli author Amos Oz spoke about the nature of dreams.
Israel, he said, is “a fulfillment of a dream, perhaps it is a fulfillment of many dreams. As such it is flawed by definition and has the sour taste of a disappointment.” Oz said this isn’t about the nature of the state of Israel, but about the nature of dreams.
I disagree. Because national dreams, like personal choices, are not projectiles whose trajectories are set at the moment of release. They are hulking tankers, whose weight leaves them vulnerable to inertia but can nevertheless be steered. Israel will always be flawed in some ways. But it does not have to be flawed the way it is today.
Hundreds of thousands of Israelis are protesting against autocracy and racism, and for democracy, equal rights and common dignity — for a better Israel. “Where were you in Hawara?” they chant to the security forces. They hold up banners depicting Netanyahu as “Crime Minister.”
They understand that right now, to love Israel is to denounce it. That external threats such as Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah cannot destroy Israel the way that Jews can internally. American Jewish leaders, some of whom have been historically reticent to publicly criticize Israel, should fight for an Israel they can be proud of, not just the one that exists now.
My late grandfather from my father’s side escaped near-certain death as a teenager when he was deported to Siberia by the Soviets. Soon after, the Nazis murdered 90% of the Jews in his native Lithuania. He eventually escaped the gulag, spent a few years in postwar Germany and moved to Israel in 1949.
In the weeks before he died, my dad asked him what Israel meant to him for one of my class writing projects:
“In one word … mine.”
“And in two words?” my dad asked.
“That I feel like my fate is in my own hands, that I’m not a foreigner.”
My grandfather found a new home in Israel. He felt a sense of personal self-determination — a freedom from the historical forces that yanked him from Lithuania to the gulag — made possible by the collective self-determination of a nation.
His wife, my other grandmother, recently celebrated her 90th birthday. She’s gone to the recent protests with other family members. Because right now, Israel is betraying my late grandfather. It is betraying the memory of past Jews and the prospects of future ones. And it is betraying Jews in Israel and Jews abroad.
So, shame on the settlers, on Netanyahu, on Ben-Gvir, on Smotrich, on their hundreds of thousands of supporters and the seething hatred they espouse. To deal with these racists and autocrats, we must learn from our experience with antisemites and show no compromise, tolerance or legitimization of their policies and actions. We must fight and shame them, for as long as it takes.
Nadav Ziv is a writer whose work includes essays about Judaism, antisemitism and Israel. @nadavsziv
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Israeli army Chief of Staff Dan Halutz arrives to attend the Israeli weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem Sunday Aug. 13, 2006. A contentious judicial overhaul that is dividing Israel is tearing at the country's main unifying force: the military. Halutz has said he wouldn't show up for duty after the overhaul if Israel was at war. He said soldiers won't agree to become "mercenaries for a dictator."
(AP Photo/Ronen Zvulun, Pool, File)
TIA GOLDENBERG
Mon, March 6, 2023
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Shraga Tichover is hanging up his fatigues. After more than three decades as a reservist in the Israeli military, the paratrooper says he will no longer put his life on the line for a country slipping toward autocracy.
Tichover is part of a wave of unprecedented opposition from within the ranks of the Israeli military to a contentious government plan to overhaul the judiciary. Like Tichover, some reservists are refusing to show up for duty and former commanders are defending their actions as a natural response to the impending change.
“The values of this country are going to change. I am not able to serve the military of a state that is not a democracy,” said Tichover, a 53-year-old volunteer reservist who has served in southern Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The typically taboo talk of defying military orders underlines how deeply the overhaul has divided Israel and is now tearing at what Israeli Jews see as their most respected institution, the military. Concerns are growing that the protest could trickle down to young conscripts as well.
In a declaration that has sent shock waves through the country, three dozen reservist fighter pilots said they wouldn't show up for training on Wednesday in protest. The airmen are seen as the cream of the military's personnel and irreplaceable elements of many of Israel’s battle plans.
After appeals from top officials, the pilots announced they would show up to their base — but only for a dialogue with their commanders, Israeli media reported. “We have full confidence in our commanders,” the reports quoted the pilots as saying in a letter.
The military’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Herzl Halevi, reportedly warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week that the reservists’ protest risks harming the military’s capabilities. Halevi and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met late Tuesday with a group of senior reservists to discuss the crisis.
“The army cannot operate without the reservists,” Halevi told them. But, he said, “insubordination is a red line.”
For Israel's Jewish majority, most of whom must serve in the military, the army is a source of unity and a rite of passage. Military service is an important launching pad into civilian life and the workforce.
After completing three years of mandatory service, many men continue in the reserves until their 40s, when service becomes voluntary. Most of those threatening to halt their service are volunteers, protecting them from potential punishment.
Recognizing the threat to its stability, the military has pleaded to be kept out of the heated public discourse. But it’s become central to the debate over what kind of Israel will emerge after the overhaul.
Netanyahu, a former soldier in an elite unit, and his government are pushing forward on a plan to weaken the Supreme Court and limit the independence of the judiciary. His allies say the changes are meant to streamline governance, while critics say the plan will upend Israel's system of checks and balances and slide the country toward authoritarianism. They also say Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption, is motivated by a personal grudge and has a conflict of interest.
The overhaul, which is moving ahead in parliament, has sparked an outcry from business leaders and legal officials. Tens of thousands of protesters have been taking to the streets each week.
Not everyone identifies with the soldiers. Critics say the military, as the enforcer of Israel's rule over millions of Palestinians in an open-ended occupation, has subjugated another people and eroded the country's democratic ideals. The reserve units now protesting, including pilots and intelligence units, have been behind deadly strikes or surveillance against Palestinians.
Israel's own Palestinian minority has largely stayed on the sidelines of the anti-government protests, in part because of Israel's treatment of their Palestinian brethren in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
But Jewish Israelis see the military as a pillar of security in the face of myriad threats. Israel is mired in a bloody round of violence with Palestinians and archenemy Iran is blazing ahead with its nuclear program. Israel says Iran is developing a nuclear bomb — a charge that Tehran denies.
Those developments have not stopped the creeping challenge within the military. Israel's pool of reservists are the backbone of the force when security crises erupt.
Ehud Barak, a former military chief of staff, defense minister and prime minister, has said it would be acceptable to defy orders from what he calls a dictatorial regime. Dan Halutz, another former military chief, said soldiers won't agree to become “mercenaries for a dictator.”
In addition to the protesting pilots, hundreds of reservists have signed letters promising not to serve if the overhaul passes.
“Hit the emergency brake now," reservists from the 8200 intelligence unit warned the government in a letter last week. Many 8200 graduates join the country's booming tech sector, also a fierce opponent of the overhaul.
A mass protest movement demonstrating against the overhaul has its own reservist contingent. A new group, “Do it Yourself,” is calling on secular families to refuse to allow their children to serve in the occupied West Bank. A group of soldiers has asked permission to join the mass protests.
Activists warn that the overhaul is threatening to hurt future morale.
“The generations after us will not follow us,” said Eyal Naveh, 47, a reservist from an elite unit and protest leader. “What will a person who halted his reserve duty tell his son? To go to the army or not?”
Naveh said reservists are also concerned the changes will leave soldiers exposed to war crimes charges at international courts. One of Israel's defenses against war crimes accusations is that it has an independent legal system capable of investigating any potential wrongdoing.
Debate has emerged in the past over whether soldiers ideologically opposed to an order should refuse to carry it out, particularly over the evacuation of Jews from settlements. But the mere suggestion of insubordination is rare.
Tichover, the volunteer reservist, said he struggled during his service with what he called “irrational” orders that harmed Palestinians, like being told to damage Palestinian cars. He said he found ways to skirt around such orders but never overtly defied them.
Late on Monday, Netanyahu met with members of the paramilitary border police force at a base in the occupied West Bank, telling them there was no room for politics in the military.
“There is no place for refusal now, and there won't be a place in the future,” he said.
Reflecting the military's public standing, opposition leaders have also spoken out against the calls to defy orders.
“Do not lend a hand to insubordination,” said Benny Gantz, an opposition leader and former military chief.
The looming threat to the military isn't the reservists' protest, said Idit Shafran Gittleman, an expert on the military at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank. She says the overhaul could lead to a constitutional crisis over who is in charge.
“There will be chaos," she said. “The military won’t know who it must take orders from.”
TIA GOLDENBERG
Mon, March 6, 2023
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Shraga Tichover is hanging up his fatigues. After more than three decades as a reservist in the Israeli military, the paratrooper says he will no longer put his life on the line for a country slipping toward autocracy.
Tichover is part of a wave of unprecedented opposition from within the ranks of the Israeli military to a contentious government plan to overhaul the judiciary. Like Tichover, some reservists are refusing to show up for duty and former commanders are defending their actions as a natural response to the impending change.
“The values of this country are going to change. I am not able to serve the military of a state that is not a democracy,” said Tichover, a 53-year-old volunteer reservist who has served in southern Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The typically taboo talk of defying military orders underlines how deeply the overhaul has divided Israel and is now tearing at what Israeli Jews see as their most respected institution, the military. Concerns are growing that the protest could trickle down to young conscripts as well.
In a declaration that has sent shock waves through the country, three dozen reservist fighter pilots said they wouldn't show up for training on Wednesday in protest. The airmen are seen as the cream of the military's personnel and irreplaceable elements of many of Israel’s battle plans.
After appeals from top officials, the pilots announced they would show up to their base — but only for a dialogue with their commanders, Israeli media reported. “We have full confidence in our commanders,” the reports quoted the pilots as saying in a letter.
The military’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Herzl Halevi, reportedly warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week that the reservists’ protest risks harming the military’s capabilities. Halevi and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met late Tuesday with a group of senior reservists to discuss the crisis.
“The army cannot operate without the reservists,” Halevi told them. But, he said, “insubordination is a red line.”
For Israel's Jewish majority, most of whom must serve in the military, the army is a source of unity and a rite of passage. Military service is an important launching pad into civilian life and the workforce.
After completing three years of mandatory service, many men continue in the reserves until their 40s, when service becomes voluntary. Most of those threatening to halt their service are volunteers, protecting them from potential punishment.
Recognizing the threat to its stability, the military has pleaded to be kept out of the heated public discourse. But it’s become central to the debate over what kind of Israel will emerge after the overhaul.
Netanyahu, a former soldier in an elite unit, and his government are pushing forward on a plan to weaken the Supreme Court and limit the independence of the judiciary. His allies say the changes are meant to streamline governance, while critics say the plan will upend Israel's system of checks and balances and slide the country toward authoritarianism. They also say Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption, is motivated by a personal grudge and has a conflict of interest.
The overhaul, which is moving ahead in parliament, has sparked an outcry from business leaders and legal officials. Tens of thousands of protesters have been taking to the streets each week.
Not everyone identifies with the soldiers. Critics say the military, as the enforcer of Israel's rule over millions of Palestinians in an open-ended occupation, has subjugated another people and eroded the country's democratic ideals. The reserve units now protesting, including pilots and intelligence units, have been behind deadly strikes or surveillance against Palestinians.
Israel's own Palestinian minority has largely stayed on the sidelines of the anti-government protests, in part because of Israel's treatment of their Palestinian brethren in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
But Jewish Israelis see the military as a pillar of security in the face of myriad threats. Israel is mired in a bloody round of violence with Palestinians and archenemy Iran is blazing ahead with its nuclear program. Israel says Iran is developing a nuclear bomb — a charge that Tehran denies.
Those developments have not stopped the creeping challenge within the military. Israel's pool of reservists are the backbone of the force when security crises erupt.
Ehud Barak, a former military chief of staff, defense minister and prime minister, has said it would be acceptable to defy orders from what he calls a dictatorial regime. Dan Halutz, another former military chief, said soldiers won't agree to become “mercenaries for a dictator.”
In addition to the protesting pilots, hundreds of reservists have signed letters promising not to serve if the overhaul passes.
“Hit the emergency brake now," reservists from the 8200 intelligence unit warned the government in a letter last week. Many 8200 graduates join the country's booming tech sector, also a fierce opponent of the overhaul.
A mass protest movement demonstrating against the overhaul has its own reservist contingent. A new group, “Do it Yourself,” is calling on secular families to refuse to allow their children to serve in the occupied West Bank. A group of soldiers has asked permission to join the mass protests.
Activists warn that the overhaul is threatening to hurt future morale.
“The generations after us will not follow us,” said Eyal Naveh, 47, a reservist from an elite unit and protest leader. “What will a person who halted his reserve duty tell his son? To go to the army or not?”
Naveh said reservists are also concerned the changes will leave soldiers exposed to war crimes charges at international courts. One of Israel's defenses against war crimes accusations is that it has an independent legal system capable of investigating any potential wrongdoing.
Debate has emerged in the past over whether soldiers ideologically opposed to an order should refuse to carry it out, particularly over the evacuation of Jews from settlements. But the mere suggestion of insubordination is rare.
Tichover, the volunteer reservist, said he struggled during his service with what he called “irrational” orders that harmed Palestinians, like being told to damage Palestinian cars. He said he found ways to skirt around such orders but never overtly defied them.
Late on Monday, Netanyahu met with members of the paramilitary border police force at a base in the occupied West Bank, telling them there was no room for politics in the military.
“There is no place for refusal now, and there won't be a place in the future,” he said.
Reflecting the military's public standing, opposition leaders have also spoken out against the calls to defy orders.
“Do not lend a hand to insubordination,” said Benny Gantz, an opposition leader and former military chief.
The looming threat to the military isn't the reservists' protest, said Idit Shafran Gittleman, an expert on the military at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank. She says the overhaul could lead to a constitutional crisis over who is in charge.
“There will be chaos," she said. “The military won’t know who it must take orders from.”
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