British Rabbi’s Remarks Raise Issue: is It Ok to Question Israel Right Now?

By criticizing Israel’s actions in its war against Palestinian terrorism, Britain’s chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, forced European Jews to face a delicate question: How open and public should Jewish debate on Israeli policy be at a time of crisis?

Diaspora communities include Jews from across the political and religious spectrum, and Jewish and mainstream newspapers are full of conflicting letters and passionate Op-Ed articles from individuals.

Passions indeed can run high: Last year, a local Jew who had written an Op-Ed criticizing Israeli policy in the Rome Jewish newspaper was roughed up by other Jews when he attended a support vigil outside the Israeli embassy.

But at a time when much of the world appears to take a pro-Palestinian stance, should Jewish leaders close ranks and limit their criticism?

“I believe that it is important to be able to address issues realistically, and that one should not be afraid of ‘anti-Semitism’ while expressing his or her political views about the Middle-East,” says Francesco Spagnolo Acht, director of the Yuval Center for the Study of Jewish Music in Milan. “Anti-Israeli views are not necessarily anti-Jewish nor an expression of self-hatred. Whoever thinks so, I believe does it blindly.”

Sacks was both applauded and vilified for the remarks he made last week to Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

Sacks told the Guardian that he regarded “the current situation as nothing less than tragic. It is forcing Israel into postures that are incompatible in the long run with our deepest ideals.”

Some things happening in Israel made him “feel very uncomfortable as a Jew,” Sacks said. In particular, he said, he was “profoundly shocked” by a photograph of smiling Israeli soldiers posing with the corpse of a Palestinian.

“There is no question that this kind of prolonged conflict, together with the absence of hope, generates hatreds and insensitivities that in the long run are corrupting to a culture,” he said.

The Guardian played up Sacks’ words with a headline critical of Israel. Sacks later said his remarks had been misused and taken out of context, and reiterated his strong support for Israel.

An editorial in the Jerusalem Post called for Sacks to resign.

The president of the Conference of European Rabbis, Rabbi Joseph Sitruk, said that Sacks — the associate president of the CER — had the right to express his views, but did not represent the organization.

In a straw poll conducted by the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, British-born rabbis in Israel praised Sacks for “his courage in following in the paths of earlier Jewish leaders who have spoken out against Israel’s misdeeds.”

Controversy raged not just over what Sacks said or meant, but also over where he said it — in a leftist newspaper generally seen as staunchly pro-Palestinian.

“The only thing the chief rabbi is guilty of is naivete,” a reader in Jerusalem wrote to the London Jewish Chronicle. “With its recent history of Israel-bashing, the Guardian was only too happy to sow the seeds of discord within the Jewish community over attitudes toward Israeli policies.”

Indeed, Sacks’ interviewer, Jonathan Freedland, predicted that the chief rabbi’s statements would stir up a storm and “send shockwaves through Israel and the world Jewish community.”

The interview itself was headlined “Israel set on tragic path, says chief rabbi.”

In Italy, too, Spagnolo Acht noted, “unfortunately there are many people who make a terrible use of ‘Jewish’ criticism of Israel.

“Within Italy’s left,” he said, “my present understanding is that Jews are nowadays granted a political citizenship as long as they publicly state their criticism of Israel. In other words, if they want to speak ‘as Jews,’ or if they occasionally speak as such, they have to reassure the left that they are not pro-Zionist or pro-Israel.”

Israelis, he said, “are tolerated only if they publicly declare their love for the Arab world, for the Palestinians, etc.

“So anybody is ready to jump on the fact that a ‘famous’ Jew — that is, a public figure — says something which is not altogether supportive of this or that Israeli government,” he said. “It looks like the public arena is still hungry for Jews who seem to put a distance between themselves and the rest of the Jewish people, especially Israel.”

In North America, the debate over whether Diaspora Jews have the right to criticize Israel appeared to be resolved several years ago in the affirmative. But during the two years since the Palestinian intifada began, most Jewish leaders have focused their efforts on building solidarity and support for Israel.

In Britain, the Jewish Chronicle said the Sacks controversy ultimately revolved around Sacks’ dual role as a spiritual and political leader of his community.

“While the prophetic calling of a chief rabbi surely makes the kind of probing remarks he made in the Guardian on Israel entirely appropriate,” the Chronicle said in an editorial, how “does this square with his de facto political role in recent months as British Jewry’s most high-profile, forceful public defender of the policies adopted by Israel in its tragic conflict with the Palestinians?”

Some commentators lauded Sacks’ courage.

“It takes guts to be critical,” a senior British Jewish communal source said. “For Jews to have an opinion is a responsibility. It impoverishes the Diaspora if these issues are not raised.”

Spagnolo Acht, who is about to move to Israel for the coming academic year, also feels that open debate is healthy, despite the risks.

“Anybody can of course express criticism of Israeli policy,” he said. “And lots of people do, in the Diaspora but above all in Israel itself. If anything, this is a good sign.”

Still, he said, he is saddened by the manipulation of such Jewish criticism — and also by the potential effects on Israel itself.

“I have come to understand what these discussions feel like to the Israelis — and, possibly, to the Palestinians, at least to those Israelis and Palestinians I personally and culturally most relate to,” he said.

“They are like endless discussions that have nothing to do with the reality there, and that eventually contribute to the unbridgeable sense of isolation that they feel on a daily basis,” he said.