Where I Stand

This post is mostly for my non-Jewish, non-Arab, non-Muslim friends. My Jewish. Arab, and Muslim friends have their own positions, and I don't mean to suggest mine is superior to theirs.

I’ve put off writing a post detailing exactly where I stand on the war in Israel, because the answer is going to satisfy nobody and yet I think it is the most ethical answer that I, personally, can give.

The answer is I stand to the side, and let Israelis (Jewish and not) and Palestinians (Israeli or not) who are working for peace, and not more war, lead.

The most accurate representation of where I stand is that I don’t stand; I sit in my car or at my desk and I listen or read, because I’m an English professor and these are complex geopolitical issues, not debates about the Oxford comma (of which I very much stand steadfastly in favor).

I listen to as many voices as I can find, but the ones I find most compelling are working toward solutions that will provide security to both people in the land, though there is very little agreement (yet) on what that will look like. This is often called the Third Narrative. I often get this perspective from the podcast Unapologetic: The Third Narrative, which has a broad range of guests sharing a number of perspectives and possibilities. Their most recent guest was a settler (yes, I was surprised, too) who had such an audaciously hopeful perspective that it made me weepy.

The inescapable truth is that there are almost ten million Israelis (about two million of whom identify as Arab and/or Palestinian, and about half a million of whom belong to other ethnic and/or religious groups) and an almost equal number of non-Israeli Palestinians who are either living in Gaza and the West Bank or are registered refugees. (There are about 14 million Palestinians worldwide, but a little over 4 million are settled in other countries and not considered refugees.) That’s 20 million people; the only possibility is to find a path to co-existence.

What I feel, personally and as a Jew, is of little consequence. I’m an American, and my proper place is to stand aside and let the stakeholders figure this out, offering whatever support they ask for in whatever way I can. It isn’t to second-guess them or pretend that I—a person with no foreign policy or military experience living an ocean away—am an arbiter of what the eventual resolution should be.

My Zionism is best stated thusly: I believe that Jews have a right to self-determination in our homeland, but with that right comes an obligation to work toward peace and a shared existence with those Palestinians for whom peace and a shared existence is tenable. But that’s my Zionism, and its a very American kind of Zionism. The one thing I know for sure is that my vision for the future, and my understanding of the present, are not the ones we should center. So go listen to the people who do matter: the Israelis and the Palestinians looking to build a future rather than mire themselves in a forever war. You will be surprised how many such people you can find if you look.