Sacramento rabbi: I admire Mayor Steinberg, but his condemnation of Israel is all wrong
There’s an incredible similarity in the foundations of American and Jewish law in which argument and debate, however robust, can solve problems without violence or bloodshed. Judaism’s preeminent commentary, the Talmud, is full of such examples, teaching that “an argument for the sake of heaven will endure; but an argument not for the sake of heaven will not endure.” The Sages were drawing a fundamental distinction between two kinds of conflict: argument for the sake of truth and argument for the sake of victory.
I reference this in my response to Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg’s recent column on the situation in Israel and Gaza. For our mayor, whose courageous work on homelessness, civil rights and mental health has been so important to Sacramento, to engage on the current situation in Israel without context or history reflects an abandonment of an argument for the sake of heaven. This is not the mayor who I know and admire.
As an American rabbi, I do not agree with every Israeli government policy, just as there are many policies in our country that I find objectionable. I abhor Jewish and Palestinian extremists who foment violence and are willing to call both sides out. But that’s not what this is about.
There is no moral equivalency, as Mayor Steinberg would have us believe, between Israel, a democratically elected government, and Hamas, a terrorist organization whose charter and raison d’être are not just the destruction of Israel but the elimination of Jews. None.
From the safety and security of Sacramento, the mayor wrote, “Hamas’ behavior does not give Israel the right to make the lives of hard-working Palestinian people and their children even harder. The moral culpability of others does not justify Israel losing its moral compass.”
What is Israel expected to do when thousands of rockets are aimed at it with the sole purpose to indiscriminately kill, maim and terrorize a nation? Israeli soldiers are not the target of these attacks. Instead, it is civilian women, men, children, seniors, people with disabilities — 20% of whom are Arab — who are forced to scurry to the bomb shelters to find relief and shelter.
While seemingly condemning Israel and Hamas, Steinberg completely ignores that Hamas’ goal is chaos while Israel makes every effort at limiting civilian casualties. What other country’s military warns its enemy to evacuate buildings that are used as launching pads for attack? None that I know of. Adding insult to injury, Steinberg pays no heed to the worst moral depravity of Hamas: using civilians as human shields.
The roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are deep and complex; that is something we can all agree upon. But let’s not ignore that Israel, in an effort toward peace, uprooted its population from the Gaza Strip in 2005 to allow for a peaceful, self-governing Palestinian society to develop and prosper. I would ask if the Mayor forgot contemporary history or only that which fails his narrative.
In contrast to our mayor, my colleague, Dr. Daniel Gordis, provides an excellent analysis on the fundamentally different understanding of Jews and Arabs and what that means for one land inhabited by two people. I recommend Gordis’ work not only to Mayor Steinberg, but to anyone willing to set aside their biases and examine context.
If peace is to come, we will need to step off our pedestals and return to the Talmudic wisdom of engaging in arguments for the sake of heaven. I hope and pray that Mayor Steinberg, who I had grown to respect, will join in that effort.
This story was originally published May 24, 2021 at 6:00 AM.