by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

April 30, 2009

Speaking in New Jersey, political activist Rabbi Michael Lerner called on the Obama administration to “reassure both sides — the Israeli and the Palestinian people — that we are not against either of them so that both sides feel safe enough to make serious concessions.”

The Newark-born founding editor of Tikkun magazine also urged fellow liberals to challenge “those on the Left who would totally demean Israel.”

Lerner said the Left’s penchant for harsh criticism of Israel is “a huge error.”

“It is a huge error to make it seem as though the Israeli people are the worst human rights violators on the planet,” said Lerner. “That particularly is absurd coming from [critics in] the United States, which has been involved in killing about 100 times as many people as those who have been killed in the Israel-Palestine struggle.”

Lerner spoke before several hundred members of NJ Peace Action on Sunday at the Regency House in North Pompton Plains.

Often seen as a vocal Jewish critic of Israel’s control of the West Bank, Lerner delivered a talk that was evenhanded in apportioning blame and urging accommodation on both sides.

Referring to the Israelis and Palestinians, Lerner said, “Both sides have a legitimate history, and both sides have been irresponsibly cruel to each other…. There needs to be a spirit of generosity, and that spirit should come first from the most powerful country in the world.”

NJ Peace Action calls for an end to nuclear proliferation and for reducing military spending.

Asked by an audience member after his 40-minute speech how Israel’s government should deal with Hamas, Lerner said, “Israel does not need the right to exist as a Jewish state acknowledged by Hamas. It is enough for Hamas to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. We didn’t ask China to recognize the United States’ right to exist as a capitalist society. That wasn’t our demand.

“You don’t demand they accept your definition of yourself as the precondition for conversation or negotiation.”

Questioned about Iranian Prime Minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust, Lerner was vehement. Earlier this month he contributed to Tikkun’s website an angry denunciation of Ahmadinejad’s “racism.”

“Not only is it totally ludicrous but it is extremely scary to Jews who went through the Nazi period or know about the Nazi period to see people like him saying that kind of lie and having others applauding him. It would be great to start articulating in the liberal and progressive world why that is wrong.”

In an interview, as he autographed copies of his latest book, Healing Israel/Palestine, for audience members, Lerner commented on the potential for conflict between Obama and Israel’s new prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Obama stands four-square for the creation of a Palestinian state, while Netanyahu has declined to endorse the concept.

“What I would like to see is Obama stand up to Netanyahu and [Foreign Minister Avigdor] Lieberman and insist on the end to the occupation of the West Bank,” said Lerner.

If Netanyahu were to launch a military attack on Iran, the rabbi said, “it would be a disaster for Israel and for the world, because Israel will get attacked back in a terrible way and further its isolation in the world.”

‘Break promises’

Prior to his pointed discussion of the Middle East, Lerner, religious leader of a Jewish Renewal synagogue in Berkeley, Calif., urged his audience to battle against “the right hand of God” — representing the conservative ideology of “domination and control” — and support “the left hand of God,” a political philosophy of “love, caring, and generosity.”

He said that after 100 days, the Obama administration needs to be reminded of the president’s commitment to a “politics of hope” that many of his supporters feel he is abandoning.

“Homeland security can come from our caring for others, not our domination of others,” Lerner told the multiethnic audience in the hotel ballroom.

“Obviously we need to not be involved in a war in Iraq. Obviously we need to not think that the way we are going to change homeland security is to be sending our troops up the mountaintops in Afghanistan to fight another crazy war.”

He said the president “needs to break some promises,” such as his escalation of the war in Afghanistan.

“It’s not that Obama is not a decent human being,” he assured his supportive audience. “This is one of the most decent and progressive people we have ever had as president. But he does not have the capacity to stand up by himself and challenge the worldview that dominates American politics without a social movement pushing him in that direction….

“We are not doing him a favor by allowing him to capitulate to inside-the-beltway thinking.”

Comment: comments@njjewishnews.com

--TOP--