Dedication

(Israelnationalnews.com) Today is the day not merely to commemorate Gush Katif but to dedicate ourselves to her reconstruction--and the reconstruction of the benighted society that destroyed her

According to a still-recent convention, today, the 5th of Av, is the day set aside for commemorating the crime against the Jewish people—and, as individuals, the residents of Gush Katif and Northern Samaria—committed by the State of Israel three years ago.

I am not entirely comfortable with this date, which was chosen to fall within the Nine Days of national mourning leading up to Tisha B’Av.  In 2005 I maintained the customs of mourning until sometime in September, seven full days until after the destruction of the last community was complete.  Since then I have commemorated the 12th of Av, the Hebrew date of the official commencement of the destruction, and till then neither shave, nor eat meat, nor do any of the other things proscribed during the days of mourning.  But this date seems to have been accepted by most of those for whom today is not simply August 6th and another day at the beach.  Soon one will have to acknowledge that minhag Yisrael din hu—a custom accepted by the Jewish people has force of law.

For me the breaking point came when the Knesset passed the Disengagement Law in February 2005.  Unlike others, I could not fool myself that there was some kind of “democratic deficit” involved in the act.  Sharon’s parliamentary maneuvers were small change compared to the kind of things done in the British Parliament in the late 19th century.  A majority of the elected representatives of the Israeli people voted to violate the fundamental rights of a minority, after years of press campaigning carefully and deliberately delegitimized them.  There is no question that disengagement was an official act of the State of Israel.

The terrible thing about disengagement is what it says about the people who passed it, executed it, and let it happen.  Fundamentally, a free society can sustain itself only among a moral people.  The vicious indifference exhibited by many, perhaps most Israelis to cruelty to their fellow Jews, fellow citizens—still ongoing—is evidence of a deep moral handicap.  With disengagement, not justice but the will of the strongest became the law in Israel, and such societies cannot long endure.  Disengagement was a test of whether a sovereign Jewish state in the Middle East can survive, and Israel failed it.

When political theorists teach us that society is a civic compact based on the guarantee of each other’s fundamental rights, they are not just spinning a theory.  They’re describing reality.  A functioning society depends on citizens—ordinary citizens—pledging their lives, fortunes and honor to upholding the rights of all.  When that pledge is broken, it means that each individual must suspect that he may be the next victim, that his rights will be the next to be sacrificed.  Unless the trend is reversed, the act publicly and forcefully repudiated, each citizen will become just an individual, and will look after himself alone.  The demise of society and state cannot then be long delayed.

Disengagement aroused in me a Swiftian indignation that burns still.  In disengagement, the State of Israel broke the civic compact between itself and me.  Its laws now compel because of the threat of force, not the assent of conscience.

But to say, feel and attempt nothing more is to remain mired in a paralyzing resentment.  Two approaches to commemorating the crime against Gush Katif are to be rejected.  One is to allow bitterness to paralyze us and prevent us from seeking redress.  The other is simple mourning, simple commemoration, a remembrance of the past and nothing more.  To me, both approaches imply acquiescence, and I will never acquiesce.

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated . . .”  The purpose of commemoration is rededication to the cause of the Jewish people.  Redress that can only come by replacing the failed culture and morals of Jewish society in Eretz Yisrael with our own—not by force but in the only meaningful way, by consent, expressed as well at the polls.  To that let us dedicate ourselves.  The Sages said, “Whoever mourns for Jerusalem merits and sees her rejoicing.”  Let us mourn Gush Katif that we may merit and see her reconstruction.