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EXPULSION
John D- Rayner
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end with its curses,” says the Talmud (Meg. 31b). It isn’t
1992 was annus horribz'lis. In retrospect it seems to have been
nbpn, "Let the old year
only for the Royal Family that
one long succession of disasters almost everywhere. And what makes it seem especially
accursed ,is that it began so hopefully, for “hope deferred,” as the book of Proverbs says,
“nukes the heart sick”
'
(13:12).
In Britain, instead of the promised green shoots of recovery, we have seen deepening
recession. In Europe, the move towards greater unity has been called into question. In
Germany neo—Nazis have become more
former Yugoslavia ethnic war has raged
programrhe has been challenged. In South
on mercilessly.
Africa renewed violence has cast doubt on the peaceful achievement of majority rule. And
in India resentments going back 400 years have re-erupted and threatened to plunge the
active. In
In Russia Boris Yeltsin's reform
world’s largest democracy into religious war.
Everywhere, it seems, hope has been dashed, opimism discredited, and progress halted if
not reversed. Everywhere except in relation to Israel where, until recently, things seemed to
be moving in a favourable direction. The long nightmare of Likkud rule came to an end; a
moderate, Labour-led Government was elected; the building of new settlements in the
occupied territories ceased; the American loan was released; the Russian immigrants were
being absorbed; peace talks were conducted with the Palestinians, and seemed to have a fair
chance of success. Israel was regaining the respect of the world, and Diaspora Jews no
longer needed to apologise for, or to dissociate themselves from, the attions of its
Government.
But then border policeman Sergeant-Major Nissim Toledano was captured and murdered
in cold blood. It was the most horrific of a series of terrorist acts by an Islamic
fundamentalist organisation called Hamas. Israelis demonstrated in the streets, shouting
"Death to the Arabs’C And Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin responded to the popular
demand for revenge by expelling 415 Palestinians, believed to be Hamas activists, across the
border into the no-man’s land between Israel and Lebanon, which refused to take them in.
For that action, at first applauded by the great majority of Israeli Jews, Israel has been
widely condemned, and there has been a lively debate about it in the press.
What shall we say about it? It is a question we can’t avoid, but we need to be clear that it
falls into two parts: political and moral. Whether Israel’s action was politically expedient is a
question on which I have no special competence to express an opinion. But I think it is fair
to say that it is extremely doubtful, and that the case for regarding the action as, on the
contrary, a major blunder, is very strong. So let me just quote from a leader in The
Independent whidw I thought put that case particularly well. "The ineptitude of the Israeli
government,” it said, “is surprising and worrying. By forcing the Palestinian deportees to
spend Christmas in the desert, it has caused the Middle East peace talks to be suspended,
handed a propaganda coup to the Palestinians, pushed the PLO into reluctant support of the
Hamas extremists, exacerbated violence in the occupied territories and brought down on its
head a torrent of criticism from the United Nations, the European Community, the Red
Cross, the Vatican and many friends of Israel...For sheer foolishness, the operation is hard to
beat” (24th December).
am no expert.
Personally,
find it hard not to agree with that assesment. But, as I
matter, can anybody be completely sure until the full
I
Nor, for that
consequences have unfolded. Time, as they say, will tell.
So let us leave the political aspect to one side and consider the question only from a moral
point of View. That is where it should be possible to derive soine guidance from the
teachings of Our Jewish Tradition. And the first point to be made, if only to clear it out of
the way, is that it is no answer to point out how gruesome the murder of the Israeli
Sergeant-Major was, which is undoubtedly the case; or how dreadful a terrorist
organisation Hamas is, which is also true; or how the media always seem to pick on Israel,
which can hardly be denied; or that other countries have been known to behave as badly or
worse in similar situations, which is very likely. All these arguments, however valid they
said,
I
may be, are diversionary tactics, which don’t affect the real issue.
Israel’s action
was either
wrong entirely regardless of them.
two questions. First, whether the expulsion of the Palestinians
was or was not, as has been alleged, a violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva
Convention. To me it seems quite plain that it was, and that all the tortuous arguments we
have heard to the contrary are entirely specious. But even if there should be room for doubt
right or
The
real issue involves
don’t think there is, it seems to me that, for' every possible reason,
including the circumstances which gave rise to the Convention after the Second World War,
the high ideals enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, and the whole history of
Jewish experience and tradition - that for all these reasons, Israel, of all countries, should be
meticulous in the extreme not to come anywhere near to violating the Convention in its
letter or in its spirit.
The second question is both more general and more complicated. It is whether collective
punishment can ever be morally justified. On the face it, the answer must be No, since, in
the nature of the case, it involves punishing the innocent as well as, or instead of, the guilty.
The general principle is clearly stated in Deuteronomy: "Parents shall not be put to death for
their children, nor children for their parents” (24:16), and re-emphasised by Ezekiel: "Only
the person who sins shall die” (18:20).
about
it,
which
I
There is also the famous story ih Genesis of how Abraham appealed to God on behalf of
the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. "Far be it from You,” he says, "to slay the righteous
with the wicked” (18:25). Admittedly, the Talmud, in discussing the story, makes the point
that even the righteous deserve punishment if they fail to use their influence to restrain the
wicked (A.Z. 4a). But that doesn’t invalidate the principle, nor does it mean that human
beings are entitled to inflict punishment on individuals who have not béen found guilty of a
specified offence before a duly constituted court of law.
Of course it could be argued that Israel’s action was not meant to be a legal punishment
so much as a political reprisal. But that would make the case even worse, for reprisal, or
retaliation, is only another word for vengeance, and there is no way in which vengeance, as
distinct from the due process of law, can be justified in Jewish ethics. The whole point about
"an eye for an eye” is that it was meant to prevent revenge by making the punishment of
crime a matter for the law-courts, and then subject to the principle of proportionality.
It is true that the carrying out of reprisals, as a means of dealing with terrorism, is a policy
that has been pursued by successive Israeli governments. But it has always been
unsuccessful, it has always been counter-productive, and it has always been wrong. It is
than a pandering to the clamour of the lynch mob. And those who
order and carry out such actions, and those who defend them, play straight into the hands
of those who have for centuries misrepresented Judaism as a religion of retribution rather
than of compassion, which is its true hallmark.
There remains just one last line of defence. It is possible to argue that what Israel did was
neither a collective punishment nor an act of retaliation but simply a security measure.
After all, every government has a duty to protect its citizens, and the Hamas organisation is
a real menace. It advocates and practises murder; it seeks to destroy the State of Israel; it
does all it can to undermine the peace process; and as part of the wider Muslim Brotherhood
its ultimate aim is to transform the whole Middle East into one big Islamic theocracy.
All that is true, and therefore whatever is necessary to protect the State of Israel and its
people from ttmt threat is for that reason justified. But of course there is a proviso: that
everything is done with the greatest possible humaneness consistenf with the achievement
of the objective. That may justify curfews, arrests and interment - provided that those
interned are charged and tried within a reasonable period of time, But it can’t possibly
justify mass expulsions: not even if prior arrangements have been made with another
country to receive the deported, much less if they are dumped in an inhospitable no-man’s-
indeed nothing
less
land in midwinter without adequate provisions to ensure their survival.
The action of Mr Rabin’s government is therefore morally indefensible, and has done
immense harm to-the good name of Israel and the Jewish people. It also resonates with
associations of the most sinister kind. It smacks of population transfer, which the worst
hotheads in Israel have been advocating for years. It smécks of ethnic cleansing. And it
recalls some painful episodes from our Jewish past.
On 27th October, 1938, for instance, Hitler expelled 18,000 German Jews to the Polish
border, where they suffered appallingly. They included Mr and Mrs Zindel Grynszpan,
who sent a postcard, describing their condition, to their son Hirsch in Paris. He was so
enraged that he walked into the German Embassy and shot one of its officials. The rest is
history.
To go
further back in time,
and to mention
it
for the last time, the year just
ended marked
the 500th anniversary of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. 160,000 set sail in search of
another home, and 20,000 died on the way.
And to go back further still, when Joseph’s brothers threw him into the pit, it was in the
expectation that he would die there. They did not provide him with a survival kit, nor did
they make prior arrangements with the caravan of Ishmaelites, or Midianites, to rescue him.
And
they finally realised what a grave wrong they had done, he
found it in his heart to forgive them, and there ensued the touching scene we have read
from the Torah this morning; For by that time Joseph, too, had changed. His dream was no
longer of domination, but of reconciliation.
May the months to come see a return to the endeavour to make that dream come true. Let
yet,
when, years
later,
-
the old year with its curses end; let the new year bring many blessings to us
t9 the Middle East and to humanity; and let us say: Amen.
Liberal Jewish Synagogue, Shabbat Va-yiggash,
and
2nd Ianuary, 1993
to all Israel,