I’m responding to two One Views in the May 22 Viewpoints section, one addressing my essay of May 8 directly and exclusively (David Gilbert’s) and one referencing it indirectly and partially (Caren Van Slyke’s). We are all concerned with a proposed village board resolution on the Israel-Hamas war.
To read Mr. Gilbert’s version of American politics, culture, and economy, which he says were designed to be divisive, one might conclude that a local government has an obligation to find ways to divide its community and create disruption. But I think he has it exactly backwards. People are competitive by nature and will always have conflicts among themselves. Hobbes famously described nature as “red in tooth and claw,” implying that social institutions were necessary to curb and control human nature. To a great extent, U.S. governmental design aims to order and structure our competitiveness, providing ways to resolve conflicts fairly and without violence.
Ms. Van Slyke says that calling the permanent ceasefire resolution “divisive,” as I did and do, is a “cudgel to suppress public discussion and debate.” But it’s not. It’s a recognition of the effect her resolution would have on the community. Mr. Gilbert “was taught that persuasion and argument ultimately strengthen us.” I agree. Arguing is what I was doing in my One View and what I’m doing here. I recommended “education and civil discourse,” preferring that we learn about the complex issues rather than fight over a wrongheaded resolution.
That said, it’s worth noting more generally that these two proponents of argument and debate are sometimes rhetorically deceptive and otherwise unscrupulous. Ms. Van Slyke twists her opponents’ intentions and provides partial information. Mr. Gilbert oversimplifies. He attributes Israel’s actions to one motive: vengeance. He ascribes a singular and uncharitable motive to the resolution’s opponents: to stifle the will of the people. He also traffics in insult, not content to argue against my ideas, but wanting also to undermine my credibility with ironic, disparaging references to me as “the educator,” as if I had claimed some authority from the fact that I was a teacher, administrator, and board member at OPRF. But I did not identify myself as an educator; I simply emailed my piece to WJ, and an editor decided to note my former connections to the high school. I’m proud, of course, to be an educator, notwithstanding a David Gilbert slinging it as a slur.
Ms. Van Slyke tells us that of 203 municipalities that have considered such resolutions about 150 have passed them. The Census Bureau reported in 2012 that there were 89,004 local governments in the U.S. If the same number exist today, it means about 99.83 percent of local governments have not passed permanent ceasefire resolutions. Shouldn’t Ms. Van Slyke have provided the relevant context?
Mr. Gilbert says our public policies should reflect “the will of the people,” informed by specialists. Let’s suppose that village trustees decide to add to their ordinary responsibilities the responsibility of reflecting the will of Oak Parkers on important matters — domestic, foreign, and extraterrestrial — in symbolic resolutions. Let’s put aside the fact that the board has never done so, as far as I know, except in the case of declaring the village a nuclear-free zone, missing many, many opportunities along the way. On which matters will the board research, write, debate, and vote on resolutions? Guns? Abortion? Climate change? Microplastics? Affirmative action? Gender identity? Me-Too Movement? Cancel culture? Social media? Inflation? Voter suppression? Fake news? Supreme Court corruption? Know-nothing populism? Christian Nationalism? Capitalism? Other -isms? Obamacare? Bidenomics? Democracy? Lab meat? Ukraine? Russia? NATO? Taiwan? China? North Korea? Sudan? Somalia? Eritrea? Tibet? Myanmar? Syria? Iran? Saudi Arabia? Yemen? Space exploration? Et cetera.
How to decide? How to determine the will of the people in each case?
As a somewhat skeptical Jew, I would also ask: why promote a symbolic resolution only on this particular issue? And if the board were to issue a resolution on the Israel-Hamas war, shouldn’t it read something like, “Be it resolved that Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza should immediately release all hostages, alive and dead (whom they obviously should never have taken), and lay down their arms and surrender immediately and permanently, period”? If Hamas had done so Oct. 8, none of the horrors that have followed would have. If Hamas would do so now, all of the stated goals of the resolution advocates would be achieved.
After a country absorbs an attack worse than 9/11, it is enormously challenging to cleanly fight a next-door neighbor bent on your destruction, ensconced in miles of tunnels with access points throughout the Strip, including in hospitals, schools, mosques, and homes, observing no laws of war and doing nothing to protect the civilians it governs — instead, purposely increasing their vulnerability and benefiting from their unthinkable suffering.
When it comes to the Israel-Hamas war, I think there are probably more things the three of us agree on than not. Probable agreements: it was justified for Israel to go to war against Hamas after Oct. 7; Hamas has shown itself to be a horrible governing entity and an unspeakably barbaric neighbor; its elimination as a recognized power player in the region is desirable and necessary for any peaceful resolution of the conflict; the deaths of and injuries to so many innocent Gazans since October 7 have been horrific and should stop as soon as possible; the ongoing humanitarian crisis of lack of food, fuel, adequate shelter, and medical supplies must be remedied immediately; all hostages must be immediately released. If we are not in agreement on these matters, I would appreciate clarification on where we differ.
I think there are also other matters relating to Israel that we may agree on: the current extreme, right-wing coalition governing Israel is by far the worst government in Israel’s history and threatens the state’s future as a democracy; it must be voted out of power at the earliest opportunity; Netanyahu is the worst prime minister in the country’s history; he should have resigned long ago, should resign immediately, and, as resignation is extremely unlikely, his opponents within the country should try everything short of violence to force early elections; in conducting the war, Israel may have committed war crimes, the most serious allegations being intentional starvation and indiscriminate bombing, and such allegations should be thoroughly investigated, with any perpetrators held to account.
The crucial area where we disagree about Israel, I think, has to do with its future as a Jewish state. As I said in my earlier One View, I strongly support the continued existence of Israel as a democratic nation with a large Jewish majority roughly within the Green Line borders.
My sense of Mr. Gilbert and Ms. Van Slyke is that either they do not support such a Jewish state, or they would prefer a single state between the river and sea set up as a democracy with all permanent residents being equal citizens, or they don’t care if Israel continues as a Jewish state, or they don’t concern themselves with consequences for Israel as long as the current fighting stops immediately and for good.
There is an enormous and irreconcilable gulf between those positions on Israel and mine. Concerning my stance, I would add that if the extremists in power in Israel succeed in their goals and turn Israel into an undemocratic and true apartheid state, becoming a fundamentalist theocracy, I would not support it. The current internal crisis in Israel is the most perilous in its history and extremely dangerous for the Israel that many of us love.
Combined with the external crisis — the Hamas war as well as the other significant threats in the region — the fate of Israel’s 7.2 million Jews, nearly half of the world’s Jews, is quite uncertain. A 2021 Pew Research Center survey found that 82% of American Jews see Israel as “essential” or “important” to what it means to them to be Jewish, 45% calling it essential, 37% calling it important but not essential. Sixteen percent said Israel is “not important” to their Jewish identity.
It is telling that the advocates of a resolution say nothing about what Hamas has done since Oct. 7 and seem completely unconcerned that an immediate and permanent ceasefire would benefit Hamas’s war effort and harm Israel’s. I hope our trustees weigh well the many reasons it is a bad idea to issue anything like the resolution proposed by Mr. Gilbert, Ms. Van Slyke, and others.