Erev Shabbat Vayechi 5769 Won’t someone come along and save the Israelis and Palestinians? Rabbi Aaron Goldstein 9 January 2009

Just a month ago I stood here and denounced war. It was the first time that I had ever done that. It followed an epiphany at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford. It took me on a journey that filled me with fear and dread over the whole notion and practicalities of war and especially its glorification.

One month on, those feelings have been reinforced. I hate war. I detest the fallibility of human nature to cause war, to engage in war and to see it as a tool in our world. The pictures that we have all seen of dead children, those orphaned and blood splattered; weeping mothers and fathers, comrades in arms; appal us all. For those of us who have never experienced such things, we cannot imagine ourselves in that situation and how we might react to such things. How would we react to have bombs raining down on us, to be faced by someone with a gun, or to experience such terror? For those who have experienced war, we know only too well the horrors that we would wish on no human being.

And yet, Israel is at war once more and we are filled with the dread and full horrors of war brought loudly into our living rooms and for many of us, our hearts and minds. We are truly wrenched apart as we think on the one hand of what it might be to live for eight years without security and on the other, of the innocent lives claimed in this conflict. We feel for the citizens of Gaza who are caught in the crossfire and of the misery of their lives. We feel for the citizens of Israel who are once more brought into a situation where most households will have a loved one or friend on the frontline. Everyone is on the frontline. War is not right and it is not right for these two peoples.

And yet, we have to accept the reality that there is a war and to be engaged in it. I have had communications with many of our members this week who reflect a wide range of opinion as to the rights and wrongs of the conflict. It is not my place to tell you what is right or wrong. I do not claim to know enough and am as conflicted as most of those I have spoken with. I do believe that one gets to a point where waiting for something to happen is not enough. Something radical needs to happen to affect change. Right now, we will only have to wait for history to tell us if Israel waited long enough for diplomacy that had stagnated to wake up. For nearly a million people who now live in range of Hamas rockets, the time was certainly up and they expected their Government to act as has been evidenced in the incredible unity of thought amongst Israelis. Israel’s Government also know, that this support will only remain if they fight a war that achieves its goals without the scale of indiscriminate killing of civilians that was seen in Lebanon.

Israel cannot win this war by defeating Hamas. They are a ghost that haunts the public of Gaza and killing it will only kill the people that need to build an honest and viable Palestinian State in peace alongside the State of Israel. Israel can only win this war by affecting a radical change in the international community.

I am appalled by the game of charades played at the UN at a time when France and Egypt were acting on the ground to seek a substantive change in the environment. Solutions will come from those passionate enough about peace to get out of the UN Headquarters in New York and come to Israel, Gaza, and the people that can truly support the Palestinian people if only they would stop using them as a pawn in their games. I do believe that one gets to a point where waiting for something to happen is not enough. I only hope and pray for the people of Gaza, that they do not have to wait long for those people in the international community who purport to support them, to come and create the parameters for a radical change in the reality of this region.

I still stand by what I said a month ago, I hate war. However, faced with a reality of it, I can only pray that history will look back at it and say that it had some lasting value.

The Hebrew word for ‘war,’ is milchamah. It comes from the root lamed-chet-mem that through one branch developed the verb, ‘to fight or to do battle,’ and through a second branch, ‘to use as food, or to eat

War milchamah, is not lechem. They come from the same root but they are so different. War should be a tool of last resort to affect radical change so that one can speedily move to use this root for lacham, to use as sustenance, a life force. Eternal God, help sense come out of nonsense, sustenance out of war and for the sake of the Israelis and Palestinian citizens, please make it quick.