Supporting civilian victims of Israeli warfare is okay when Dan Sieradski isn't doing it

Rappers SAZ and Sagol 59 perform at the “After the War” concert at the Yellow Submarine in Jerusalem, organized to raise relief funds for both Israeli & Lebanese war victims, August 28, 2006.

I hate to rehash this because the last thing I desire in life right now is to find myself entangled in an interblog flame war. But I feel it necessary to point out that some of the same folks who vilified me and my friends for raising money for both Lebanese and Israeli war victims in 2006 are now promoting a similar effort in southern Israel to provide relief to Gaza.

Shortly after our fundraiser made headlines that summer, The Middle, an anonymous contributor to the popular weblog Jewlicious, accused my friends and me of being motivated in our actions not by a belief in “peace, brotherhood among all people, the Jewish imperative to act in certain ways, [...] etc.,” but rather by “personal insecurity and a desire not to be perceived negatively by the larger society that surrounds [us].”

Because I was personally outspoken in my objection to the nationalistic fervor that was sweeping the Jewish community at the time, excoriating my fellow Jews for their callous disregard for the lives of Lebanese civilians and their fevered calls to extend the battlefront to Iran, The Middle claimed not only that our effort was disingenuous, but that we were providing aid and comfort to the enemies of Israel.

In reality, my friends and I were motivated chiefly by immense feelings of powerlessness and desperation. The Prime Minister of Israel himself, Ehud Olmert, had said numerous times throughout the war that the battle was directed against Hezbollah, not against the Lebanese people. And yet no efforts were being undertaken to demonstrate that. We wanted to do something that would express the empathy we felt towards all victims of the war, and yet there were no means available by which to accomplish that.

We thus chose to commit an act of loving-kindness, inspired by the teachings of our rabbinic elders, who emphasized our obligation as Jews to love all of G-d’s creation and to have compassion for and mercy upon the weak and downtrodden. And so we raised money for victims of the war in southern Lebanon as well as for victims in Israel’s north.

We did not desire to show that we were the “good Jews,” as opposed to the “bad Jews” who supported the war, as it was alleged. In fact, one of my co-organizers supported the war. Rather, we sought to show all Jews that there is more than one way to respond Jewishly in such a situation. We also wished to show that compassion and empathy can be powerful agents of change and that they can go a long way in healing the rifts between the Jewish and Arab worlds. And to the non-Jewish world — particularly to the Lebanese — we wanted to make it clear that Israelis and Jews do, in fact, care about the suffering of innocent people. Especially the ones we’ve made suffer.

For expressing this sentiment, we were derided, humiliated and bemoaned. And yet now, two-and-a-half years later, in the interest of rebuffing those who demonize Israel and the Jewish people, the folks at Jewlicious are upholding an Israeli campaign to raise money for Gazans as evidence of Jewish and Israeli compassion and humanitarianism.

In a post this morning, publisher “CK” Dave Abitbol writes (sarcastically):

Those tricky Israelis. Those dastardly Jews. Throughout Operation Cast Lead, Israeli propagandists and apologists kept insisting that theirs was a war against Hamas Terror and not against the residents of Gaza. Now comes news that a grass roots initiative, launched by Qassam battered residents of the South, seeks to collect urgently needed humanitarian materials to help alleviate the suffering of the people of Gaza. Is there no end to their hubris? Have these genocidal maniacs no shame?

How is this statement not an overt expression of the “desire not to be perceived negatively by the larger society that surrounds [us]?” Are CK’s remarks not explicitly motivated by the desire to portray Israel in a positive light so as to improve its image among non-Jews who look upon Israel with ill-will for its recent actions in Gaza?

If so, where are The Middle’s recriminations now? Is there truly a difference between our desire to show Jews positively and CK’s? Only if you ignore every statement that I had made on my blogs and in the press about the motivations for our concert at the time and instead choose to believe that my conflicted relationship with Israel and Zionism and my distaste for Jewish nationalism are evidence of a secret desire on my part to see harm befall either Jewish people or the state of Israel.

But if you’re more honest, more decent and more civil than that, and you see that there is truly no difference between our 2006 support for the Lebanese people and the present Israeli effort on behalf of those suffering in Gaza, you must admit that the Jewlicious crew seems to accept that such efforts are truly in Israel and the Jewish people’s best interests.

If that is indeed the case, don’t my co-organizers and I deserve an apology?

Tags: charity, gaza, israel, lebanon, public relations, relief, tzedakah