Federation Israel Fundraiser Speech

Good evening. I’d like to thank Charlie Schiffman and Bob Horenstein of the Federation for their invitation to have me speak this evening. They believe that as a result of my recent trip to Israel, I might be in a position to shed some light on the effect of this recent war on the Israeli people. I hope that I can meet their expectations.

I had scheduled my recent trip a number of months ago. I visit my two daughters and my older daughter’s family once or twice each year in Israel, spending a good deal of my time with them at their beautiful little home in Karmiel. Karmiel is a large town in the center of northern Israel… very much a family oriented community.

This year, I had the extra bonus of overlapping my trip with that of my youngest daughter Shana’s USY youth group “Pilgrimage” trip. She would arrive a couple of weeks before I came and she would spend an additional week with all of us at Lisa’s Karmiel home.

When the war broke out on July 13th, two days prior to my departure for Israel, it never occurred to me to cancel my trip.

I wrote the following to my friends:

Karmiel was shaken in the last few days by Katyushas. Unlike its neighbors
to the east and west, Tsfat, Haifa, and Naharia, Karmiel suffered little if any
physical damage, thank G-d. But the emotional damage is evident in the
phone calls this last week with my daughter, Lisa. Although seemingly
calm, I can sense her distraction and fragility as she breaks suddenly from the
phone to watch a breaking news report, and when she forgets to say good-bye when she hangs up. The children feel the tension… They have heard the
explosions and know their mother is frightened.

On the flight over, my recurring thought was “I must find a way to help…” This wasn’t a wish… it was an imperative… I could not stand aside as a tourist and watch as Israel suffered. I knew I must help. Upon arrival, I joked with my daughters that they needed to find me an extra large IDF uniform and an M-16. I was angry as well.

My son-in-law, Udi is a member of a special unit of the Israel Police. His main mission these last five weeks has been that of first responder when rockets have fallen. His territory is the north and he and his crew have been very busy these last few weeks. As a result of the critical nature of his job, he, like ambulance drivers, hospital workers, fire fighters and so on, have not had the opportunity to seek refuge in central Israel. When he sent Lisa and the children south to safety, he stayed.

At first I made myself useful by driving up to Karmiel on those infrequent times that Udi was able to get more than a few hours off of work to sleep. I would bring him down to my younger daughter Netali’s small two-bedroom apartment in Tel Aviv, where Lisa brought her three little ones and her mother to escape Hezbollah’s rocket attacks. After a few hours with his family, we would drive back up to Karmiel. Often on these trips, I would stay with him for a day to keep him company and provide moral support.

As a result, I had the opportunity to experience what life was like in the northern towns. The city was a ghost-town. Usually busy streets were empty. One coffee shop remained open… and was empty. Sirens would announce the incoming rockets… sometimes after they started falling. The sound was unlike anything that I’ve ever heard before… a deep rumbling boom. The anxiety grows on you… It is cumulative… I was there only a couple of days. I cannot imagine what it must be like for those who are forced to endure the constant anxiety for weeks on end, such as those who could not or would not leave their homes in the north.

After a week of calling, I finally found an organization that accepted my offer to help. Latet is a relief organization that provides all sorts of social services in Israel, but has especially taken on the job of bringing food and necessities to families who have been forced into shelters in the north. In these hard-hit towns, banks, gas stations and grocery stores are shut down. There is nowhere to buy food locally and no way to get to the stores in cities that are still open. These folks rely on the delivery of these food packages for their survival.

On the designated day, I joined a convoy of private cars following a truck to Kiryat Shemoneh.

I wrote the following:

We arrived in the nearly deserted town of Kiryat Shemoneh. We saw a few
military trucks, a taxi and maybe one private car in this normally bustling,
working class town as we drove to our designated distribution center in a
parking lot.

As soon as I opened the door to my car, I heard
the not-too-distant explosions from falling Katyushas. We quickly unloaded
the truck which was filled with pre-packaged boxes of donated foods... peanut
butter, pasta, rice, canned foods, baby food, and hundreds of packs of pampers
for the babies. How babies could sleep with this racket was beyond
me...

I was surprised at the number of families with babies and
small children. These families simply do not have the resources to
leave. People were not walking around in shock, but more, had an attitude
of fatalism... "We are here... we can't get out... let's get this over
with soon so we can resume our lives..."

Mostly people were very grateful that they were not forgotten... Even if they had unsuccessfully argued for more food or presents for the kids, in the end almost all said, "Todah Rabah... La briut"... "Thank you very much... be well..."

Another day we distributed food in an Arab village only a couple of miles from the border. Katyusha rockets don’t care if they hit Arab or Jew… And the terrorist Nasralla didn’t particularly care either. A few days earlier, two little Arab children were killed by a Katyusha in Nazereth… This town, Horfesh was a Druze village. While waiting for the truck with supplies to arrive, we met a man who owned a restaurant which, of course was closed. He invited us back to his own home and proceeded to prepare a meal for the dozen volunteer relief workers. As we ate, he told us… “We Druze are more Israeli than the Israelis! We want the Hezbollah destroyed…” Later at the distribution center, the mayor of the town regaled our team with “Thanks”.

How have the Israeli northerners handled this situation? I would say that what I observed was a sense of helplessness and fatalism. Isolated, hiding in shelters, they felt alone, forgotten and frightened. There was a pervasive sentiment that Israel must succeed in disabling Hezbollah, or this would simply happen again six months or a year from now.

In closing, I want to relate a conversation that I had with a very close friend… a Jewish leader in the Bay Area. When I called after my return from Israel, he told me that he was very upset with what I had written in my letters. “You have children at home and you put yourself at risk without a good reason… There is something abnormal about that!” The response in Israel to me and others like me was remarkably different. They were incredibly moved that I had chosen to come to Israel, even after the war broke out. They were amazed that I, a foreigner, would put myself at risk by going into the war zone on relief missions.

I explained to them… I am not a hero… I am not a foreigner… Although I was born in the Diaspora and have not yet made Aliyah, Israel is my country too… The Israelis are my people and Israel must survive… It was my duty to help in whatever way I could.

I wish I could have done more… I wish I were still there.

Thank you.

I am Afraid

Netanya, Israel


I am afraid for our future. Not just the future of Israel, a country that I love deeply despite its flaws. I am afraid as well for my country, the United States. I am afraid for western civilization, despite its flaws.

Why am I afraid? I’m afraid because we have decided that our survival is not all that important. We decide that when we can no longer recognize evil… when calling someone, some group or some act “evil” is politically incorrect, even if it is true. We decide that when we care more about the humiliation of some prisoners of war than we do about protecting our troops. We decide that when we can no longer recognize the liars and the deceivers. We decide that when we don’t recognize who is at fault for the deaths of the civilians in southern Lebanon.

I have been criticized by more than a few of my more liberal friends and family for using “labels” to characterize certain behaviors and sentiments. That is just silly… A “word” is a “label” that we use to describe something. Rather than describing a particular object as, for example: “A man-made artifact made from four dowels inserted into four holes in a round flat piece of wood”, we use the “label”, “stool”. This is language.

Is it possible that nuance is lost when labeling something? Certainly… But, just as a picture is worth a thousand words, so is this “label”.

“Evil” might mean many things to many people, but few would argue that the word “Evil” did not apply to Hitler and his henchmen. We don’t have to absorb the nuances of his troubled youth or the economic decay of the Weimar Republic, although the study of those things may shed light on our history. Rather, we can use the shorthand and effectively communicate our thoughts by describing him as “Evil”… People will “get it”.

Why then are we so afraid to characterize certain contemporary political players as “Evil”? I believe it is because we no longer accept an absolute moral compass. Anything and everything is subject to interpretation and discussion. Everything and anything may only be examined “subjectively”. Moral relativism has won out over a pervasive cultural recognition of the moral absolute….

The history of this decay is too long and complex to include in this essay, but suffice it to say that the rise of moral relativism has been sharpest in the second half of the 20th century. Everything is up for grabs. The old standards of morality: marriage, fidelity, family, love of country, love of one’s people, have been attacked vigorously. We no longer look to a definitive source to determine right from wrong, as was standard practice a hundred years ago. Any popular author can hold up their own standard and claim equal validity.

This relativistic view of right and wrong, good and evil, has now blinded us to the true dangers that our civilization, our country and our cultures face from the Islamic/Arab world. We are facing an implacable enemy who, as surely as they seek the destruction of the “Little Satan”, Israel and the death of its Jewish population, also seek the destruction of the “Great Satan”, the US and the destruction of our culture. As a result, we have mass confusion in the world press and governmental and popular opinion about both the causes and the realities of the recent conflict. Most notably, we see this in the current war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israel is condemned by the world and its press for “crimes against humanity”, “war crimes”, and disproportionality in carrying out its mission of disabling Hezbollah. We know the reality on the ground… Even the BBC and CNN, which have consistently, now and in the past, viewed any conflict involving Israel with a lens focused against Israel, have reported that Hezbollah has hidden itself and its rocket launchers in civilian populated areas. We know that Hezbollah fires its rockets from these civilian centers to civilian (and not military) targets within Israel. And we know that Hezbollah knows with certainty that Israel will fire back to the source of the rocket launches. Even a precision missile fired by expert Israeli fighters will cause extensive damage in the immediate area around the target. If one or more rockets remain on the launcher when it is hit, these missiles will add to the destruction in that area. Within this scenario, how can civilian casualties possibly be avoided? They can not.

Why then does Hezbollah hide amidst the Lebanese civilians knowing that Israel’s response will likely kill innocents? Hezbollah knows that the deaths of civilians, especially the deaths of children will bring about moral outrage from the world, exactly as has happened. As a result of the “martyrdom” of the civilians killed in Qana, Hezbollah has benefited from a huge upwelling of support both within Lebanon and around the world. Significantly increased pressure has been exerted on Israel for an immediate ceasefire. The calculus? Hezbollah achieves two goals every time it fires its rockets from a populated area. One, it creates terror in the north of Israel where its Katyushas land and two, it provokes an Israeli military response which has a higher likelihood of harming innocents, increasing Hezbollah’s stature.

We now come back to the question of “evil”. Do we consider the purposeful taking of non-combatant human life “Evil”? If international law reflects this moral value, then the answer is “Yes”. Who is guilty of this?

Israel is accused of genocide in Lebanon, as a result of its bombing of targets proximate to civilians. At last count, 500 Lebanese “civilians” have died. Meanwhile in Israel, “only” 40 civilians have been killed from rocket attacks by the Hezbollah. On the surface, it looks like Israel is the “evil” one… It has used its superior firepower and expertise and far more civilians have been killed in Lebanon than in Israel. This is what the press plays to… This is what the UN declares… This is what much of the world believes. Israel is the “evil” doer and Hezbollah are freedom fighters. Correct? Not….

But as any honest appraisal of these last three weeks reveals:

• Hezbollah started this conflict with its kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers
• Hezbollah then ambushed the Israeli rescue attempt, killing more Israelis
• Hezbollah then, began firing missiles into sovereign Israeli territory, specifically into civilian populated areas, cities, towns, etc.
• Israel responded to this attack as any country would and should… It attacked back, seeking to destroy the terrorists, their delivery systems, and the infrastructure within Lebanon (airports, bridges, roads, etc.) that enabled the Hezbollah attacks on Israel.
• Hezbollah used heavily populated cities and villages as launching sites and bases to ensure that any Israeli response would cause maximum damage to civilians
• While by any account 500 civilian deaths is a tragic, had Israel desired to cause civilian deaths, it certainly could have cause one hundred times that number by intentionally targeting civilian sites. It did not. In fact, the Israeli Air Force devotes a tremendous amount of resource to identify its targets as cleanly as possible.

In addition, rather than using an all out military campaign against the villages that supported and hid the Hezbollah fighters on the Israeli/Lebanon border, the IDF chose to use surgical strikes, at a much higher cost in terms of its own casualties. This was done to avoid civilian casualties.


So… Israel instructs its army and air force to act with extreme care, even at a cost to itself, while Hezbollah seeks to maximize civilian casualties on both sides to further its political agenda.

How many times will the world stay idle as the victim is called the evil-doer by the perpetrator, while the perpetrator commits evil. Iran’s leadership, the puppet-masters behind Hezbollah are the most recent deniers of the Holocaust who are now calling for and who would, if they could, create a new Holocaust..

They are the ones that call for a second Holocaust while denying the first. They call clearly for the extermination of the Jews, for finishing up the job Hitler could not finish. But that does not seem alarming to anyone. This indifference, this deaf ear is very alarming. When Iran declares war against the western, whether directly or through their puppet, Hezbollah, the world must take it seriously. And while we go around figuring out our politically correct response, they go about figuring out the next step in getting nuclear weapons to perpetrate their aim. If Israel takes this threat seriously, Israel cannot and should not be blamed but applauded. We must blame all those who erroneously blame the vicitims of racial hate and turn deaf to the calls for extermination of the Jews. We must blame those who call the victims criminals and the criminals victims.

We must identify these people for what they are… Evil.